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Spanish Civil War begins
The uprising's timing was fixed at 17 July, at 5:01 p.m.; this was agreed to by the leader of the Carlists, Manuel Fal Conde.However, the timing was changed: the men in Spanish Morocco were to rise up at 5:00 a.m. and those in Spain itself starting exactly a day later, so control of Spanish Morocco could be achieved and forces sent to Iberia from Morocco to coincide with the risings there. -
Berlin Olympic Games.
Hitler saw the Games as an opportunity to promote his government and ideals of racial supremacy, and the official Nazi party paper, the Völkischer Beobachter, wrote in the strongest terms that Jews and Black people should not be allowed to participate in the Games. -
Formation of the Rome-Berlin Axis.
The Axis were the nations that fought in the Second World War against the Allied forces. The Axis promoted the alliance as a part of a revolutionary process aimed at breaking the hegemony of plutocratic-capitalist Western powers and defending civilization from communism. -
Anti-Comiterm Pact (japan and Germany)
"recognizing that the aim of the Communist International, known as the Comintern, is to disintegrate and subdue existing States by all the means at its command; convinced that the toleration of interference by the Communist International in the internal affairs of the nations not only endangers their internal peace and social well‑being, but is also a menace to the peace of the world desirous of co‑operating in the defense against Communist subversive activities" -
China invaded by Japan
On the night of July 7, 1937, Chinese and Japanese troops exchanged fire in the vicinity of the Lugou (or Marco Polo) bridge, a crucial access route to Beijing. What began as confused, sporadic skirmishing soon escalated into a full-scale battle, in which Beijing and its port city of Tianjin fell to Japanese forces. The initial skirmishes at the bridge, known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, is recognized by most historians as the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. -
F.D.R.'s Quarantine Speech
He gave the Quarantine Speech aiming to contain aggressor nations. He proposed that warmongering states be treated as a public health menace and be "quarantined". Meanwhile he secretly stepped up a program to build long-range submarines that could blockade Japan. -
The Nanking Massacre
was a mass murder and war rape that occurred during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanking (Nanjing), the former capital of the Republic of China, on December 13, 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. During this period, hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army. -
Romanian Jews are stripped of their citizenship.
On January 21, 1938, Carol's executive (led by Cuza and Octavian Goga) passed a law aimed at reviewing criteria for citizenship (after it cast allegations that previous cabinets had allowed Ukrainian Jews to obtain it illegally), and requiring all Jews who had received citizenship in 1918-1919 to reapply for it (while providing a very short term in which this could be achieved - 20 days) -
Hitler invaded Austria
On 9 March 1938, in an effort to preserve Austria's independence, Schuschnigg scheduled a plebiscite on the issue of unification for 13 March. To secure a large majority in the referendum, Schuschnigg set the minimum voting age at 24, as he believed younger voters were now supporters of the German Nazi ideology. This was a risk, and the next day it became apparent that Hitler would not simply stand by while Austria declared its independence by public vote. Hitler declared that the referendum wou -
Jews eliminated from the economy in Germany
"Where a Jew is employed in an executive position in a commercial enterprise he may be given notice to leave in six weeks. At the expiration of the term of the notice all claims of the employee based on his contract, especially those concerning pension and compensation rights, become invalid." Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan, Goering, Field Marshal General -
International conference in France
FDR initiated to discuss the Jewish refugees. 32 of the nations decide not to admit large numbers of Jews. Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic want money in return for admitting the displaced. -
France and Britain enact a policy of appeasement
In 1938, Germans living in the border areas of Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland) started to demand a union with Hitler's Germany. The Czechs refused. Hitler threatened war. On 30 September, in the Munich Agreement - without asking Czechoslovakia - Britain and France gave the Sudetenland to Germany. -
Kristallnacht
was a pogrom (a series of coordinated attacks) against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938, carried out by SA paramilitary forces and non-Jewish civilians. German authorities looked on without intervening.At least 91 Jews were killed in the attacks, and 30,000 were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. -
New FDR proposals
For the first time in his annual address to Congress, FDR proposes no domestic reforms but instead stresses the danger posed to democracy and international peace by the forces of aggression. Later in the month, the United States budget shows increased spending on national defense. -
Germany annexes the rest of Czechoslovakia
the German Wehrmacht moved into the remainder of Czechoslovakia and, from Prague Castle, Hitler proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The occupation ended with the surrender of Germany following World War II. -
MS St. Louis
The MS St. Louis was a German ocean liner most notable for a single voyage in 1939, in which her captain, Gustav Schröder, tried to find homes for 937 German Jewish refugees after they were denied entry to Cuba, the United States and Canada, until finally accepted to various countries of Europe. Historians have estimated that, after their return to Europe, approximately a quarter of the ship's passengers died in concentration camps. -
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the Nazi German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, officially the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,and also known as the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact or Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939.
