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December 21, 1937

Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.

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Headlines from December 21, 1937

Notable Births

Jane Fonda

1937Jane Fonda, American actress and activist[†]

Jane Seymour Fonda is an American actress and activist. Recognized as a film icon, Fonda's work spans several genres and over six decades of film and television. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for a Grammy Award and two Tony Awards. Fonda also received the Honorary Palme d'Or in 2007, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2014, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2017, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2025.

Notable Deaths

Violette Neatley Anderson

1937Violette Neatley Anderson, American judge (born 1882)[†]

Violette Neatley Anderson became the first African-American woman to practice law before the United States Supreme Court on January 29, 1926. She was one of the most prominent advocates of a landmark piece of legislation that helped secure rights and economic mobility for sharecroppers in the South, the Bankhead-Jones Act.

Ted Healy

1937Ted Healy, American comedian and actor (born 1896)[†]

Ted Healy was an American vaudeville performer, comedian, and actor. Though he is chiefly remembered as the creator of The Three Stooges and the style of slapstick comedy that they later made famous, he had a successful stage and film career of his own and was cited as a formative influence by several later comedy stars.

Frank B. Kellogg

1937Frank B. Kellogg, American lawyer and politician, 45th United States Secretary of State, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1856)[†]

Frank Billings Kellogg was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served in the U.S. Senate and as U.S. Secretary of State. He co-authored the Kellogg–Briand Pact, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1929.

Historical Events

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)

1937Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world's first full-length animated feature, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theatre.[†]

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the 1812 German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, the production was supervised by David Hand, and was directed by five sequence directors: Perce Pearce, William Cottrell, Larry Morey, Wilfred Jackson, and Ben Sharpsteen. It is the first animated feature film produced in the United States and the first cel animated feature film.