December 29
1860 Naval: To counter the French Navy's La Gloire, the world's first ironclad warship, the British Royal Navy launches the world's first iron-hulled armoured battleship, HMS Warrior .
1911 Sun Yat-sen is elected as the provisional President of the Republic of China by representatives from provinces in Nanjing.
1913 Adolf Hitler: The Austrian Police request that the Munich Police inform them of his whereabouts, Hitler having failed to register for the Austrian draft while frequently changing dwellings in Vienna.
1914 World War I: Belgium: The production of newspapers is halted to protest against German censorship.
1915 Various:
From Talaat Pasha's Alleged Official Orders Regarding the Armenian Massacres: 
We are informed that foreign officers are finding along the roads the corpses of the indicated persons, and are photographing them. Have these corpses buried at once and do not allow them to be left near the roads. This order is recommended as very important.
French government gives land for British war cemeteries:
On this day in 1915, the French National Assembly passes a law formally ceding the land that holds the British war cemeteries to Great Britain. The move ensured even as the war was being fought that its saddest and most sacred monuments would be forever protected.
The law stated that the land was "the free gift of the French people for a perpetual resting place of those who are laid there." By the end of the war, it would apply to more than 1,200 cemeteries along the Western Front, the majority located near the battlefields in the Somme, Nord, and Pas-de-Calais regions. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, established in 1917 by a British royal charter, supervised the construction of the cemeteries and their monuments, which were designed by some of the most prominent British architects of the day. The last monument was put in place in 1938.
The French office of the commission is charged with the maintenance of these cemeteries; between 400 and 500 members of its staff tend the graves and the surrounding horticulture. In addition to the cemeteries, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission also tends to the numerous monuments that exist on the Western Front to commemorate the missing. One of the largest of these stands at Thiepval, on the Somme battlefield, and bears the names of 73,357 British and South African soldiers and officers who died there between July 1915 and March 1918 and whose final resting place is not known. (History.com)
1916 Stanislaus de Lazovert on the Assassination of Rasputin:
The shot that ended the career of the blackest devil in Russian history was fired by my close and beloved friend, Vladimir Purishkevich, Reactionary Deputy of the Duma. Five of us had been arranging for this event for many months. On the night of the killing, after all details had been arranged, I drove to the Imperial Palace in an automobile and persuaded this black devil to accompany me to the home of Prince Yusupov, in Petrograd. Later that night M. Purishkevich followed him into the gardens.
1920 Yugoslavia: The communist party is banned.
1926 Weimar: Germany and Italy sign an arbitration treaty.
1933 Nazi Germany: Hohnstein (Sachsen) concentration camp is opened.
1939 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is published by Spanish Falangists as a prelude to a New Year's denunciation of Jews and Freemasons by Franco.
[Note: Franco did not have a consistent attitude towards the Jews. In the Congressional Record of January 24, 1950, Rep. Abraham Multer quotes a spokesman for the Joint Distribution Committee: During the height of Hitler's blood baths, upwards of 60,000 Jews had been saved by the generosity of Spanish authorities.
1940 World War II: Various:
On the evening of December 29, 1940, London suffers its most devastating air raid when Germans firebomb the city. Hundreds of fires caused by the exploding bombs engulfed areas of London, but firefighters showed a valiant indifference to the bombs falling around them and saved much of the city from destruction. The next day, a newspaper photo of St. Paul's Cathedral standing undamaged amid the smoke and flames seemed to symbolize the capital's unconquerable spirit during the Battle of Britain.
[Note: Eight Wren churches and the Guildhall are destroyed.]Fireside chat: FDR proclaims the United States to be the "arsenal of democracy."
The Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own country, but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world. It was only three weeks ago their leader stated this: "There are two worlds that stand opposed to each other." And then in defiant reply to his opponents, he said this: "Others are correct when they say: With this world we cannot ever reconcile ourselves . . . . I can beat any other power in the world." So said the leader of the Nazis. In other words, the Axis not merely admits but the Axis proclaims that there can be no ultimate peace between their philosophy of government and our philosophy of government. In view of the nature of this undeniable threat, it can be asserted, properly and categorically, that the United States has no right or reason to encourage talk of peace, until the day shall come when there is a clear intention on the part of the aggressor nations to abandon all thought of dominating or conquering the world.
1941 Holocaust:
German soldiers returning from the Eastern Front begin telling 'horrible stories' about the fate of deported German Jews who had been shot by mobile killing detachments near Riga and at Minsk. (THP)
[Note: Strangely enough, these horrible stories never reached the ears of the Nuremberg Defendants until they were arraigned.]1944 World War II: Various:
Hungary:
Greece: Prime Minister Papandreou announces he will resign as soon as a new regent is chosen.
Churchill to FDR:
Ambassador Winant has sent me a copy of your message to the Greek King. We are all very much obliged to you for acting so promptly . . . . The War Cabinet have endorsed all our actions, and have authorized the King of Greece tonight to appoint the Archbishop as Regent.
1956 Cold War: United States prepares new strategic plan for Middle East:
Just days before an official announcement is to be issued by the Eisenhower administration, The New York Times leaks the news that the United States is preparing a major policy statement on the Middle East. In the wake of heightened tensions in the area caused by the French-British-Israeli invasion of Egypt in November, the announcement was greeted with caution both at home and abroad. [For further information, click here]
1998 Cambodia: Khmer Rouge leaders apologized for the 1970s genocide that claimed 1 million lives.
Edited by Levi Bookin (Copy editor) Click to join 3rdReichStudies
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