The Decades of my Life

The Great Depression brought alphabet soup to Washington, with agencies such as the Social Security Administration, a ready market for data processing equipment. Japan invaded China, Edward VIII abdicated to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson. Hitler rose to power in Germany, and there were other brands of fascism elsewhere. Scholars, primarily but not exclusively Jewish, fled to the U.S. The electron microscope was developed at the University of Toronto, and the Dionne quintuplets were born. The Literary Digest poll of 1936 predicted Landon over Roosevelt and, at the close of the decade the New York World's Fair, the first regularly scheduled TV, and war in Europe.