Madison Square Garden, where Donald J. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, are scheduled to hold a fund-raiser and rally on Sunday, has a long history of political events. Some have been peaceful. Some have not.

It is where Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” to a 45-year-old John F. Kennedy in May 1962, her dress lit so that it became see-through, and where Bill Clinton followed his acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic National Convention with Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop.” It is where President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 gave one of his most important speeches and signaled a turn toward more openly combative campaigning.

Calling his opponents in the banking and military industries “enemies of peace,” Roosevelt sounded a note that is now eerily familiar: “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” he told the crowd. “They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

But much of the commentary this weekend can be expected to focus on another historical antecedent, from 1939, when more than 20,000 people, many wearing Nazi armbands, filled the Garden for a “Pro America Rally” in support of Adolf Hitler. The Garden was then at its third of four locations, at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue.

Mr. Trump’s rally comes just days after John F. Kelly, his longest-serving chief of staff, said that the former president fit the definition of a fascist. Mr. Trump, on his Truth Social platform, called Mr. Kelly a “total degenerate” and “LOWLIFE.”