Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s - 1930s - 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s
Years: 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 - 1934 - 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939
January 1 - Alcatraz becomes a federal prison.
January 26 - The Apollo Theater opens in Harlem, New York City.
February 12 - The Export-Import Bank is incorporated.
February 23 - Leopold III becomes King of Belgium.
April 1 - Bonnie and Clyde kill two young highway patrolmen near Grapevine, Texas.
May 11 - Dust Bowl: A strong two-day dust storm removes massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst dust storms of the Dust Bowl.
May 15 - The United States Department of Justice offers a $25,000 reward for John Dillinger.
May 23 - Near their hide-out in Black Lake, Louisiana, bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are ambushed and shot dead by Texas Rangers.
May 28 - Near Callender, Ontario, the Dionne quintuplets are born to Olivia and Elzire Dionne later becoming the first quintuplets to survive infancy.
June 30 - The Nazi SA camp Oranienburg becomes national camp, taken over by the SS.
July 22 - Outside Chicago, Illinois's Biograph Theatre, "Public Enemy No. 1" John Dillinger is mortally wounded by FBI agents.
July 25 - Nazis assassinate Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.
August 2 - Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany, becoming head of state as well as Chancellor.
August 19 - The first All-American Soap Box Derby is held in Dayton, Ohio.
September 8 - Off the New Jersey coast, a fire aboard the passenger liner Morro Castle kills 134 people.
November 27 - A running gun battle between FBI agents and bank robber Baby Face Nelson results in the death of one FBI agent and the mortal wounding of special agent Sam Cowley, who is still able to mortally shoot Nelson.
December 1 - In the Soviet Union, Politburo member Sergei Kirov is shot dead at the Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad by Leonid Nikolayev (it is widely thought that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered this murder).
December 29 - Japan renounces the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930.
The sonoluminescence effect is discovered.
First Flash Gordon comic strip is published.
First Jay Gordon record is made.
Year in topic
1934 in film
January 26 - Samuel Goldwyn (of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) finally purchased the film rights to The Wizard of Oz from Frank Baum for $40,000.00.
It Happened One Night
The Thin Man
1934 in literature
1934 in music
1934 in sports
July 4 - Boxer Joe Louis wins his first professional boxing match.
Italy wins Football World Cup on home ground.
British Empire Games held in London, United Kingdom.
December 29 - The first college basketball game is played, between Notre Dame University and New York University at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
1934 in television
December - Philo Farnsworth demonstrates a non-mechanical television system.
January 8 - Bart Starr, American football star
January 11 - Jean Chrétien, Prime Minister of Canada
January 20 - Tom Baker, actor
January 22 - Bill Bixby, television actor (d. 1993)
February 5 - Hank Aaron, Baseball Hall of Famer
February 11 - Francesco Pennisi, composer
February 11 - John Surtees, British race car driver
February 11 - Patrick Holmes Sellors, ophthalmologist
February 11 - Mary Quant, fashion designer
February 11 - Tina Louise, actress
February 12 - Bill Russell, basketball star
February 13 - George Segal, actor
February 14 - Florence Henderson, actress
February 15 - Niklaus Wirth, Swiss computer scientist
February 17 - Alan Bates, actor
February 17 - Barry Humphries (aka "Dame Edna Everage"), actor, comedian
February 18 - Paco Rabanne, fashion designer
February 20 - Bobby Unser, automobile racer
February 24 - Bettino Craxi, Prime Minister of Italy (d. 2000)
February 27 - Ralph Nader, consumer activist
March 4 - Janez Strnad, Slovene physicist
March 9 - Yuri Gagarin, cosmonaut, first human in space (d. 1968)
March 11 - Sam Donaldson, reporter
March 16 - Ray Hnatyshyn, former Canadian Governor-General
March 20 - Willie Brown, mayor of San Francisco, California
March 22 - Orrin Hatch, US senator
March 26 - Alan Arkin, actor
March 31 - Shirley Jones, singer, actress
April 2 - Brian Glover, British actor, wrestler (d. 1997)
April 2 - Paul Joseph Cohen, mathematician
April 3 - Jane Goodall, zoologist
May 13 - Adolf Muschg, author
May 14 - Siân Phillips, actress
May 15 - Alvin F. Poussaint, physicist, psychiatrist, educator
May 19 - James Lehrer, journalist, co-anchor
May 22 - Peter Nero, musician
May 23 - Dr. Robert Moog, inventor of Moog synthesizer
May 27 - Harlan Ellison, US science-fiction writer
May 28 - Dionne quintuplets, world's first surviving quintuplets
May 30 - Aleksei Leonov, cosmonaut and first person to walk in space
June 6 - Albert II of Belgium
July 11 - Giorgio Armani, fashion designer
July 13 - Aleksei Yeliseyev, cosmonaut
July 15 - Harrison Birtwistle, composer
August 2 - Valery Bykovsky, cosmonaut
August 18 - Roberto Clemente, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1972)
September 8 - Peter Maxwell Davies, composer
September 17 - Maureen Connolly, tennis star (d. 1969)
September 20 - Sophia Loren, Italian actress
November 9 - Carl Sagan, US astronomer (d. 1996)
December 3- Viktor Gorbatko, cosmonaut
December 16 - Elgin Baylor, basketball great
December 18 - Boris Volynov, cosmonaut
December 27 - Larissa Latynina, USSR gymnast
February 17 - Albert I of Belgium
February 23 - Edward Elgar, composer
March 29 - Otto Hermann Kahn, millionaire and benefactor
May 25 - Gustav Holst, composer
July 4 - Marie Sklodowska-Curie, co-discoverer of radium and polonium
July 25 - Englebert Dolfuss, Austrian Chancellor (assassinated)
July 25 - Nestor Makhno, Ukrainian anarchist
July 28 - Marie Dressler, Academy Award winning actress
August 2 - Paul von Hindenburg, German general and politician
November 16 - Alice Pleasance Liddell, inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
December 1 - Sergei Kirov, Soviet leader
Physics - not awarded.
Chemistry - Harold Clayton Urey.
Medicine - George Hoyt Whipple, George Richards Minot, William Parry Murphy.
Literature - Luigi Pirandello.
Peace - Arthur Henderson.