1930s

{{decadebox|

 cpa=19 |
 cpb=th century|

c=20th century | cn1=21st century |

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dp3=1900s | dp2=1910s | dp1=1920s |

 d=1930s |
 da=3 |

dn1=1940s | dn2=1950s | dn3=1960s |

Events and trends

The 1930s were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the global depression. The decade started off well, with the stock market rising again early in 1930. However, late in 1930 stocks and the economy went down once again and this time it didn't get better. People began to feel the effects of the Depression in 1931 and it got progressively worse until it reached the low point in 1933. The gloomy conditions that arose led to a religious revival and the rise of conservatism that rejected the liberalism of the 1920s, which began to be viewed as a decade of "sin." After 1933, the economy began a gradually recovery which wouldn't reach the level of prosperity of 1930 until the second World War. In Australia, this decade was known as the Dirty Thirties. In both Central Europe and Eastern Europe, Fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism dominated as the solution adopting war-oriented economic policies such as Stalin's Five Year Plans, all of them described as totalitarian regimes. In East Asia, the rise of militarism occurred.

In Western Europe, Australia and the United States, more progressive reforms occurred as opposed to the extreme measures sought elsewhere. Roosevelt's New Deal attempted to use government spending to combat large-scale unemployment and severely negative growth. Ultimately, it would be the beginning of World War II in 1939 that would end the depression.

Technology

* Ub Iwerks produces the first Color Sound Cartoon in 1930, a Flip the Frog cartoon entitled: "Fiddlesticks."
* Warner Brothers releases the first All-Talking All-Color wide-screen movie, Song of the Flame, in 1930. In 1930 alone, Warner Brother releases ten All-Color All-Talking feature movies in Technicolor and scores of shorts and features with color sequences.
* Ub Iwerks produces the first sound cartoon in color Technicolor in 1930. It was the first cartoon in his Flip the Frog cartoon series.
* Air mail service across the Atlantic began
* RADAR invented
* First BBC television broadcast.
* In 1931, RCA Victor introduces the first long-playing phonograph record.

Science

Pluto and its primary satellite Charon.

* Nuclear fission discovered by Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann
* Pluto, the ninth planet from the Sun, is discovered by Clyde Tombaugh
** Pluto's very small size, relative to Charon (moon), and unique orbit has led some to challenge its classification as a planet
* British biochemoheliologist Arthur Tansley coins term "ecosystem"
* New and safer method for blood transfusions.

War, peace and politics

* Socialists proclaim The death of Capitalism
* Rise to power of Adolf Hitler and Nazism in Germany.

During the Spanish Civil War, a Republican soldier seeks cover on the Plaza de Toros in Teruel, east of Madrid.

* In the Soviet Union, agricultural collectivization and rapid industralization take place, and the Great Purge occurs, in which much of the Soviet political and military establishment is eliminated
* Almost all of Continental Europe moves to Authoritarianism or Totalitarianism
* Starts or continue the Estado Novo in Brazil and Portugal.
* Advent of the modern welfare state in New Zealand and Sweden.
* The Empire of Japan invades China as a precursor to Japanese invasions in Southeast Asia
* The Spanish Civil War
* Start of World War II in Asia and Europe

Economics

* Worldwide Great Depression

Literature and Art

* W. H. Auden publishes Poems
* Nora Zeale Hurston publishes Their Eyes Were Watching God

Popular Culture

Cover of the Flip the Frog Annual Comic Book from 1930.

* Radio becomes dominant mass media in industrial nations
* "Golden Age" of radio begins in U.S.
* First intercontinental commercial airline flights
* Height of the Art Deco movement in Europe and the US
* The Wizard of Oz
* "Swing" music starts becoming popular (from 1935 onward). It gradually replaces the sweet form of Jazz that had been popular for the first half of the decade.
* Flip the Frog becomes the first cartoon character to star in a color (Technicolor) cartoon in sound.
*Oswald the Rabbit appears in a color cartoon sequence within the lavish all-Technicolor musical revue feature The King of Jazz (1930). Bing Crosby also makes his first appearance in color in this film.
* Betty Boop and Bosko (the first star of the Looney Tunes series) debut in 1930.
* Scrappy, Merrie Melodies and the original Tom & Jerry debut in 1931.
* Popeye the Sailor and Willie Whopper debut in 1933.
* Superman debuts in 1938.
* Russ Columbo, one of the most popular singers of the decade, accidentally dies in 1934.
* Triumph of the Will

Others

* The Cipher Bureau solved the Enigma with plugboard, the main German cipher device during World War 2.
* U.S. presidential candidate Huey Long assassinated (1935).
* Board of Temperance Strategy established in U.S. to fight repeal of prohibition
* Southern Great Plains devastated by decades-long Dust Bowl
* German dirigible Hindenburg is destroyed by fire, killing 36 (1937).
* The New London School in New London, Texas is destroyed by an explosion, killing in excess of 300 students and teachers (1937).