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1931   (SUNDAY)

INTERNATIONAL: Focusing on the international financial crisis, a number of nations agree to a one year truce on armaments expansion.

JAPAN: Television images are transmitted by radio station JOAK in Tokyo. The images comprise 80 scanning lines at a rate of 20 frames per second.

 

1933   (WEDNESDAY)

UNITED STATES: Secretary of State Cordell Hull tells German Ambassador to the U.S. Hans Luther that a general war is probable in the next two to ten years stating ". . . the outlook in Europe at this distance for disarmament or for peace do not appear very encouraging. . . ."

 

1934   (THURSDAY)

UNITED STATES: The U.S. Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is authorized to manufacture and test a flush-deck hydraulic catapult, Type H Mark I. This catapult is designed to launch landplanes from aircraft carriers and is the Navy's initial development of a hydraulic catapult.

 

1935   (FRIDAY)

GERMANY: The Government announces that the Nuremberg Laws apply to all Jews, German or foreign, without exception. As a result, the citizenship of all German Jews is officially revoked.

 

1936   (SUNDAY)

ITALY: The term "Axis" is first coined by Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini in a speech he gives in Milan. In this speech, he refers to the Rome/Berlin alliance as a Axis in which all European countries will revolve around.

 

1938   (TUESDAY)

EASTERN EUROPE: The Czech-Polish settlement adds 419 square miles (1 085 square kilometers) to the territory of Poland.

SWITZERLAND: Japan gives formal notice of withdrawal from the League of Nation's social and technical organs stating that they had been "slandering at every turn Japan's activities in China." UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Balloon Command is formed (commanded by Air Vice-Marshal O T Boyd), deploying some 1,500 barrage balloons by the outbreak of World War II.

UNITED STATES: Secretary of State Cordell Hull makes an urgent appeal for a return to the ways of peace stating, "If the nations continue along this road [to autarchy], . . . they will be marching toward the final catastrophe of a new world war, the horror and destructiveness of which pass human imagination. . . . The program which we advocate offers the only practicable alternative to a drift toward the anarchy of economic warfare, with all its disastrous consequences for the peace and progress of man.'

November 1st, 1939 (WEDNESDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: RAF bomber commands reports: reconnaissance of northwest Germany.

The first HN/ON convoys between the Firth of Forth and Norway sail in November and are covered by the Home Fleet. They are discontinued in April.

NETHERLANDS: The government proclaims a state of siege in frontier areas and flood zones.

FRANCE: U.S. freighters SS Endicott and West Gambo, detained by French authorities since 22 October and portions of their cargo ordered ashore as contraband, are released and clear LeHavre.

GERMANY:  Berlin: Germany formally annexes western Poland, Danzig and the Polish Corridor. This adds the new districts of Posen, Greater East Prussia and Danzig West Prussia to the Reich.

U-50 launched.

POLAND: The western Ukraine is incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

SWITZERLAND: Contingency plans are laid in case of an invasion.

GIBRALTAR: U.S. freighter SS Exminster is detained at Gibraltar by British authorities.

U.S.A.:

Destroyers USS Wilkes and Nicholson laid down.

Destroyer USS Trippe commissioned.

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