| PH : | Spanish Civil War begins |
| PH : | King George V dies; succeeded by son, Edward VIII, who soon abdicates to marry an American-born divorcée, and is succeeded by brother, George VI |
| M : | Steve Reich dies |
| LT : | Marianne Moore: The Pangolin and other verse |
| LT : | Robert Frost: A Further Range |
| LT : | ee cummings: 1/20 |
| LT : | Wystan Hugh Auden: Look Stranger! |
| M : | Edgard Varèse : Density 21.5
for flute solo
|
| M : | Ernst Bacon : Twilight
|
| M : | Ernst Bacon : Songs of Eternity
|
| M : | Virgil Garnett Thomson : Film score, The Plow that Broke the Plains
|
| M : | Olivier Messiaen : Song-cycles, Poèmes pour Mi
|
| M : | Elliott Cook Carter : Tarantella
for Male Chorus and Orchestra
|
| M : | Arnold Schoenberg : Violin Concerto
|
| M : | Sergei Rachmaninov : Symphony
No.3
|
| M : | Sergei Prokofiev : Peter and the Wolf
for narrator and orchestra
|
| M : | Sergei Prokofiev : Ballet, Romeo and Juliet
|
| M : | Darius Milhaud : Suite provençale
|
| M : | Mikhail Glinka : Opera, Zhizn'za tsarya
('A Life for the Tzar')
|
| M : | George Gershwin : Film music, Shall We Dance
|
| M : | Samuel Barber : Symphony
No.1
|
| M : | Samuel Barber : String Quartet
|
| M : | Aaron Copland : El Salón México
for orchestra
|
| M : | Béla Bartók :
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
|
| PH : | Germans occupy Rhineland, Italy annexes Ethiopia, Rome-Berlin Axis proclaimed (Japan will join in 1940) |
| PH : | War between China and Japan begins, to continue through World War II |
| PH : | Japan and Germany sign anti-Comintern pact; joined by Italy in 1937 |
| PH : | Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua withdraw from the League of Nations |
| M : | Ottorino Respighi dies 18 April |
| LT : | A E Housman dies 30 April |
