Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller is arrested for defying the Nazis and spends the next eight years in concentration camps

Danish author Karen Blixen publishes her autobiographical novel Out of Africa

At the same time as the Moscow show trials, millions are purged from the Russian Communist party nation-wide

A Nazi exhibition of 'degenerate art' opens in Munich, and visitors are invited to mock the avant-garde works on show

Buchenwald, near Weimar, is set up as a concentration camp providing forced labour for local arms manufacturers

C.S. Forester's central character, Horatio Hornblower, features for the first time – in The Happy Return

Alan Turing describes the properties of a logically possible computer that becomes known as the Turing Machine

Rocket engineer Wernher von Braun is appointed director of Germany's weapon research centre at Peenemünde

Pablo Picasso's massive painting Guernica is exhibited in the Spanish pavilion at the World Fair in Paris

Adolf Hitler, entertaining Mussolini in Germany, puts on spectacular demonstrations of German military and industrial might

British biochemist Max Perutz begins the analysis of haemoglobin

William Coldstream and Victor Pasmore open a school of art with a distinctive style, known from its location as the Euston Road School

De Valera introduces a new constitution, changing the name of the Irish Free State to Eire (Gaelic for Ireland)

De Valera's new constitution for Eire lays claim to the six counties of northern Ireland

George Orwell reveals the harsh realities of contemporary British life in The Road to Wigan Pier

Finnish designer Alvar Aalto develops a bent plywood three-legged stool, specifically designed for stacking

Leading British artists Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson marry

Gloucestershire batsman Wally Hammond becomes captain of the England Test team

British author Evelyn Waugh publishes a classic Fleet Street novel, Scoop, introducing Lord Copper, proprietor of The Beast

French writer Jean-Paul Sartre succeeds with his first novel, La Nausée ('Nausea')

In Homage to Catalonia George Orwell describes his experiences fighting for the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War

Yorkshire batsman Len Hutton scores a record 364 in a Test match against Australia at the Oval

British author Graham Greene publishes Brighton Rock, a novel following 17-year-old Pinkie in the criminal underworld of the seaside town

Maxim de Winter's house, Manderley, holds dark secrets in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca

Russian film-maker Sergei Eisenstein directs Alexander Nevsky, with music by Prokofiev