Andre Breton's Surrealist novel L 'Amourfou (Mad Love) is published.

Kawabata Yasunari's novel Yukiguni (The Snow Country) is published.

Paul Klee paints Revolutions of the Viaducts.

Arthur Koestler's Spanish Testament, a pro-Republican account of the Spanish Civil War, is published.

Rene Magritte paints The Pleasure Principle.

Joan Miro paints Still Life with Old Shoe.

George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier, a study of the British unemployed, is published.

J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit is published.

Leon Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed, an indictment of Stalinism, is published.

The Nazis open their first exhibition of "degenerate art," mostly abstract works that they consider decadent.

The Soviet Union establishes a research station near the North Pole.

The Soviet Union opens the Moscow-Volga ship canal.

Frozen foods are introduced in Great Britain.

23-30 Jan.

In Moscow the show trials of Communist leaders result in long prison terms or death sentences...