* 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 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world's first full-length animated feature, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theater.

By 1937, the members had made the decision to create a new language, to the surprise of the world's interlanguage community.

In May 1937 the world's first North Pole ice station, North Pole-1, was established by Soviet scientists 20 kilometres ( 13 mi ) from the North Pole.

The play had limited popularity in the early twentieth century, but John Gielgud exploded onto the world's theatrical consciousness, through his performance as Richard at the Old Vic Theatre in 1929, returning to the character in 1937 and 1953 in what ultimately was considered as the definitive performance of the role.

Her most famous novels include Murder on the Orient Express ( 1934 ), Death on the Nile ( 1937 ), and the world's best-selling mystery And Then There Were None ( 1939 ).

Weston was, prior to its cultivation being prohibited by the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, the world's leading producer of industrial hemp.

First introduced in the London area on 30 June 1937, the UK's 999 number is the world's oldest emergency call service.

In April 1937 Frank Whittle built the world's first prototype jet engine at the British Thomson-Houston works in Rugby, and between 1936-41 based himself at Brownsover Hall on the outskirts of the town, where he designed and developed early prototype engines.

The 1920s also gave rise to one of the most popular mystery authors of all time, Agatha Christie, whose works include Murder on the Orient Express ( 1934 ), Death on the Nile ( 1937 ), and the world's best-selling mystery And Then There Were None ( 1939 ).

1937 was another busy year for the world's Light Heavyweight champion, with 20 more fights and a record of 18-2 that year.

In 1937 Britain provided 15 % of world vehicle exports, by 1950, a year in which 75 % of British car production and 60 % of its commercial vehicle production was exported, Britain provided 52 % of the world's exported vehicles.

Novelist Robert Stone, who met the bus on its arrival in New York, has written that those accompanying Kesey on the trip were Neal Cassady ( described by Stone as " the world's greatest driver, who could roll a joint while backing a 1937 Packard onto the lip of the Grand Canyon "), Ken Babbs (" fresh from the Nam, full of radio nomenclature, and with a command voice that put cops to flight "), Jane Burton (" a pregnant young philosophy professor who declined no challenges "), Page Browning (" a Hell's Angel candidate "), George Walker, Sandy Lehmann-Haupt (" dis-MOUNT "), Mike Hagen (" Mal Function "), Ron Bevirt (" Hassler "), Chuck Kesey, Dale Kesey, John Babbs, Steve Lambrecht and Paula Sundstren (" aka Gretchin Fetchin, Slime Queen ").

One of the world's tallest statues of Vladimir Lenin, high, built in 1937, is located at Dubna at the confluence of the Volga River and the Moscow Canal.

* Broadcasts were considerably improved in 1937 with the construction of beam antennas supported by the world's first wooden antenna masts rotatable on two concentric circular rails at the transmitter site in Huizen.

The first issue was printed in December 1937, making it the world's third-longest running comic, after Detective Comics ( cover dated March 1937 ) and Il Giornalino ( cover dated 1 October 1924 ).

Among the many famous ships made by the companies were the world's first steel ship, the Ma Roberts, built in 1858 for Dr. Livingstone's Zambezi expedition, CSS Alabama that was built in 1862 for the Confederate States of America, HMS Caroline ( 1914 ) that holds the record fastest build time of any significant warship ( nine months from her keel being laid till her launch ), the first all-welded ship, the Fullagar built in 1920, Cunard's second Mauretania of 1939, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal ( 1937 ) and the largest vessel to have been built for the Royal Navy HMS Ark Royal ( 1950 ).

* 1937: Frank Whittle's Power Jets company built the world's first prototype jet engine at the BTH works in Rugby.

Comrie founded the world's first private company for scientific computing, incorporated as Scientific Computing Service, Limited in 1937.

American Ballet Theatre was founded in 1937 by Mikhail Mordkin and is recognized as one of the world's leading classical ballet companies.

The pace at which the last Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan amassed wealth made him one of the world's richest men in 1937.

He was one of the founders of the William Alanson White Institute, considered by many to be the world's leading independent psychoanalytic institute, and of the journal Psychiatry in 1937.

The was a world's fair held in what is now part of the Minami Ward of Nagoya city, Japan from 15 March to 31 May in 1937.

Bolton soon announced at a California Historical Society meeting on April 6, 1937, " One of the world's long-lost historical treasures apparently has been found!