1884 (SUNDAY)
JAPAN: TOJO Hideki is born in Tokyo. The son of a Japanese Army Lieutenant General. TOJO graduated from the Japanese military academy in 1905 and was appointed War Minister in 1940. He later served as the 40th Prime Minister of Japan 18 October 1941 to 22 July 1944.
1922 (SATURDAY)
U.S.S.R.: In post-revolutionary Russia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is established, comprising a confederation of Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasian Federation (divided in 1936 into the Georgian, Azerbaijan, and Armenian republics). Also known as the Soviet Union, the new communist state is the successor to the Russian Empire and the first country in the world to be based on Marxist socialism. Joseph Stain is the General Secretary of the Central Committee, Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin is the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R. and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is the Chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars.
1933 (SATURDAY)
U.S.A: The temperature reaches 50 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (-46 degrees Centigrade) at Bloomfield, Vermont. It is the coldest reading in modern records for New England. The temperature at Pittsburgh, New Hampshire, reaches 44 degrees Fahrenheit below zero (-42 degrees Centigrade).
1934 (SUNDAY)
ITALY: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini issues orders for the full conquest of Ethiopia.
December 30th, 1939 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Corvette HMS Marguerite laid down.
U.S.S.R.: The Soviet leadership decides to re-evaluate the war-effort against Finland. All attacks are to cease for the time.
FINLAND: The Soviet leadership decides to re-evaluate the war-effort against Finland. All attacks are to cease for the time.ITALY: Count Galeazzo Ciano, Italian Foreign Minister, tells Belgian Princess Marie-José to warn her brother King Leopold that German Chancellor Adolf Hitler would soon invade Belgium.
FRENCH INDOCHINA: Hanoi: A breakaway group of Chinese Nationalists led by the Kuomintang's ex foreign minister, Wang Chingwei, appears to have finalised agreement with Japan to set up a rival Nationalist government under Japanese protection. The Tokyo educated Wang Chingwei, once Chiang Kai-shek's main rival for the Kuomintang leadership, fled to Hanoi a year ago to start a peace movement in response to Japan's call for a "new order in Asia". Since the loss of Wuhan he has become convinced that the war against Japan was unwinnable.
URUGUAY: The government gives German freighter SS Tacoma 24 hours to leave the port of Montevideo, deeming the ship an auxiliary war vessel since she has assisted various manoeuvres of armoured ship Admiral Graf Spee and embarked her crew when that warship was scuttled.
U.S.A.: An order for ten modified North American NA-50A fighters is received from the government of Siam. (Craig Paffhausen)