World map in 1938

Border history

The interactive map lets you inspect named territories in 1938 and compare them to earlier or later snapshots on the timeline.

Biographical context

Meet figures alive in, or close to, 1938 and move from political geography to the people connected to the period.

Era-based reading

The related chronicles below provide long-form reading tied closely to the modern period.

1937 – 1938

Dersim Rebellion

Kurdish-Alevi tribes (Seyid Riza) vs Republic of Turkey

Kurdish-Alevi uprising in the Dersim (Tunceli) region of eastern Turkey against forced assimilation and resettlement policies. The Turkish military response, including aerial bombardment, killed an estimated 13,000-70,000 civilians. Turkey officially recognised it as a massacre in 2011.

Key battles and events: Turkish aerial campaigns (1937); Siege of Dersim (1938)

1937 – 1945

Second Sino-Japanese War

Republic of China (Nationalists & Communists) vs Empire of Japan

Japan's full-scale invasion of China beginning at the Marco Polo Bridge, encompassing the Nanjing Massacre and eight years of brutal warfare. It merged into the Pacific theatre of World War II and cost over 20 million Chinese lives.

Key battles and events: Battle of Shanghai (1937); Battle of Nanjing (1937)

1936 – 1939

Arab Revolt in Palestine

Palestinian Arab rebels vs British Empire, Jewish paramilitaries (Haganah, Irgun)

Major Palestinian uprising against British Mandate rule and Jewish immigration. At its peak, rebels controlled the Old City of Jerusalem and large parts of the Palestinian interior. Britain deployed 20,000 troops; the 1939 White Paper finally conceded Arab demands on immigration.

Key battles and events: General Strike (1936); Battle of Nur Shams (1936)

1936 – 1939

Spanish Civil War

Republicans vs Nationalists (Franco)

The dress rehearsal for World War II — fascists, communists, and democrats clashed in a brutal civil war that killed half a million Spaniards and tested the weapons of the next world war.

Key battles and events: Siege of Madrid (1936–1939); Battle of the Ebro (1938)

1927 – 1949

Chinese Civil War

Nationalists (Kuomintang) vs Communists (CPC)

A decades-long struggle between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and Mao Zedong's Communists — interrupted by WWII, then resumed until the Communists won in 1949, founding the People's Republic of China.

Key battles and events: Shanghai Massacre (1927); Long March (1934–1935)

1919 – 1939

Waziristan Campaigns

British India vs Waziri and Mahsud tribes

Decades of British campaigns in Waziristan's mountainous terrain proved that the region was nearly impossible to pacify — a lesson that would be relearned by NATO forces in the 21st century.

Key battles and events: Mahsud Campaign (1919-1920); Pink's War (1925)

Poland / United States

Abraham Joshua Heschel

1907 – 1972

Jewish theologian, philosopher, civil rights activist, prophetic voice of the twentieth century

Switzerland

Carl Jung

1875 – 1961

Analytical psychology, archetypes, collective unconscious, psychological types

France / Lithuania

Emmanuel Levinas

1906 – 1995

Philosopher, phenomenologist, ethicist, Talmudic scholar

British India / England / Burma / Spain

George Orwell

1903 – 1950

Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, anti-totalitarian essays, and the invention of Big Brother, doublethink, and Newspeak

United States

Henry Ford

1863 – 1947

Assembly line mass production, Model T automobile, $5 workday, Ford Motor Company

India / South Africa

Mahatma Gandhi

1869 – 1948

Nonviolent resistance, Indian independence, civil rights pioneer

Built 1935 · Oceania

Church of the Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo

Small Anglican memorial church on the shores of Lake Tekapo, one of New Zealand's most photographed buildings, framing the Southern Alps beyond its altar window.

Built 1931 · South America

Christ the Redeemer

Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ overlooking Rio de Janeiro

Built 1926 · North America

Basilica of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre

Patronal shrine of Cuba in the hills above Santiago (built 1926, declared a basilica in 1977), housing the venerated Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre statue discovered by sailors in 1612

Built 1920 · Africa

Namugongo Martyrs' Shrine

Major Catholic and Anglican pilgrimage site honouring the Uganda Martyrs of 1886

Built 1916 · South America

Las Lajas Sanctuary

Neo-Gothic basilica built inside a canyon over the Guáitara River in southern Colombia

Built 1914 · Asia

Al-Muhdhar Mosque

Iconic mosque in Tarim, Yemen with the tallest mud-brick minaret in the world at 53 meters, a symbol of Hadrami Islamic architecture

Serbia / United States · Scientist

Nikola Tesla

He Won the Current War. He Died Broke at 86. The FBI Took His Papers the Same Day.

Genius, rivalry, and vindication — how a penniless Serbian immigrant defeated Edison and powered the modern world.

Spain / France · Artist

Pablo Picasso

The Man Who Broke the Mirror

The life of the artist who shattered five centuries of Western painting and rebuilt it from the fragments — from Málaga to Mougins.

Poland / United States · Philosopher

Abraham Joshua Heschel

The Prophet of Radical Amazement

The Hasidic rabbi’s son from Warsaw who became the conscience of American Judaism and marched arm in arm with Martin Luther King Jr.

France / Lithuania · Philosopher

Emmanuel Levinas

The Philosopher of the Other

The Lithuanian Jewish philosopher who survived five years in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp, lost his entire family to the Holocaust, and rebuilt ethics from the ground up — told in his own words.