• Wallace Carothers and DuPont Labs invents nylon ( polymer 6.6.)
• The first canned beer made.
• Robert Watson-Watt patented radar.  
• Ladislas & Georg Biro invent the Ballpoint Pen

Academy Award, Best Picture: It Happened One Night (Columbia)

Miss America: Henrietta Leaver (PA) ... yea, she was a cutie, nice photo.  You'll have to look it up.

• Although a primitive, two-color process was first used in 1922, audiences weren't impressed by Technicolor until a three-color system appeared in Becky Sharp.
• George Gershwin combines black folk idiom and Broadway musical techniques in Porgy and Bess.
• Allen Lane's Penguin Press, an English publishing house, reintroduces the paperback book.
• Studs Lonigan - A Trilogy is published by James T. Farrell. In 2001, the book would be named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the American Modern Library.
• Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 5 is premiered in Washington, DC
• Your Hit Parade premieres on radio
• Swing music evolves from jazz
• Frank Sinatra's musical career begins
• Ella Fitzgerald's musical career begins

We all know you love to read, so how many of these titles did you read? _______ Hmmm.

• The Battle for Investment Survival – Gerald M. Loeb
• Box of Delights - John Masefield
• Burmese Days - George Orwell
• Butterfield 8 - John O'Hara
• A Clergyman's Daughter - George Orwell
• Dobry - Monica Shannon
• Gaudy Night - Dorothy L. Sayers
• The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money - John Maynard Keynes
• Golden Apples - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
• The Hidden Harbor Mystery - Franklin W. Dixon
• A House Divided - Pearl S. Buck
• Journeyman - Erskine Caldwell
• The Last Puritan - George Santayana
• The Lotus Eaters - Stanley G. Weinbaum
• Mistress of Mistresses - E.R. Eddison
• National Velvet - Enid Bagnold
• Ollie Miss - George Wylie Henderson
• Red Sky in the Morning - Robert P. Tristram Coffin
• The Strange Death of Liberal England - George Dangerfield
• A Stranger Still - Anna Kavan (writing as Helen Ferguson)
• Studs Lonigan - A Trilogy - James T. Farrell
• They Shall Inherit the Earth - Morley Callaghan
• Treasure of the Sierra Madre - B. Traven
• When the Mountain Fell - Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz
• Winterset - Maxwell Anderson

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), a classic masterpiece of 1930s horror films, appeared as a superior sequel to the original prototype Frankenstein (1931). [There are so few sequels that are superior to their predecessors - another example would be The Godfather, Part II (1974).] While the film was in production, it was titled The Return of Frankenstein until it was released. The film's title is actually a misnomer - the 'bride' of Frankenstein was not the Monster's bride but Elizabeth (played by seventeen year old Valerie Hobson), Dr. Frankenstein's wife. [Mention of the film often drops the "The" from the film's title.]

Les Miserables (1935), 108 minutes, D: Richard Boleslawski
The best of the many film adaptations of Victor Hugo's novel of 19th century France. This is the classic story of good and evil in an unforgiving and unrelenting legal system. Jean Valjean (Fredric March), who has stolen a loaf of bread to survive, is captured and given 10 years of hard labor. He escapes prison and rebuilds his life, becoming mayor of the town where a truly frightening Javert (Charles Laughton) is chief of police. Valjean is identified as a wanted criminal, and then tormented by the unimpassioned, obsessed, and single-minded Javert, who will not let the past be forgotten.

When the officers are captured and tortured by the treacherous Mohammed Khan (Douglass Dumbrille), he threatens one of the three, Lt. Alan McGregor (Gary Cooper) with his oft-quoted line, "We have ways of making men talk."

The film's most memorable scene is the snake-charming scene.

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), 132 minutes, D: Max Reinhardt, William Dieterle
A fanciful film version of William Shakespeare's play, with lavish sets, costumes, choreography, and a tremendous all-star cast. It is the story of mythical and mischievous forest creatures (fairies and artisans) who plan to put on a play for the amusement of the royal court at a royal wedding. Instead, the tale becomes one of a battle between the King Oberon (Victor Jory) and Queen Titania (Anita Louise) of the fairies and the misadventures of two couples who are confused and bedazzled. Unforgettable performances by James Cagney as Bottom and Mickey Rooney as Puck.

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) is one of the best nautical adventure films of all time and one of MGM's greatest classics. The rousing, 18th century story of the Bounty's mutiny, directed by Frank Lloyd, was adapted from the first two volumes of the Charles Nordhoff-James Norman Hall 1932 best seller, The Bounty Trilogy (composed of Mutiny on the Bounty, Men Against the Sea, and Pitcairn Island).

For authenticity, the film was shot on location in the South Pacific's Tahiti, as well as on Catalina Island, Santa Barbara, and in MGM's Culver City studios, over a period of three months. The over-budget (about $2 million) MGM film was the studio's most expensive production since Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1926), but it was also the highest-grossing film of 1935 (at $4.5 million).

A Tale of Two Cities (1935), 120 minutes, D: Jack Conway
An MGM film adaptation of Charles Dickens' monumental classic novel of the French Revolution. Sydney Carton (Ronald Colman), an aimless London lawyer, finds his purpose in aiding beleaguered victims of the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution. He sacrifices his own life to save another man Charles Darnay (Donald Woods) from the guillotine and for the love of the woman Lucie Manette/Darnay (Elizabeth Allan) that they both love.

Top Hat (1935) is one of the great 30s dance musicals, and possibly the best, most characteristic and most profitable Astaire and Rogers musical ever, with wonderful, magical dance and song numbers (with straight-on, full-length views of the dancers without a lot of camera cuts or unusual camera angles). Its tagline was: "They're Dancing Cheek-to-Cheek Again."