1938: The Year in People

The Silent Generation · Year of the Tiger 🐅 · Born in 1938 turn 88 in 2026

The year in numbers

Gas, per gallon

$0.20

Median home

$2,850

Minimum wage

$0.25/hr

US population

2.23B

US president

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Top song

"Begin the Beguine" — Artie Shaw

Top film

You Can't Take It with You

Best Picture

You Can't Take It with You

In the news: Kristallnacht and the escalation toward WWII

What happened in 1938

1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1938th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 938th year of the 2nd millennium, the 38th year of the 20th century, and the 9th year of the 1930s decade.

Summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Born in 1938

143 people in our data · most viewed first

Bernie Madoff

1938–2021 · April 29

American financier and con artist

Claudia Cardinale

1938–2025 · April 15

Italian Tunisian actress

Alan Dershowitz

b. 1938 · September 1

American lawyer and author

Brian Dennehy

1938–2020 · July 9

American actor

Frank Langella

b. 1938 · January 1

American actor

Bill Withers

1938–2020 · July 4

American musician

Connie Stevens

b. 1938 · August 8

American actress and singer

Beatrix of the Netherlands

b. 1938 · January 31

Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 to 2013

Alberto Fujimori

1938–2024 · July 28

President of Peru from 1990 to 2000

Dawn Wells

1938–2020 · October 18

American actress

Fela Kuti

1938–1997 · October 15

Nigerian musician and activist

David Dimbleby

b. 1938 · October 28

British commentator and presenter

Curt Flood

1938–1997 · January 18

American baseball player

Gary Gygax

1938–2008 · July 27

American game designer and author

JJ Cale

1938–2013 · December 5

American musician

Bo Hopkins

1938–2022 · February 2

American actor

Adriano Celentano

b. 1938 · January 6

Italian musician and actor

Eleanor Bron

b. 1938 · March 14

English actress

Diane Baker

b. 1938 · February 25

American actress

Ben E. King

1938–2015 · September 28

American singer

Anne Perry

1938–2023 · October 28

English author

David Owen

b. 1938 · July 2

British politician

Billy Gray (actor)

b. 1938 · January 13

American actor

Arthur Scargill

b. 1938 · January 11

British trade unionist

Died in 1938

Alexei Rykov1881–1938 · Premier of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1930
E. C. Segar1894–1938 · American cartoonist
César Vallejo1892–1938 · Peruvian writer and poet
Feodor Chaliapin1873–1938 · Russian opera singer
Annie Armstrong1850–1938 · Lay Southern Baptist denominational leader
Alfonsina Storni1892–1938 · Argentine poet
Octavian Goga1881–1938 · Romanian politician and poet
Andrej Hlinka1864–1938 · Slovak priest and politician
Bernd Rosemeyer1909–1938 · German racing driver
Frederick William Vanderbilt1856–1938 · 19th and 20th-century American businessman
Ahn Chang Ho1878–1938 · Korean independence activist
George Ellery Hale1868–1938 · American solar astronomer