German and Italian aircraft supporting the Nationalists bomb the Basque town of Guernica, an event depicted in Picasso's famous painting.
Pablo Picasso completes Guernica in response to the bombing of the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War; it becomes an enduring anti-war icon.
Nationalists led by Francisco Franco fight the Republicans; Franco's victory leads to a dictatorship lasting until 1975.
Britain, France, Italy and Germany agree to Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, the high point of the appeasement of Hitler.
An organised pogrom against Jews across Germany and Austria destroys thousands of shops and synagogues, with about 30,000 people arrested.
Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discover the fission of uranium nuclei; Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch explain the process shortly after.
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact with a secret protocol dividing Eastern Europe into spheres of influence.