Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1934.

1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar.

• January 1 – Alcatraz becomes a federal prison.
• January 1 – Nazi Germany passes the "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring."
• January 7 – First Flash Gordon comic strip is published.
• January 10 – Execution of Marinus van der Lubbe
• January 24 – Albert Einstein visits the White House
• January 26 – The Apollo Theater opens in Harlem, New York City.
• February 9 – Gaston Boumerque forms a new government in France
• February 12 – The Export-Import Bank is incorporated.
• February 12 to February 16 – Austrian Civil War
• February 23 – Léopold III becomes King of Belgium.
• March 1 – Manchuria becomes Manchukuo
• March 3 – John Dillinger escapes from jail in Crown Point, Indiana, using a wooden pistol
• March 8 – Prince Sigvard of Sweden loses his titles because of his marriage
• March 20 – All the police forces in Germany come under command of Heinrich Himmler
• April 1 – Clyde Barrow and Henry Methvin kill two young highway patrolmen near Grapevine, Texas.
• April 6 – Rudyard Kipling and William Butler Yeats are awarded the Gothenburg Prize for Poetry.
• April 19 – Surgeon R.K. Wilson allegedly takes a photograph of the Loch Ness Monster.
• April 22 – John Dillinger and two others shoot their way out of the FBI ambush in northern Wisconsin
• May 23 - American outlaws Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed and killed by law officers on a rural road in Bienville Parish, Louisiana

• January 13 - Nick Clooney, American journalist (father of George Clooney)
• January 20 – Tom Baker, British actor
• February 10 – Barrie Ingham, English actor
• May 2 - László-Arsenije Mert
• May 11 – Sarah Chester Beatty, English socialite and former fashion model
• May 28 – Dionne Quintuplets
• July 1 – Jamie Farr
• September 21 - Leonard Cohen, Canadian folk musician (d. 2016)
• October 19 - William Frates, American war veteran and radiologist
• November 9 – Carl Sagan (d. 1996)
• November 13 – Garry Marshall (d. 2016)
• December 9 - Judi Dench, English actress
• December 28 - Maggie Smith, British actress (d. 2024)

• January 10 – Marinus van der Lubbe, Dutch communist accused of setting fire to the Reichstag (executed) (born 1909)
• January 29 – Fritz Haber, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1868)
• February 17 – Albert I of Belgium (born 1875)
• February 23 – Edward Elgar, English composer (born 1857)
• March 29 – Otto Hermann Kahn, German-born millionaire philanthropist (born 1867)
• May 23 – Clyde Barrow, American outlaw (shot) (born 1909)
• May 23 – Bonnie Parker, American outlaw (shot) (born 1910)
• May 25 – Gustav Holst, English composer (born 1874)
• May 30 – Togo Heihachiro, Japanese admiral (born 1848)
• June 10 – Frederick Delius, English composer (born 1862)
• June 11 – Lev Vygotsky, Russian developmental psychologist (born 1896)
• July 4 – Maria Skłodowska-Curie, Polish-born scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and physics (born 1867)
• July 8 – Benjamin Baillaud, French astronomer (born 1848)
• July 22 – John Dillinger, American criminal (born 1903)
• July 25 – François Coty, French perfume manufacturer (born 1874)
• July 25 – Englebert Dolfuss, Chancellor of Austria (assassinated) (born 1892)
• July 25 – Nestor Makhno, Ukrainian anarchist (born 1889)
• July 26 – Winsor McCay, American comic creator and animator (born 1871)
• July 28 – Marie Dressler, Canadian actress (born 1868)
• August 2 – Paul von Hindenburg, German general and politician (born 1847)
• September 2 – Alcide Nunez, American musician (born 1884)
• October 9 – King Alexander of Yugoslavia (born 1888)
• November 2 – Edmond James de Rothschild, French philanthropist (born 1845)
• November 16 – Alice Liddell, inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (born 1852)
• November 27 – Baby Face Nelson, American gangster (born 1908)
• December 1 – Sergei Kirov, Soviet leader (born 1886)

• Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine won by George Whipple, American doctor, George Minot and William Parry for their discoveries about liver therapy in cases of anaemia.

• "The Continental" – by Herb Magidson and Con Conrad, from the movie Gay Divorce, won the Academy Award for best song.
• "Down Yonder" – by L.Wolfe Gilbert, and recorded by a hillbilly group, Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers, sold more than a million copies.