June 1938

The following events occurred in June 1938:

• British MP Duncan Sandys raised a question in the House of Commons about air-raid defences that relied on secret information. This touched off the "Sandys Affair" when he was threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.^[1][2]
• Bois Roussel won The Derby. This was the first year the Derby was televised.^[3][4]
• The Bren light machine gun entered service in the British Army.^[3]
• Born: Khawar Rizvi, poet, in the Punjab, British India (d. 1981)

• Chile informed the League of Nations of its intent to withdraw from the organization.^[5]
• Born: Ron Ely, actor and novelist, in Hereford, Texas; Edda Göring, only child of Hermann Göring, in Berlin, Germany (d. 2018); Gene Michael, baseball player, manager and executive, in Kent, Ohio (d. 2017)
• Died: Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, 90, American naval architect and mechanical engineer

• Nazi Germany passed a law allowing for the confiscation of "degenerate art".^[3]

• The third FIFA World Cup tournament began in Paris with Germany (including Austrian players) and Switzerland playing to a 1–1 draw. The French crowd jeered the German team when the players made the Nazi salute and threw bottles, eggs and tomatoes at them throughout the match.^[6]
• Pasteurized won the Belmont Stakes.^[7]

• The famous psychoanalysist Sigmund Freud, 82 and frail, arrived in Paris on the Orient Express, having fled persecution by the Nazis in his homeland of Austria. After a few hours of rest he continued on his way to London where he had been granted asylum.^[8]
• Born: Karin Balzer, hurdler, in Magdeburg, Germany (d. 2019)
• Died: Edward Denny Bacon, 77, British philatelist

• The Japanese captured Kaifeng.^[5]
• Sigmund Freud arrived in London at a rented home near Regent's Park.^[9]
• Born: Prince Luiz of Orléans-Braganza, in Mandelieu-la-Napoule, France (d. 2022)

• The New York television station W2XBS broadcast the first televised Broadway production, Rachel Crothers' Susan and God.^[10]
• Sigmund Freud was made a British citizen despite normally requiring five years' residence.^[11]
• National Doughnut Day started in the United States.^[12]
• A state-run petrochemical brand in Mexico, Pemex was founded.^{[citation needed]}
• Born: Goose Gonsoulin, American football player, in Port Arthur, Texas (d. 2014)

• The Japanese bombed the city of Canton for the twelfth consecutive day as thousands of Chinese packed railway stations and docks attempting to flee the merciless air raids.^[13]
• A general election was held in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The Liberal Party lost 12 seats but was still re-elected to another majority.
• Argentina created Flag Day.
• Toei, a Japanese film production and cinema operating founded, as predecessor name was Tokyo Cinema Production.^{[citation needed]}
• Born: Mack Vickery, musician, in Town Creek, Alabama (d. 2004)
• Died: Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, 64, Puerto Rican historian, writer and activist

• The Munich synagogue was destroyed by the Nazis. The congregation was given only a few hours' notice to empty the building.^[14]
• Born: Charles Wuorinen, composer, in New York City (d. 2020)

• Hollywood Park Racetrack opened.
• Celtic defeated Everton 1-0 to win the Empire Exhibition Trophy, the award for the winner of a special football tournament held in conjunction with the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow.
• Born: Joe McBride, footballer, in Glasgow, Scotland (d. 2012)
• Died: Eugenia Falleni, 62, Italian-born Australian transgender man convicted of murder

• The Battle of Wuhan began.
• An earthquake centred in the North Sea killed 3 people in Belgium.^[15]
• Johnny Vander Meer of the Cincinnati Reds pitched a 3-0 no-hitter against the Boston Bees.^[16]
• Ralph Guldahl won the U.S. Open.
• The movie musical Gold Diggers in Paris starring Rudy Vallée and Rosemary Lane was released.

• The Japanese captured Ankang.^[5]
• The Sudeten German Party made gains in local elections in Czechoslovakia. A victory parade in Mährisch Schönberg was broken up by police.^[17]
• Born: Tom Oliver, actor, in Chandler's Ford, Hampshire, England

• The Nationalists captured Castellón de la Plana.^[18][19]

• The Caldecott Medal honoring the year's best children's picture books was awarded for the first time, to Dorothy P. Lathrop for Animals of the Bible.^[20]
• Born: Shelby Stephenson, poet, in Benson, North Carolina

• Johnny Vander Meer pitched his second consecutive no-hitter, 6-0 over the Brooklyn Dodgers at the first night game ever played in Ebbets Field. Vander Meer remains the only pitcher in major league history to ever throw back-to-back no-hitters.^[21]
• Born: Billy Williams, baseball player, in Whistler, Alabama
• Died: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 58, German Expressionist painter (suicide)

• The Battle of Bielsa pocket ended in Nationalist victory.
• Hundreds of civilians directed by brownshirts attacked Jews along the Grenadierstrasse and Dragonerstrasse in Berlin, assaulting them and writing anti-Jewish slogans on store windows.^[22]
• Vlas Chubar was arrested.^[23]

• A general election was held in Ireland. Fianna Fáil retained power, winning 77 of 138 seats,

• John Aspinwall Roosevelt, the youngest child of the President, married Anne Lindsay Clark in Nahant, Massachusetts.^[24]
• Babe Ruth accepted a job as a first base coach with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Ruth took the offer hoping it would lead to a manager position, but this would not happen.^[25]

• Italy defeated Hungary 4-2 in the FIFA World Cup Final in Paris.
• Custer Creek train wreck: A railway bridge collapse near Saugus, Montana killed at least 47 people.
• Born: Wahoo McDaniel, AFL linebacker and professional wrestler, in Bernice, Louisiana (d. 2002)

• A federal grand jury in New York indicted 18 people, most of them Germans, for conspiring to steal military secrets from the United States.^[26]
• 19-year-old Gilbert Shepard, a seasonal employee at Many Glacier Hotel, fell to his death from Mount Grinnell in Glacier National Park, Montana. Shepard's body was discovered several days later.^[27]
• Died: Liselotte Herrmann, 28, German Communist Resistance fighter (executed)

• The border between France and Spain was closed again.^[28]
• Born: Don Black, lyricist, in London, England

• Camille Chautemps became Prime Minister of France for the third time.
• Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling in the first round of their big rematch at Yankee Stadium to retain the world heavyweight boxing title.^[29]
• The Bankruptcy Act went into effect in the United States.
• Born: Dennis Fidler, footballer, in Stockport, England (d. 2015)
• Died: C. J. Dennis, 61, Australian poet

• Hermann Göring decreed that effective July 1, all German men and women of any profession or trade could be conscripted to take up work for the state.^[30]
• Died: Cecilia Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, 75

• U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a fireside chat on the accomplishments of the 75th Congress.^[31]
• The Royal Air Force launched a new recruitment campaign and received 1,000 inquiries on the first day alone.^[3]
• Born: Abulfaz Elchibey, 2nd President of Azerbaijan, in the Nakhichevan ASSR (d. 2000)

• Douglas Hyde became the 1st President of Ireland.
• The Spanish government threatened to bomb "Italian-dominated" towns in the Balearic Islands in retaliation for Italian bombing raids on civilians in the Civil War. Italy responded with threats to wipe Spanish Republican cities off the map.^[32]
• President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act^[33] and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act into law.

• The Spanish government set three conditions for giving up its reprisal bombing plan: France would reopen its border with Spain, the Spanish rebels stop the bombing of government-held cities, and France and Britain agree to eventually mediate in the conflict.^[34]
• Died: James Weldon Johnson, 67, American writer, diplomat and civil rights leader; E. V. Lucas, 70, English writer; Andrew James Peters, 66, American politician

• Two more British cargo ships in Spanish ports were attacked by warplanes. The Arlon was bombed at Valencia and the Farnham was hit at Alicante.^[35] Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resisted calls in the House of Commons to equip British merchant ships with anti-aircraft guns, saying "A good many difficulties arise in connection with it."^[36]

• The International Hockey League and Canadian–American Hockey League merged to form the International-American Hockey League, renamed the American Hockey League in 1940.
• Born:
  • John Byner, actor and comedian, in New York City
  • Leon Panetta, American politician and intelligence officer, (U.S. Representative from California, Director of the CIA, Secretary of Defense), in Monterey, California^[37]

• 40,000 Austrian Jews and spouses of Jews were dismissed from their jobs in the private sector.^[38]
• A twin-engine Soviet aircraft flew non-stop from Moscow to Vladivostok in 24.5 hours.^[39]
• Olympic National Park in the U.S. state of Washington was designated a national park by President Roosevelt.
• Died: Frederick William Vanderbilt, 82, American railway magnate

• The Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, home of the Phillies, hosted its final major league baseball game. The New York Giants defeated the Phillies 4-1. Ownership decided to move the team to Shibe Park and pay rent to the Athletics because Baker Bowl had become much too small and obsolete to be worth renovating.^[40]
• The Federal Firearms Act went into effect in the United States.
• The House of Commons agreed to refer the Sandys Affair to a special committee that would determine the applicability of the Official Secrets Act to Members of Parliament.^[41] The committee's findings would eventually lead to the revised Official Secrets Act 1939.