| Year | Date | Historical Events |
| 1918 | Dec 10 | Keel laid down at Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp.,San Francisco, CA. |
| 1919 | Jun 3 | Launched. |
| 1923 | Apr 4 | Commissioned with LT. Leon C. Alford in command. S-36 operated along the West Coast with interruptions for exercises in Alaskan waters in June 1923 and for Fleet maneuvers in the Caribbean Sea during the winter of 1924, until the following summer. |
| 1924 | Nov 4 | S-36 arrived at the Submarine Base, Cavite, Philippine Islands. For the next 16 years, she remained in the western Pacific, conducting exercises and patrols and undergoing overhauls in the Philippines during the winter. |
| | Nov 4 | (Cont'd.) Operating off the China coast, out of Tsingtao, during the summer months. Summer deployments were shortened and individual patrols were extended throughout the Philippines, into the South China Sea, and, in 1938, to the Netherlands East Indies. |
| 1940 | Apr 1 | From April to June 1940, S-36 conducted her last China deployment and for the next year and a half remained in Philippine waters. |
| 1941 | Dec 2 | S-36's scheduled overhaul was canceled and she was ordered North on patrol.
|
| 1942 | Jan 20 | S-36 was lost when it was destroyed after she ran aground on the Taka Bakang Reef
in Makassar Strait, Indonesia, near Makassar
City. The crew was rescued. |
| | Jan 20 | S-36 ran hard aground on Taka Bakang Reef.
|