Year 1938 Fun Facts, Trivia, and History Events

This quick read presents a collection of fun facts, trivia, and history events from the year 1938. Discover the year’s top news stories, most influential people, sports facts, historic firsts, entertainment trivia, and much more.

Take a journey through history in just minutes.

1. In 1938, President Roosevelt, Nazi Germany, and America's high unemployment rate were all on center stage. Noodle soup and rice pudding were Depression-era staples, and Joseph and Joyce were two of the most popular baby names.
2. For a nickel, you could buy an ice cream cone, a doughnut, a cup of coffee, a bottle of Coke, or two packs of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum. For a quarter, you could buy a movie ticket, a dozen eggs, a pound of beef roast, or a package of hot dogs. For a dollar, you could buy a whole roasted chicken, three pounds of chocolates, or 10 loaves of bread.
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (D-New York) was the president of the United States, and John Nance Garner (D-Texas) was the nation’s vice president.
4. Americans were slowly and painfully digging their way out of the Great Depression. Between 1937 and 1938, the unemployment rate in the U.S. jumped from 14.3 percent to a staggering 19.0 percent, and an estimated 10,390,000 Americans were out of work and could not find a job.
5. The recession of 1937-38, sometimes called "the recession within the Depression," was a major setback to the American economy. CEPR.org tells us that "Real GDP fell 11 percent and industrial production fell 32 percent, making it the third-worst US recession in the 20th century." As with other recessions, the recession of 1937-38 was largely due to "a tightening of fiscal and monetary policy."
6. American companies and brands established during 1938 included the Columbia Sportswear Company, Cumberland Farms, the Dave Wilson Nursery, Empire Kosher, Jersey Shore Steel, and REI.
7. Consumer products launched during the year included the Crunch chocolate bar, Esquire shoe polish, the Krackel chocolate bar, Nescafé instant coffee, Old El Paso Tex-Mex foods, the Swanson Tonette, and the Volkswagen Beetle.
8. January 3: President Roosevelt established the March of Dimes as "a foundation to combat infant polio."
9. January 27: The famous Honeymoon Bridge in Niagara Falls, New York, collapsed into the Niagara River. The collapse was caused by "a sudden windstorm on Lake Erie," which "sent a massive amount of ice over the falls, resulting in nearly 100 feet of ice pushing against the bridge."
10. In March, the Los Angeles, San Gabriel, and Santa Ana Rivers "burst" their banks and caused considerable flooding throughout Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura Counties. An estimated 5,601 homes were destroyed, and another 1,500 properties were damaged.
11. March 10: At the 10th Academy Awards, The Life of Emile Zola won three Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Adaptation. Leo McCarey (The Awful Truth) won an Oscar for Best Director, A Star Is Born won an Oscar for Best Original Story, and Walt Disney’s The Old Mill won an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Cartoon.
12. April 18: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's comic book superhero—Superman—appeared for the first time in Action Comics #1. (Just so you know, Action Comics went on to publish 904 numbered issues.)
13. April 21 to 30: The Holocaust Encyclopedia reports that Gestapo (German Secret State Police) and Kripo (Criminal Police) officials rounded up an estimated 1,500 people who were suspected to be "unwilling to work" and incarcerated them in concentration camps.
14. June 13 to 18: The Holocaust Encyclopedia tells us that German Criminal Police officials arrested around 9,000 so-called “asocials” and sent them to concentration camps. Among those arrested were approximately 1,000 Jews, making it the first mass arrest of Jewish people in Nazi Germany. According to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Nazis used the term "asocial" to categorize people who did not "conform" to their social norms. In addition to Jewish people, this group included alcoholics, Asian people, beggars, Black people, disabled and mentally ill people, drug addicts, Freemasons, gay people, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, pacifists, Polish, Slavic, and Soviet citizens, political opponents, prostitutes, and trade unionists.
15. June 23: A gigantic meteorite exploded about 12 miles above the earth near Chicora, Pennsylvania, which is located north of Pittsburgh.
16. June 24: President Roosevelt signed the Civil Aeronautics Act into law. The FAA tells us that “the legislation established the independent Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA), with a three-member Air Safety Board that would conduct accident investigations and recommend ways of preventing accidents.”
17. June 25: President Roosevelt signed the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act into law. According to FDA.org, “For the first time, the FDA had the authority to regulate medical devices and cosmetics and to establish standards for foods. Drugs and devices were required to provide adequate directions for use; falsely labeled uses were misbranded; and there was no longer a need to establish intent to defraud to prove misbranding.”
18. June 29: Olympic National Park was established in the state of Washington.
19. July 6 to 15: The Evian Conference took place in France "to address the problem of German and Austrian Jewish refugees wishing to flee persecution" from Nazi Germany. Representatives from 32 countries attended the conference. In the end, "delegations from the 32 participating nations failed to come to any agreement about accepting the Jewish refugees fleeing the Third Reich."
20. August 18: President Roosevelt dedicated the Thousand Islands Bridge, which connects the United States and Canada.
21. September 21: The New England Hurricane of 1938 ravaged Long Island and southern New England, killing an estimated 300 people along the Rhode Island shoreline.
22. September 29 to 30: France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy signed the Munich Agreement, by which Czechoslovakia had to surrender its "border regions and defense" to Nazi Germany.
23. October 16: Winston Churchill, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, condemned the Munich Agreement as defective and "called upon America and Western Europe to prepare for armed resistance against Adolf Hitler." (The Munich Agreement "provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia, where more than three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived.")
24. October 24: The minimum hourly wage of 25 cents went into effect throughout the United States. The implementation of a minimum hourly wage was part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, “The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments.”
25. November 11: Mary Mallon, more commonly known as "Typhoid Mary," died of pneumonia on North Brother Island in New York City. She was an Irish-born cook living in NYC who was believed to have infected between 51 and 122 people with typhoid fever. The infections resulted in three confirmed deaths and an estimated 50 unconfirmed ones. Mallon was also the first person in the U.S. to be classified as an "asymptomatic carrier" of the typhoid disease.
26. November 15: German authorities banned Jewish children from attending German public schools. Jewish children could only attend “segregated Jewish schools” that were “financed and managed by the Jewish communities.”
27. November 18: Trade union members elected John Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
28. December 31: Police officers in Indianapolis, Indiana, put Dr. Rolla Harger's "Drunkometer" to its first New Year's Eve test as a breath analyzer. At the end of the night, the experiment proved to be quite a success, considering the number of drivers who were caught while driving under the influence.
29. In 1938, there were 689 radio stations across the United States, and nearly 75 percent of Americans owned a radio receiver. Back that year, you could buy an RCA floor model radio for $49.95, which is $1,600.00 in today's money.
30. DuPont research chemist Roy J. Plunkett discovered polytetrafluoroethylene, which is commonly known as Teflon.
31. Gold Bond trading stamps were first given out to customers at supermarkets, drug stores, and gas stations. Shoppers received the trading stamps in proportion to the amount of their purchase at a participating retailer. The stamps were saved in booklets and later redeemed for merchandise such as kitchenware, home decor items, bedding, bathroom accessories, tools, and even toys.
32. In 1938, The Yearling was the most popular fiction book, The Chase & Sanborn Hour was the most popular radio program, and Begin the Beguine was the most popular song.
33. Top celebrities in 1938 included Fred Astaire, Joan Blondell, James Cagney, Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Olivia de Havilland, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Hedy Lamarr, Ginger Rogers, John Wayne, and Mae West.
34. Famous people born during 1938 were Bill Withers, Bob Eubanks, Christopher Lloyd, Connie Francis, Elliott Gould, Etta James, Evel Knievel, Jerry Brown, Kenny Rogers, Maxine Waters, Natalie Wood, and Peter Jennings.
35. Here are some sports facts for the year: The New York Giants were the NFL champions, the Chicago Black Hawks clinched the Stanley Cup, and the New York Yankees won the World Series. In addition, Alexander Cartwright, Henry Chadwick, and Grover Alexander were all voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame's "Class of 1938."
36. In 1938 as well, the words "babushka," "bad apple," "banana pepper," "bar cookie," "Bermuda shorts," "borough hall," "bumper car," "percussionist," "picture window," "plumber's snake," "postage stamp," "poster child," "private eye," "saga novel," "soap opera," "solar flare," "squad car," and "super duper" all appeared in print for the first time.

References:

1. https://popculturemadness.com/1938-history-trivia-fun-facts/
2. https://www.infoplease.com/year/1938
3. https://www.factmonster.com/year/1938
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_in_the_United_States
5. https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/1938
6. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/OUTSIDE-SITES/Jim-Ramsburg/Gold-Time-1938-1939.htm
7. https://onetuberadio.com/2022/09/16/1938-grocery-prices/
8. https://www.foodreference.com/html/html/food-history-1936.html
9. https://soyummy.com/entertaining/great-depression-food/
10. https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1938
11. https://www.famousbirthdays.com/year/1938.html
12. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/1938-key-dates

© 2026 Gregory DeVictor