1930

• Contract bridge gains in popularity as a card game.
• Comic strips (including "Blondie") gain more fans in the United States.
• France begins building the Maginot Line, considered to be an impregnable fortification along France's eastern border. The Germans, however, would flank it in 1940 during World War II.
• Photoflash bulb comes into use.
  
  

  1931

• Gangster Alphonse "Scarface" Capone jailed for income tax evasion.
• Hattie T. Caraway, D-Ark., is the first woman elected U.S. Senator.
• Franz and Toni Schmid are the first to climb the northern face of the Matterhorn.
  
  

  1932

• Prohibition is repealed.
• The Lindbergh baby is kidnapped.
• Holland completes Zuider Zee drainage project, transforming the former North Sea inlet into a large freshwater lake and fertile farmland.
  
  

  1934

• Dionne quintuplets born in Callendar, Ontario.
• USS Normandie launched, largest ship afloat until Queen Elizabeth in 1938.
• USS Queen Mary launched.
• FBI shoots John Dillinger, "Public Enemy No. 1."
  
  
  

  1935

• Rumba becomes the fashionable dance.
• Alcoholics Anonymous organized in New York City.
• Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) organized by John L. Lewis.
  
  

  1936

• Henry Luce begins publication of Life magazine.
• Bruno Richard Hauptman convicted of kidnapping and killing Lindbergh baby.
  
  

  1937

• Amelia Earhart lost on Pacific flight.
• Lincoln Tunnel completed between New York and New Jersey.
• Disaster of dirigible Hindenberg at Lakehurst, N.J., described in first transcontinental radio broadcast.
• Golden Gate Bridge opens in San Francisco.
  
  

  1938

• Howard Hughes flies around the world in three days, 19 hours, 17 minutes.
• USS Queen Elizabeth launched.
• 40-hour work week established in United States.
  
  

  1939

• New products on the shelves include Bird's-Eye pre-cooked frozen foods and Lay's potato chips.
• Pan-American Airways begins regularly scheduled commercial flights between United States and Europe.