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1931   (SATURDAY)

 

MANCHURIA: Mukden and Changchun are bombed and occupied by the Japanese.

 

UNITED STATES: The motion picture "Monkey Business" is released. This comedy directed by Norman Z. McLeod stars Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zepo Marx, and has the four brothers stowing away on a passenger ship and being involuntarily pressed into service as toughs for a pair of feuding gangstersrately to evade the ship's crew. The American Film Institute ranks this film Number 73 on the list of the 100 Funniest American movies.

 

1934   (WEDNESDAY)

 

GERMANY: The Germans again claim equality of rights in the matter of armaments ". . . as a guarantee of peace and in order that we ourselves may be a real factor for peace in Europe." 

 

1938   (MONDAY)

 

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: The Czechs receive the Anglo-French partition proposals.

 

FRANCE: France has to support the British proposals for the partition of Czechoslovakia. Britain had refused to commit herself to definite support of France if she kept her pledge to defend Czechoslovakia, unless the integrity of France were directly menaced.

 

SWITZERLAND: The League of Nations Council invites Japan to sit with the League to settle their dispute with China.

 

U.S.S.R.: The Soviets give an unequivocal pledge of loyalty to the Czechs if French did help and the Soviets warned Poland not to attack Czechoslovakia.

September 19th, 1939 (TUESDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: London: The first wartime episode of 'It's That Man Again' (ITMA), starring Tommy Handley, is broadcast.

The US freighter SS Black Hawk is detained by the British authorities; the US freighter SS Black Eagle, detained for the last week, is allowed to sail.

Corvette HMS Coropsis laid down.

Northern Ireland: Lord Craigavon, Prime Minister, explains that the National Register of persons in Northern Ireland is not for the purposes of conscription, but to 'compile statistics of the population and their occupations, to help members of families separated by evacuation to keep in touch with one another, to assist in the identification of war casualties among civilians, and to facilitate the settlement of claims to wartime allowances.' One Belfast resident returns his identity card on the ground that he was a citizen of Eire and had no right or claim to any other national identity. He adds that the war is a 'mere family quarrel between England and her Fatherland.' When informed that holding the identity card does not imply British citizenship or nationality, he raises no further objections.

FREE CITY OF DANZIG: Hitler swears that Danzig will be German forever and Germany will fight to the bitter end.

Hitler also states that they may "use a weapon which is not yet known and with which we ourselves cannot be attacked." British intelligence personnel begin searching files of the Secret Intelligence Service for clues to the identity of the secret weapon.

POLAND: The Russian and German armies link up at Brest-Litovsk. 

     The Polish naval base of Gdynia falls to German forces.

The Soviet invasion of Poland reaches the Hungarian border and to the north Vilna falls.

CANADA: The cabinet approves a program to construct 110 ships for the war effort. Two types of small warships are approved: Flower-class corvettes, and Bangor-class minesweepers.

Patrol vessel HMCS Signal acquired. 67ft overall, built 1927 by Prince Rupert Drydock Co, Ltd. owned by Jacob Kind Iverson, appraised @ $10,453.00, chartered $240.00, per month, returned to her owner May 1944, Later owned byPaul Pearson of Skidegate, British Columbia.

ICELAND: U-30 put a wounded man ashore in Reykjavík. [Maschinenobergefreiter Schmidt]

 

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