Adolf Hitler abolishes the War Ministry and creates theOberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces), giving him direct control of the German military. In addition, he dismisses political and military leaders considered unsympathetic to his philosophy or policies. GeneralWerner von Fritsch is forced to resign as Commander of Chief of the German Army following accusations of homosexuality, and replaced by GeneralWalther von Brauchitsch. Foreign Minister BaronKonstantin von Neurath is dismissed, and replaced byJoachim von Ribbentrop.
Walt Disney'sSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the firstcel-animated feature in motion picture history, is released in the United States, following a premiere on December 21 of the previous year.
TheSanta Ana River inCalifornia, United States, spills over its banks during a rainy winter, killing 58 people in Orange County, and causing trouble as far inland as Palm Springs.[8]
SirNevile Henderson, British Ambassador to Germany, presents a proposal to Hitler for an international consortium to rule much of Africa (in which Germany would be assigned a leading role), in exchange for a German promise never to resort to war to change her frontiers; Hitler rejects the British offer.
March 12 –Anschluss: German troops occupy Austria; annexation is declared the following day.
March 14 – French PremierLéon Blum reassures the Czechoslovak government that France will honor its treaty obligations to aidCzechoslovakia, in the event of a German invasion.
March 27 – Italian mathematicianEttore Majorana disappears suddenly under mysterious circumstances, while travelling by ship fromPalermo toNaples.
March 28 – At a meeting with Hitler in Berlin,Konrad Henlein is instructed to make increasing demands concerning the status of theSudetenland, but to avoid reaching an agreement with Czechoslovak authorities.
Édouard Daladier becomes prime minister of France. He appoints as Foreign Minister a leading advocate of the policy ofappeasement,Georges Bonnet, effectively negating Blum's reassurances of March 14.
In a result that astonishes even Hitler, the Austrian electorate in a national referendum approvesAnschluss by an overwhelming 99.73%.
April 16 – The UK and Italy sign an agreement that sees Britain recognise Italian control of Ethiopia (formally on November 16), in return for an Italian pledge to withdraw all its 10,000 troops from Spain, at the conclusion of the civil war there.
April 18 –Superman first appears inAction Comics #1 (cover date June). The date is established in court documents released during the legal battle over the rights to Superman (on April 18, 2018, DC Comics releasedAction Comics #1000).
GeneralLudwig Beck, Chief of the German Army's General Staff, submits a memorandum to Hitler opposingFall Grün (Case Green), the plan for a war with Czechoslovakia, under the grounds that Germany is ill-prepared for the world war likely to result from such an attack.
May 12 – U.S. Secretary of StateCordell Hull rejects the Soviet Union's offer of a joint defence pact, to counter the rise of Nazi Germany.
May 23 – No evidence of German troop movements againstCzechoslovakia is found, and theMay Crisis subsides.Germany is, nevertheless, perceived to have backed down in the face of Czechoslovak mobilization and international diplomatic unity, but the issue of the future of theSudetenland is far from resolved.
TheSoviet ambassador to the United States, A. A. Troyanovsky, declares Moscow ready to defendCzechoslovakia.
May 28 – In a conference at theReich Chancellery,Hitler declares his decision to destroyCzechoslovakia by military force, and orders the immediate mobilization of 96 Wehrmacht divisions.
May 30 –Hitler issues a revised directive forFall Grün ("Case Green") – the invasion ofCzechoslovakia – to be carried out by October 1, 1938.
June 5 &7 – The1938 Yellow River flood is created by theNationalist government in centralChina, breaching embankments during the early stage of theSecond Sino-Japanese War, in an attempt to halt the rapid advance of Japanese forces. The flood kills at least 400,000, covers and destroys thousands of square kilometers of farmland, and shifts the mouth of theYellow River hundreds of kilometers to the south.
July 5 – TheNon-Intervention Committee reaches an agreement to withdraw all foreign volunteers from theSpanish Civil War. The agreement is respected by most RepublicanInternational Brigades, notably those from England and the United States, but is ignored by the governments of Germany and Italy.
July 6 – TheEvian Conference on Refugees is convened in France. No country in Europe is prepared to accept Jews fleeing persecution, and the United States will take only 27,370.
July 18 –Wrong Way Corrigan takes off from New York, ostensibly heading for California. He lands in Ireland instead.
July 22 – Britain rejects a proposal from its ambassador in Berlin,Nevile Henderson, for a four-power summit on Czechoslovakia consisting of Britain, France, Germany and the U.S.S.R., as London will under no circumstances accept the U.S.S.R. as a diplomatic partner.
July 24 – The north face of theEiger in the Alps is first ascended.
August 10 – At a secret summit with his leading generals, Hitler attacks General Beck's arguments againstFall Grün, winning the majority of his senior officers over to his point of view.
August 18 – Colonel GeneralLudwig Beck, convinced that Hitler's decision to attackCzechoslovakia will lead to a general European war, resigns his position as Chief of the Army General Staff in protest.
August 23 – Hitler, hosting a dinner on board the ocean linerPatria inKiel Bay, tells the Regent of Hungary,Admiral Horthy, that action against Czechoslovakia is imminent and that "he who wants to sit at the table must at least help in the kitchen", a reference to Horthy's designs onCarpathian Ruthenia.
September 6 – What eventually proves to be the last of the "Nuremberg Rallies" begins. It draws worldwide attention because it is widely assumed thatHitler, in his closing remarks, will signal whether there will be peace with or war overCzechoslovakia.
September 12 –Hitler makes his much-anticipated closing address atNuremberg, in which he vehemently attacks theCzech people and PresidentBeneš. American news commentatorHans von Kaltenborn begins his famous marathon of broadcast bulletins over theCBS Radio Network, with a summation of Hitler's address.
September 13 – The followers ofKonrad Henlein begin an armed revolt against the Czechoslovak government inSudetenland. Martial law is declared and after much bloodshed on both sides order is temporarily restored.Neville Chamberlain personally sends a telegram toHitler, urgently requesting that they both meet.
September 17 –Neville Chamberlain returns temporarily to London, to confer with his cabinet. The U.S.S.R.Red Army masses along the Ukrainian frontier. Rumania agrees to allow Soviet soldiers free passage across her territory to defend Czechoslovakia.
During a meeting betweenNeville Chamberlain, the recently elected Premier of France,Édouard Daladier, and Daladier's Foreign Minister,Georges Bonnet, it becomes apparent that neither the British nor the French governments are prepared to go to war over theSudetenland. TheSoviet Union declares it will come to the defence of Czechoslovakia only if France honours her commitment to defend Czechoslovak independence.
Mussolini makes a speech in Trieste, Italy, where he indicates that Italy is supporting Germany in the Sudeten crisis.
In the early hours of the day, representatives of the French and British governments call on Czechoslovak PresidentEdvard Beneš, to tell him France and Britain will not fightHitler if he decides to annex theSudetenland by force. Late in the afternoon, the Czechoslovak government capitulates to the French and British demands.
Following the capitulation of the Czech government to Germany's demands, both Poland and Hungary demand slices of Czech territory where their nationals reside.
The1938 New England hurricane in the United States strikesLong Island and southern New England, killing over 300 along the Rhode Island shoreline and 600 altogether.
Unable to survive the previous day's capitulation to the demands of the British and French governments, Czechoslovak premierMilan Hodža resigns. GeneralJan Syrový takes his place.
Neville Chamberlain arrives in the city ofBad Godesberg, for another round of talks withHitler over theSudetenland crisis. Hitler raises his demands to include occupation of all German Sudeten territories by October 1. That night after a telephone conference, Chamberlain reverses himself and advises the Czechoslovaks to mobilize.[12]
As the Polish army masses along the Czech border, theSoviet Union warns Poland that if it crosses the Czech frontier, Russia will regard the 1932 non-aggression pact between the two countries as void.
SirEric Phipps, British Ambassador to France, reports to London, "all that is best in France is against war, almost at any price", being opposed only by a "small, but noisy and corrupt, war group". Phipps's report creates major doubts about the ability and/or willingness of France to go to war.[14]
At 1:30 AM,Adolf Hitler andNeville Chamberlain conclude their talks on theSudetenland. Chamberlain agrees to take Hitler's demands, codified in theGodesberg Memorandum, personally to the Czech Government. The Czech Government rejects the demands, as does Chamberlain's own cabinet. The French Government also initially rejects the terms and orders a partial mobilization of the French army.
September 26 – In a vitriolic speech at Berlin's Sportpalast, Hitler defies the world and implies war withCzechoslovakia will begin at any time.
September 28 – As his self-imposed October 1 deadline for occupation of theSudetenland approaches,Adolf Hitler invites Italian Duce Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edourd Deladier and British Prime MinisterNeville Chamberlain to one last conference inMunich. The Czechs themselves are not invited.
ColonelGraham Christie, former British military attaché in Berlin, is told byCarl Friedrich Goerdeler that the mobilization of theRoyal Navy has badly damaged the popularity of the Nazi regime, as the German public realizes thatFall Grün is likely to cause a world war.
Munich Agreement: German, Italian, British and French leaders agree to German demands regarding annexation of theSudetenland inCzechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak government is largely excluded from the negotiations, and is not a signatory to the agreement.
October 1 – German troops march into theSudetenland. The Polish government gives the Czech government an ultimatum, stating thatTrans-Olza region must be handed over within twenty-four hours. The Czechs have little choice but to comply; Polish forces occupy Trans-Olza.
Nuremberg Laws: In Nazi Germany, Jews' passports are invalidated, and those who need a passport for emigration purposes are given one marked with the letter J ("Jude" – "Jew").[16]
October 16 –Winston Churchill, in a broadcast address to the United States, condemns theMunich Agreement as a defeat, and calls upon America and western Europe to prepare for armed resistance against Hitler.
October 18 – The German government expels 12,000 Polish Jews living in Germany; the Polish government accepts 4,000 and refuses admittance to the remaining 8,000, who are forced to live in the no-man's land on the German-Polish frontier.
October 21 – In direct contravention of the recently signedMunich Agreement,Adolf Hitler circulates among his high command a secret memorandum stating that they should prepare for the "liquidation of the rest ofCzechoslovakia" and the occupation ofMemel.
November 9 –Holocaust –Kristallnacht: In Germany, the "night of broken glass" begins asNazi activists and sympathizers loot and burn Jewish businesses (the all night affair sees 7,500 Jewish businesses destroyed, 267synagogues burned, 91 Jews killed and at least 25,000 Jewish men arrested).[17] One of several significant events on9 November in German history.
Celâl Bayar forms the new government ofTurkey (10th government; Celal Bayar had served twice as a prime minister).
November 12 – French Finance MinisterPaul Reynaud brings into effect a series of laws aiming at improving French productivity (thus aiming to undo the economic weaknesses which led to Munich), and undoes most of the economic and social laws of the Popular Front.
November 25 – French Foreign MinisterGeorges Bonnet informsLéon Noël, the French Ambassador to Poland, that France should find an excuse for terminating the 1921 Franco-Polish alliance.
The Czechoslovak parliament electsEmil Hácha as the new president of Czechoslovakia.
Benito Mussolini and his Foreign Minister, CountGaleazzo Ciano, order "spontaneous" demonstrations in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, demanding that France cede Tunisia, Nice, Corsica and French Somaliland to Italy. This begins an acute crisis in Franco-Italian relations, that lasts untilMarch1939.
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, leader of the Romanian fascistIron Guard, is murdered on the orders of KingCarol II of Romania. Officially, Codreanu and the 13 other Iron Guard leaders are "shot while trying to escape".
A general strike is called in France by theFrench Communist Party, to protest the laws of November 12.
December 1 – Slovakia is granted the status of an autonomous state, under Catholic priest Fr. Joseph Tiso.
December 6 – German Foreign MinisterJoachim von Ribbentrop visits Paris, where he is allegedly informed by French Foreign MinisterGeorges Bonnet that France now recognizes all of Eastern Europe as being in Germany's exclusive sphere of influence. Bonnet's alleged statement (he subsequently always denies making the remark) to Ribbentrop is a major factor in German policy in 1939.
^""Bondi's Black Sunday""(PDF). Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 27 September 2011.(113 KB), Waverley Library Local History. Retrieved 27 September 2010.
^Emizet Francois Kisangani; Scott F Bobb (2010).Historical Dictionary of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Scarecrow Press. p. 398.ISBN9780810863255.
^"75763".Davenport University Libraries.Archived from the original on Dec 17, 2024. RetrievedOctober 11, 2024.
^Andrews, William L.; Foster, Frances Smith; Harris, Trudier, eds. (1997).The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 404 ff.
^Nick Carey (12 January 2000)."Karel Čapek". Český rozhlas.Archived from the original on 6 April 2017. Retrieved12 September 2024.
^Izvestia, 8 January 1991. Reproduced according to ed. – Osip Mandelstam and his time: Sat. memories. – Publisher L'Age d'Homme – Nash Dom, 1995 480 p. – p. 402.[1]
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