While New Yorkers will likely face more scorching hot days this August, it was July that made its way into the record books, surpassing July 1934 as the second hottest July ever recorded in America. Thousands of daily records in cities across the country were broken as Americans sought creative ways to keep cool.

But July 2006 is still second to July 1936, when more than 120 heat-related deaths were reported across the country — some from the heat and some from drownings of people trying to escape the extreme temperatures — and crops burned in a Midwestern drought that prompted federal intervention.

The average national temperature in July 2006 was 77.2 degrees, well above the average July temperature of 74.3, but falling just short of the 77.5-degree record national average temperature in 2006. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climactic Data Center, last month broke 50 individual records. The heat caused at least 120 deaths in California alone.

But the similarities between the two years extend well beyond the discomfort and mortality rates. This year, even as the heat wave broke, fire hydrants around New York made rivers in the streets as hot city residents sought ways to cool off and government officials urged people to use spray caps to open the fire hydrants legally.

Seventy years ago, open fire hydrants were still a point of contention. In 1936, one hapless New Yorker who was arrested for opening a hydrant appeared in court still dressed in his bathing suit.

Both years saw a surge in retail sales, as Americans flocked to air-conditioned stores and movie theaters. In 1936, movie theaters advertised air conditioning as a rare perk, and New Yorkers fled to the beaches, hoping that spending the night on the sand would be cooler than sleeping in their city apartments. Mayor La Guardia kept swimming pools open until midnight and opened the parks at night; police looked the other way as people opted to sleep on the grass or on park benches.

While temperatures reaching 121 degrees in North Dakota in 1936 might make last month’s weather — which in New York felt like 110 degrees at its peak — seem almost cool, 60% of the country experienced drought or near drought conditions this July, leaving farmers struggling to raise cattle and grow crops. The arid conditions mirrored the 1936 drought, in which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued federal grants to farmers in an attempt to alleviate the damage.