1917 (WEDNESDAY)
RUSSIA: The Bolshevik Revolution takes place as forces led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overthrow the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky.
1931 (SATURDAY)
CHINA: Chinese Communist Party member Mao Zedong announced the establishment of the Chinese Soviet Republic in Jiangxi (Kiangsi) province.
1936 (SATURDAY)
SPAIN: The so-called International Brigade, composed primarily of Socialists and Communists, arrives in Madrid and a battle for the city begins.
1937 (SUNDAY)
BELGIUM: Nineteen nations, including the U.S., meeting in Brussels to consider "peaceable means" for hastening the end of the conflict between China and Japan invites Japan to confer with a small group on Sino-Japanese differences stating, "Its aims would be to throw further light on the various points referred to above and to facilitate a settlement of the conflict. Regretting the continuation of hostilities, being firmly convinced that a peaceful settlement is alone capable of ensuring a lasting and constructive solution of the present conflict, and having confidence in the efficacy of methods of conciliation, the representatives of the States met at Brussels earnestly desire that such a settlement may be achieved."
1938 (MONDAY)
FRANCE: Ernst von Rath, Third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris, is shot by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Jewish youth who was an illegal immigrant in France. His Polish Jewish family were ordered to be deported from Germany to Poland but the Poles would not accept them. Rath dies on 9 November and his body is returned to Berlin for burial. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels gives the appropriate Nazi Party functionaries a directive to organize "spontaneous demonstrations." In the directive the procedures to be followed were already laid out in detail. The outrages should be carried on until 0500 hours. These "spontaneous demonstrations" are to be carried out during the night of 9/10 November and are known as Reichskristallnacht ("Night of Crystal"). This is not the first assassination of a German official by a Jew. Gauleiter Wilhelm Gustloff, leader of the German Nazis in Switzerland, had been assassinated on 30 January 1936 by David Frankfurter, a young Yugoslav
Jew. Frankfurter put five rounds in his head. Gustloff became an instant Martyr and was used as an excuse for anti-Semitic excesses.
November 7th, 1939 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: London: A spy, Paul Thummel, passes details of the planned German western offensive to the Czech government in exile.HM Trawler Wastwater commissioned.
BELGIUM AND NETHERLANDS: The two countries offer their good offices "At this hour of anxiety for the whole world, before the war breaks out on the Western Front in all its violence, we have the conviction that it is our duty once again to raise our voice."
GERMANY: The western attack planned for 12 November is postponed due to bad weather.
The U.S. Naval Attach
é) in Berlin is informed by an official of the German Navy Ministry that it has been "definitely established that no German U-boat had torpedoed the Athenia." The British passenger liner was sunk by German submarine U-30 on 3 September 1939 killing 118 crew and passengers, including 28 U.S. citizens. The German Navy considers the incident "closed as far as the Navy is concerned" and possesses only "an academic interest in how the ship was sunk."POLAND: Warsaw: The edict ordering the city's Jews into a ghetto is withdrawn.