1930s

The 1930s (pronounced "nineteen-thirties", commonly abbreviated as the "Thirties") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1930 and ended on December 31, 1939.

Brief synopsis

After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the largest stock market crash in American history, most of the decade was consumed by an economic downfall called the Great Depression that had a traumatic effect worldwide, leading to widespread unemployment and poverty. In response, authoritarian regimes emerged in several countries in Europe and South America, in particular the Third Reich in Germany. Weaker states such as Ethiopia, China, and Poland were invaded by expansionist world powers, the last of these attacks leading to the outbreak of the Second World War a few months before the end of the decade. The 1930s also saw a proliferation of new technologies, especially in the fields of intercontinental aviation, radio, and film.

Politics and wars

Wars

Pluperfect

The pluperfect is a type of verb form, traditionally treated as one of the tenses of certain languages, used in referring to something that occurred earlier than the time being considered, when the time being considered is already in the past. The meaning of the pluperfect is equivalent to that of English verb forms such as "(we) had arrived" or "(they) had written".

The word derives from the Latin plus quam perfectum, "more than perfect" – the Latin perfect refers to something that occurred in the past, while the pluperfect refers to something that occurred "more" (further) in the past than the perfect.

In English grammar, the equivalent of the pluperfect (a form such as "had written") is now often called the past perfect, since it combines past tense with perfect aspect. (The same term is sometimes used in relation to the grammar of other languages.) English also has a past perfect progressive (or past perfect continuous) form: "had been writing".

Meaning of the pluperfect

The pluperfect is traditionally described as a tense; in modern linguistic terminology it may be said to combine tense with grammatical aspect; namely past tense (reference to past time) and perfect aspect (state of being completed). It is used to refer to an occurrence that was already in the past (completed) at a past time.

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations; however, in most countries it started in 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s. It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used as an example of how far the world's economy can decline.

The depression originated in the United States, after a fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929, and became worldwide news with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929 (known as Black Tuesday). Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide GDP fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II.

The Great Depression had devastating effects in countries both rich and poor. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%. Unemployment in the U.S. rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%.

Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker (born March 25, 1965) is an American actress, producer, and designer. She is best known for her leading role as Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO television series Sex and the City (1998–2004). She was also an executive producer on the show, and won two Emmy Awards, for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2001 and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2004.

Parker made her Broadway debut in 1976 aged 11, in the revival of The Innocents, before going on to star in the title role of the Broadway musical Annie in 1979. She then appeared in the 1984 films Footloose and Firstborn. She returned to Broadway in the 1989 play The Heidi Chronicles.

Her other film roles include L.A. Story (1991), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Hocus Pocus (1993), Ed Wood (1994), The First Wives Club (1996), The Family Stone (2005) and Failure to Launch (2006). In addition to her two Emmy wins, she also won four Golden Globe Awards and three Screen Actors Guild Awards for Sex and the City. She reprised her role of Carrie Bradshaw in the films Sex and the City: The Movie (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010).

Charles Trenet

Louis Charles Auguste Claude Trenet, known as Charles Trenet (French: [ʃaʁl tʁəne]; 18 May 1913 – 19 February 2001), was a French singer and songwriter. He was most famous for his recordings from the late 1930s until the mid-1950s, though his career continued through the 1990s. In an era in which it was unusual for singers to write their own material, Trenet wrote prolifically and declined to record any but his own songs.

History

Trenet's best-known songs include "Boum!", "La Mer", "Y'a d'la joie", "Que reste-t-il de nos amours?", "Ménilmontant" and "Douce France". His catalogue of songs is enormous, numbering close to a thousand. While many of his songs mined relatively conventional topics such as love, Paris, and nostalgia for his younger days, what set Trenet's songs apart were their personal, poetic, sometimes quite eccentric qualities, often infused with a warm wit. Some of his songs had unconventional subject matter, with whimsical imagery bordering on the surreal. "Y'a d'la joie" evokes joy through a series of disconnected images, including that of a subway car shooting out of its tunnel into the air, the Eiffel Tower crossing the street and a baker making excellent bread. The lovers engaged in a minuet in "Polka du Roi" reveal themselves at length to be "no longer human": they are made of wax and trapped in the Musée Grévin. Many of his hits from the 1930s and 1940s effectively combine the melodic and verbal nuances of French song with American swing rhythms.