March 5 –Great Depression: PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday", closing all United States banks and freezing all financial transactions (the 'holiday' ends on March 13).
March 7 – The real-estate trading board gameMonopoly is developed.
March 9 – Great Depression: TheU.S. Congress begins its first 100 days of enactingNew Deal legislation.
March 15 – TheDow Jones Industrial Average rises from 53.84 to 62.10. The day's gain of 15.34%, achieved during the depths of the Great Depression, remains to date as the largest 1-day percentage gain for the index.
March 22 – President Roosevelt signs theCullen–Harrison Act, an amendment to the Volstead Act, allowing the manufacture and sale from April 7 of "3.2 beer" (3.2% alcohol by weight, approximately 4% alcohol by volume) and light wines,[1] 8 months before the fullrepeal of Prohibition in December.[2]
March 31 –Civilian Conservation Corps established as an unemployment relief program by voice vote in Congress, followed on April 5 by Executive Order 6101.[3]
June 5 – TheU.S. Congress abrogates the United States' use of thegold standard by enacting a joint resolution (48 Stat. 112) nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.
Wiley Post becomes the first person to fly solo around the world, landing atFloyd Bennett Field inBrooklyn, New York, after traveling eastbound 15,596 mi (25,099 km) in 7 days 18 hours 45 minutes.
July 24
Several members of theBarrow Gang are injured or captured during a running battle with local police nearDexter, Iowa.
In one of his radioFireside chats, "On the Purposes and Foundations of the Recovery Program", President Roosevelt introduces the term "first 100 days".[7]
August 14 – Loggers cause aforest fire in theCoast Range ofOregon, later known as the first forest fire of theTillamook Burn. It is extinguished on September 5, after destroying 240,000 acres (971 km2).
October 10 –United Air Lines Flight 23: AUnited AirlinesBoeing 247 is destroyed by the mid-air explosion of a bomb on a transcontinental flight nearChesterton, Indiana, killing all 7 on board, in the first proven case of sabotage in civil aviation, although no suspect is ever identified.
November 11 –Dust Bowl: InSouth Dakota, a very strongdust storm stripstopsoil from desiccated farmlands (one of a series of disastrous dust storms this year).
January 5 –Calvin Coolidge, 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929, 29th vice president of the United States from 1921 to 1923 (born1872)
April 5 –Earl Derr Biggers, detective novelist and playwright, heart attack (born1884)
April 13 –Adelbert Ames, Governor of Mississippi from 1868 to 1870 and from 1874 to 1876 and U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1870 to 1874 (born1835)