Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli was elected the new pope. He took the name ofPius XII.
France named 82-year-oldPhilippe Pétain as the ambassador to Francoist Spain.[3]
A book titledThe Strange Death of Adolf Hitler was published in the United States, immediately drawing worldwide attention. Written anonymously, the book claimed that high officials within the Nazi Party assassinated Hitler the night before theMunich Conference by arranging for hisomelette to be poisoned. The book claimed that Hitler was now being impersonated by body doubles.[4][5] The book was made into afilm of the same name in 1943.
Nazi Germany issued twelve commandments for the country's health. Among them were abstinence of youth from alcohol and tobacco, abstinence fromdrinking and driving and physical exercise for the entire nation.Hitler Youth leaderBaldur von Schirach presentedAdolf Hitler, who neither smoked nor drank alcohol, as a role model for all Germans to follow.[6]
Gandhi ended his four-day fast and accepted an invitation from Viceroy of India theMarquess of Linlithgow to attend a political conference inNew Delhi.
GeneralissimoFrancisco Franco declared a total blockade of all remainingRepublican-held ports. All ships entering thethree-mile limit were to be seized regardless of nationality, or torpedoed if sighted near Cartagena.[12]
During construction of theBronx–Whitestone Bridge, 38-year-old construction worker Victor Weikko fell 105 feet (32 m) to his death.[13]
Tiso returned toBratislava and addressed the Slovak parliament, which then unanimously approved the declaration of an independentSlovak Republic.[20]
Czechoslovakian PresidentEmil Hácha went to Berlin to see Hitler, arriving shortly before midnight.[21]
The first trial of thePhiladelphia poison ring case began. Herman Petrillo, one of four defendants charged with a total of fifty counts of murder, conspiracy and fraud, was the first to go on trial.[22]
Adolf Hitler and Emil Hácha met in the Reich Chancellery after midnight. Hitler announced that the German army had orders to invade Czechoslovakia at 6:00 a.m. and unless Hácha ordered the Czechoslovakian military to refrain from offering any resistance, the country would face massive destruction. Hácha collapsed during the harangue, but recovered enough to sign a document claiming that he had "confidently placed the fate of the Czech people and country in the hands of the Führer and German Reich." At 4:30 a.m. Hácha broadcast a radio message to his people urging them to remain calm.[20][21]
The Nazis marched unopposed into Czechoslovakia. That evening, Hitler and other Nazi leaders enteredPrague.[21]
Hungarian soldiers marched into the Carpatho-Ukrainian capital ofKhust with little resistance.[24]
German troops marched intoPrešov. There had been some question as to whether the city was Slovak or Ruthenian territory, but the Germans settled the matter by getting there before the Hungarians did.[24]
The Reich Propaganda Ministry sent a confidential note to the German daily press explaining that the term"Großdeutsches Weltreich ("Greater German Empire") was undesirable because it was "reserved for future opportunities."[25]
Surrealist artistSalvador Dalí discovered that the store window display he had designed forBonwit Teller onFifth Avenue had been altered without his knowledge. Two mannequins, one of which had been scantily attired in a negligee of green feathers, had been replaced by mannequins dressed in suits. Dalí cursed out the management, entered his window display and pulled a bathtub (which was also part of the display) free from its moorings, accidentally causing the tub to slip free and crash through the window along with Dalí himself. The artist was arrested for mischief but later cleared of charges.[26]
British Prime MinisterNeville Chamberlain made a speech inBirmingham condemning Hitler for breaking the word he gave at theMunich Conference and warning that Britain would resist any further territorial expansion by Germany.[7][27]
Casado's representatives met with Nationalists at an airport nearBurgos to discuss an armistice.[10]
The United States withdrew its ambassador to Germany over the Nazi seizure of Czechoslovakia.[7]
More than 5,000 works of "Degenerate Art" were allegedly burned in the yard of the Berlin fire station. However, there are no official records of the event (in contrast to theNazi book burnings, which were held in public and well documented), and so little is known about the burning that it is not even certain whether it actually took place.[30]
The jury in the firstPhiladelphia poison ring trial returned a verdict of guilty and recommended the death penalty for Herman Petrillo. The sheer number of charges in the case meant that the trials of the other defendants would take another year to complete.[22]
Between 5 and 7 a.m. German troops crossed into Memel. 31 ships of the German fleet arrived at the port at 10:20 a.m. Aboard theDeutschland, Hitler signed the decree formally turning the Territory over to Germany.[34]
Hungarian troops marched into the Slovak Republic.[7]
Italy gaveAlbania an ultimatum demanding that a protectorate be established over the country and Italian troops be stationed within Albanian borders.[38]
Born:Toni Cade Bambara, author, filmmaker and activist, in New York City (d. 1995)
^abcdefCortada, James W., ed. (1982).Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 513–514.ISBN0-313-22054-9.
^Ator, Joseph (March 7, 1939). "Reds, Nazis and Fascists Barred from Auto Union".Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 3.
^Brewer, Sam (March 9, 1939). "Franco's Fleet Blockades All Loyalist Ports".Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 1.
^Polmar, Norman; Allen, Thomas B. (2012).World War II: the Encyclopedia of the War Years, 1941–1945. Dover Publications. p. 703.ISBN978-0-486-47962-0.
^Hanson, Patricia King, ed. (1993).The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Feature Films, 1931–1940. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 2476.ISBN0-520-07908-6.
^Berend, Tibor Iván (1998).Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe Before World War II. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. pp. 326–327.ISBN978-0-520-20617-5.
