Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
Jan
16
Feb
04
Mar
12
Jul
17
Sep
30
Oct
30
“The War of the Worlds”—Orson Welles's realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth—is broadcast on the radio on October 30, 1938.
Orson Welles rehearsing a radio broadcast of H.G. Wells' classic, The War of the Worlds on October 10, 1938. The broadcast, which claimed that aliens from Mars had invaded New Jersey, terrified thousands of Americans. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images)
Universal Images Group via Getty
Nov
09
On November 9, 1938, in an event that would foreshadow the Holocaust, German Nazis launch a campaign of terror against Jewish people and their homes and businesses in Germany and Austria. The violence, which continued through November 10 and was later dubbed “Kristallnacht,” or “Night of Broken Glass,” after the countless smashed windows of Jewish-owned establishments, left approximately 100 Jews dead, 7,500 Jewish businesses damaged and hundreds of synagogues, homes, schools and graveyards vandalized. An estimated 30,000 Jewish men were arrested, many of whom were then sent to concentration camps for several months; they were released when they promised to leave Germany. Kristallnacht represented a dramatic escalation of the campaign started by Adolf Hitler in 1933 when he became chancellor to purge Germany of its Jewish population.
Businesses and properties owned by Jews were the target of vicious Nazi mobs during a night of vandalism that is known as "Kristallnacht". (Photo by © Bettmann/CORBIS/Bettmann Archive)
Bettmann Archive
Dec
16
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