* 1937 – Merle Haggard, American singer-songwriter and musician

* 1937 – Peter Maivia, Samoan wrestler ( d. 1982 )

* 1937 – Billy Dee Williams, American actor

* 1937 – Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England.

* 1856 – William Martin Conway, English art critic and mountaineer ( d. 1937 )

* 1937 – Igor Volk, Soviet astronaut

* 1937 – The Philippines holds a plebiscite for Filipino women on whether they should be extended the right to suffrage ; over 90 % would vote in the affirmative.

* 1876 – Orso Mario Corbino, Italian physicist ( d. 1937 )

* 1937 – Alice Coltrane, American pianist and composer ( d. 2007 )

* 1937 – Tommy Sands, American actor and singer

* 1937 – Baden Powell de Aquino, Brazilian guitarist ( d. 2000 )

* 1937 – Barbara Windsor, English actress

* 1845 – André Bessette, Canadian pastor and saint ( d. 1937 )

* 1937 – The Battle of Shanghai begins.

* 1937 – The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in America, the effect of which is to render marijuana and all its by-products illegal.

* 1937 – Billy Cannon, American football player

* 1937 – Garth Hudson, Canadian musician, composer, and producer ( The Band )

* 1937 – Josip Broz Tito reads the resolution " Manifesto of constitutional congress of KPH " to the constitutive congress of KPH ( Croatian Communist Party ) in woods near Samobor.

* 1858 – Gaston Doumergue, French politician ( d. 1937 )

* 1937 – Al D ' Amato, American politician

* 1937 – Steven Berkoff, English actor

* 1937 – Roland Burris, American politician

* 1937 – Duncan Sharpe, Pakistani cricketer

* 1937 – Spanish Civil War: Guernica ( or Gernika in Basque ), Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.

* 1937 – Joseph Estrada, Philippine actor and politician, 13th President of the Philippines

* 1937 – Great Purge: The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin executes eight army leaders.

* 1937 – Joseph Wambaugh, American author

* 1937 – In Moscow, 17 leading Communists go on trial accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders.

Riefenstahl with Joseph Goebbels ( 1937 )

According to Joseph Bottum, Pacelli in 1937 " warned A. W. Klieforth, the American consul to Berlin, that Hitler was " an untrustworthy scoundrel and fundamentally wicked person "; Klieforth wrote that Pacelli " did not believe Hitler capable of moderation, and ... fully supported the German bishops in their anti-Nazi stand.

The Red Army, however, had been crippled by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of 1937, reducing the army's morale and efficiency shortly before the outbreak of the fighting.

* 1937 – Joseph Kobzon, Russian singer

** Jean Joseph Rabearivelo, Malagasy-French poet ( died 1937 )

* December 31 – Joseph S. Cullinan, American oil industrialist, founder of Texaco ( d. 1937 )

Joseph Allen Towles was born in Senora, Virginia on August 17, 1937.

Reginald Joseph Mitchell CBE, FRAeS, ( 20 May 1895-11 June 1937 ) was a British aeronautical engineer, best known for his design of the Supermarine Spitfire.

His opposition to appeasement was nourished by his witnessing first-hand a Nuremberg Rally in 1937, where he met top Nazis Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler at an SS cocktail party.

After the film won a prize at the Venice Film Festival for " Best Artistic Ensemble " in 1937, the Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declared La Grande Illusion " Cinematic Public Enemy No. 1 "

Beginning during 1937 about twenty thousand works from German museums were confiscated as " degenerate " by a committee directed by Joseph Goebbels.

In 1926 and 1937, the art dealer and patron Joseph Duveen paid for two major expansions of the gallery building.

Die schweigsame Frau ( 1934 ), was composed with Stefan Zweig as librettist ; Friedenstag ( 1935 – 6 ) and Daphne ( 1937 ) both had a libretto by Joseph Gregor and Stefan Zweig ; and Die Liebe der Danae ( 1940 ) was with Joseph Gregor.

Zweig later collaborated with Joseph Gregor, to provide Strauss with the libretto for one other opera, Daphne, in 1937.

* Jack Nicholson ( born 1937 as John Joseph Nicholson ), actor.

In late 1935, Rothko joined with Ilya Bolotowsky, Ben-Zion, Adolph Gottlieb, Lou Harris, Ralph Rosenborg, Louis Schanker and Joseph Solman to form " The Ten " ( Whitney Ten Dissenters ), whose mission ( according to a catalog from a 1937 Mercury Gallery show ) was " to protest against the reputed equivalence of American painting and literal painting.

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and murder in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1937 to 1938.

Greendale's plan was designed between 1936 and 1937 by a staff headed by Joseph Crane, Elbert Peets, Harry Bentley, and Walter C. Thomas for a site that had formerly consisted of of farmland.

Joseph Louis Barrow ( May 13, 1914 – April 12, 1981 ), better known as Joe Louis, was an American professional boxer and the World Heavyweight Champion from 1937 to 1949.