Timeline December 1937

Events in December 1937 10

• 1875 – 1937 Maurice Ravel French Impressionist composer French composer whose Boléro, La Valse and orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition are among the most recognised works in classical music.
• 1937 Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937) Died 20 December 1937, aged 72 German general who with Hindenburg directed Germany's war effort in the later years of the First World War. He later took part in Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch of 1923.
• 1937 Frank B. Kellogg (1856-1937) Died 21 December 1937, aged 80 American Secretary of State who co-authored the Kellogg–Briand Pact outlawing war. He received the 1929 Nobel Peace Prize.
• 1937 Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) Died 26 December 1937, aged 47 English poet and composer who served on the Western Front in the First World War. He spent his last fifteen years in mental hospitals.
• 1937 – 1949 Writing The Lord of the Rings — twelve years Tolkien begins writing The Lord of the Rings in December 1937 and does not complete it until 1949 — twelve years of composition alongside full-time academic duties, the demands of wartime Oxford and the raising of four children. The book grows far beyond The Hobbit in scale, darkness and ambition; what begins as a children's sequel becomes a mythological epic. Tolkien writes and rewrites obsessively, getting stuck for months at a time. He reads chapters to the Inklings, who urge him on. Lewis's enthusiasm is particularly important: he tells Tolkien that if he doesn't finish it, Lewis will never speak to him again.
• 1937 USS Panay incident Japanese aircraft sink a US gunboat on the Yangtze Japanese aircraft bombed and sank the US Navy gunboat Panay on the Yangtze River near Nanjing, killing three people. Japan apologised and paid compensation, which eased the immediate crisis with the United States.
• 1937 Fall of Nanjing and start of the Nanjing Massacre Japanese troops take the Chinese capital The Imperial Japanese Army captured Nanjing, then the capital of the Republic of China. Over the following weeks Japanese troops murdered large numbers of prisoners and civilians and committed widespread rape and looting. The Nanjing Massacre remains one of the defining atrocities of the Second World War in Asia.
• 1937 Premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Disney's first feature-length animated film Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature film made in the United States. It was a huge commercial success and established the animated feature as a genre.
• 1937 – 2020 John Conway (1937-2020) Died 11 April 2020, aged 82 John Conway was a British mathematician known for the Game of Life cellular automaton, group theory work and numerous contributions to recreational mathematics. He died of COVID-19 on 11 April 2020.
• 1937 Constitution of Ireland comes into force Bunreacht na hÉireann replaces the Free State constitution Voters approved a new constitution in a plebiscite on 1 July 1937, and it came into force on 29 December. It renamed the state Éire, or Ireland, and created the office of President.