1929 (SUNDAY)
GERMANY: Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), appoints Heinrich Himmler to replace Erhard Heiden as head of the Schutzstaffel (defence squadron or SS). The organization has about 280 members and there is an independent SS leader, Kurt Deluege, in Berlin.
1931 (TUESDAY)
BRAZIL: The Italian Minister of Aviation, General Italo Balbo, leads the first formation flight across the South Atlantic. Twelve Savoia-Marchetti S.55 twin engine, double-hulled flying boats fly from Portuguese Guinea to Brazil. The aircraft left Orbetello, Italy, on 17 December 1930 and will terminate the flight at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 15 January.
1933 (FRIDAY)
U.S.A.: Secretary of State Henry Stimson asks President Herbert Hoover to request legislation from Congress permitting the President to limit or forbid shipment of arms and munitions of war to any foreign state when such shipment would promote or encourage use of force in a conflict or dispute between nations. Stimson states, "There are times when the hands of the executive in negotiations for the orderly settlement of international differences would be greatly strengthened if he were in a position, in cooperation with other producing nations, to control the shipment of arms. The United States should never, in justice to its own convictions and its own dignity, be placed in such a position that it could not join in preventing the, supply of arms or munitions for the furtherance of an international conflict while exercising its influence and prestige to prevent or bring to an end such a conflict. . . . The day is gone when the spread of a conflagration is easily confine d to any continent or hemisphere. The taking by the United States of this additional step in its domestic policy will tend to give encouragement and momentum to the struggle for world peace and against the use of force from which arise some of the most critical problems of this unsettled period in international relationships."
1937 (WEDNESDAY)
U.S.A.: The U.S. Neutrality Acts of 1935 and 1936 applied to wars between nations and did not extend to civil wars. As a result, the Congress passes a joint resolution forbidding the export of munitions to both the Nationalist and Republican forces in Spain. Under this act, the Roosevelt administration embargoes arms sales to both sides, a policy which undermined the Loyalist war effort (the Nationalists received large quantities of munitions from the Italians and the Germans).
January 6th, 1939 (FRIDAY)
GERMANY: Munich: German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop meets with Polish Foreign Minister Josef Beck to discuss the differences between the two countries. Von Ribbentrop proposes "the return of Danzig to Germany. In return, all of Poland's economic interests in this region would be guaranteed, and most generously at that. Germany would be given access to her province of East Prussia by means of an extraterritorial highway and rail line. In return, Germany would guarantee the Corridor and the entire Polish status, in other words, a final and permanent recognition of each nation's borders."
Josef Beck replied: "For the first time I am pessimistic... Particularly in the matter of Danzig I see 'no possibility of cooperation.'" (98) See also
JAPAN: Baron HIRANUMA Kiichiro becomes Prime Minister after Prince KONOYE Fumimaro resigned on 4 January. He resigns in August 1939 after the Russo-German pact is signed.
U.S.A.: New York: Blue Note Jazz record label is founded with 50 pressing of the Boogie Woogie Stomp, by Alfred Lion and Mead Lux Lewis.