1922 Griffith elected president of Irish Free State:

Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Fein and one of the architects of the 1921 peace treaty with Britain, is elected president of the newly established Irish Free State.

In 1905, Griffith founded Sinn Fein, a political party dedicated to independence for all of Ireland. From its inception, the party became the unofficial political wing of militant Irish groups in their struggle to throw off British rule. In 1911, the British Liberal government approved negotiations for Irish Home Rule, but the Conservative Party opposition in Parliament, combined with Ireland's anti-Home Rule factions, defeated the plans.

With the outbreak of World War I, the British government delayed further discussion of Irish self-determination, and Irish nationalists responded by staging Dublin's Easter Uprising of 1916. Though Griffith played no direct part in the rebellion, he was imprisoned along with other nationalist leaders. In 1918, with the threat of conscription being imposed on the island, the Irish people gave Sinn Fein a majority in national elections, and the party established an independent Irish Parliament—Dail Eireann—which declared Ireland a sovereign republic.

In 1919, the Irish Volunteers, a prototype of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), launched a widespread and effective guerrilla campaign against British forces. During this time, Griffith acted as head of the Irish Republic and led civil disobedience efforts. In 1921, a cease-fire was declared, and in 1922 Arthur Griffith and a faction of former Sinn Fein leaders signed a historic treaty with Britain, calling for the partition of Ireland, with the south becoming autonomous and the six northern counties of the island remaining in the United Kingdom.

Griffith was subsequently elected the first president of the new country but died in the same year just as civil war broke out in Ireland over the partition. The cause of death was ruled overwork.

[Note: The Irish Republic was neutral in World War II, although it was bombed by Germany on a couple of occasions along with (British) Ulster.]

1923 U.S. troops depart Germany:

Four years after the end of World War I, President Warren G. Harding orders U.S. occupation troops stationed in Germany to return home.

In 1917, after several years of bloody stalemate along the western front, the entrance of America's well-supplied forces into World War I was a major turning point in the conflict. When the war ended in November 1918, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and more than 50,000 of them had lost their lives.

As part of the Treaty of Versailles, signed the next year, U.S. troops, along with other Allied forces, were to occupy the defeated Central Powers nations to enforce the terms of the peace agreement. In Germany, Allied occupation and stiff war reparations levied against the country were regarded with increasing bitterness, and in 1923, after four years of contending with a resentful German populace, the American troops were ordered home. (History.com)

1928 Leon Trotsky: exile ordered by the Soviet Union.

1933 Weimar: Franz von Papen and Adolf Hitler have their second meeting, this time in Ribbentrop's home in Dahlem, a suburb of Berlin. Hitler is furious when Papen tells him that Hindenburg is still opposed to a Hitler Chancellorship and breaks off the discussions to await the outcome of the January 15 elections in the tiny state of Lippe-Detmold. Hitler hopes that a strong showing in this election will bolster his position.

1934 Death: Marinus Van der Lubbe: beheaded by guillotine in Leipzig for setting the Reichstag on fire:

A watershed event in the formation of the Nazi dictatorship, the Reichstag fire, days before a parliamentary election, enabled Hitler to stampede voters, suspend civil liberties, suppress left-wing parties on grounds of a suspected Communist plot, and seize 'emergency' powers he would never relinquish.

Van der Lubbe, who was arrested on the scene, suffered the predictable fate. Four other Communists charged as accomplices were acquitted, in a trial with the gratifying spectacle of Hermann Goering personally testifying, and being undressed on cross-examination by one of the reds. One is reminded here that Hitler did not yet have everything in the state apparatus at his beck and call . . . . although he did have a great deal already, inasmuch as the arson law under which Van der Lubbe died was passed after the Reichstag fire and made retroactive.

If the big-picture outcome of the Reichstag fire is pretty clear-cut, its real origin and the corresponding [correctness] of the judicial verdicts have remained [questionable] ever since . . . 

Van der Lubbe confessed, so his participation is generally taken as a given. Whether he was really able to start the blaze acting alone, as he insisted, and the Nazis 'only' exploited this fortuitous calamity; whether he was part of a larger leftist plot, as his prosecutors claimed; or whether, as Shirer and many others since have viewed him, he was a patsy in a false flag operation set up by the Nazis with an eye towards creating a politically advantageous national emergency—these possibilities remain very much up for debate.

1934 Netherlands: The government announces that all government employees belonging to the Nazi Party will be fired immediately.

1937 Antisemitism: The Polish government dissolves the Warsaw Jewish Kehilla.

1939 Diplomacy: Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax arrive in Rome to meet with Mussolini.

1940 World War II: Various:

Oops!: The BIG DAY for the German attack on France is set for January 17, but things are not going all that well for Hermann Goering, head of the German Luftwaffe, who is 'beside himself' with rage. One of his own officers, detailed to deliver the secret war plans to a parachute division in Cologne, gets drunk and misses his train. Disregarding security procedures, the hung-over officer hitches a ride on a light plane, which promptly gets lost and is forced to make a landing in, of all places, Belgium; the main invasion route. The derelict officer reports through the German Legation, that he had succeeded in burning the plans "to insignificant fragments, the size of the palm of a hand" before Belgian soldiers interrupted him. But now Goering has a real problem. He must be certain that the enemy doesn't have these vital plans. He experiments with burning a packet of papers similar to those in question, but only burns his hand in the process. He even consults a psychic, who assures him that the plans are completely destroyed.

Unfortunately for Goering, a Brussels newspaper soon publishes the story that a Belgian officer has recovered the plans virtually intact. The Belgian authorities pass on details of the German invasion to the British and French. Hitler is forced to postpone the invasion, but he is less upset than he would have been if he'd actually been confident in the war plan. He felt it was too conservative and obvious, even without copies being in enemy hands. He will use this alleged violation of neutrality by Belgium to justify the invasion of that country in May, while using the time between to subtly alter the invasion plans, setting his enemies up for annihilation. [See: Was Hitler 'Forced' Into the War?]

German planes attack 12 ships off the British coast; three sink and 35 are dead. [See: Why Did Hitler Lose The Battle of Britain?]

1941 World War II: Various:

The Lend-Lease Bill is introduced to the US Congress, where it encounters considerable opposition. Former ambassador to Great Britain Joseph Kennedy, and Aviator Charles Lindbergh are vocal opponents.

The legislation gave President Franklin D. Roosevelt the powers to sell, transfer, exchange, lend equipment to any country to help it defend itself against the Axis powers. A sum of $50 billion was appropriated by Congress for Lend-Lease. The money went to 38 different countries with Britain receiving over $31 billion.

USSR and Germany agree on the East European borders and the exchange of industrial equipment. [See: Worst Dictator of Modern Times: Hitler or Stalin?]

1942 Various:

World War II: The Jeep: The Ford Motor Company signs a contract to make Jeeps, the new general-purpose military vehicles desperately needed by American forces.

Holocaust: German Jews are ordered to turn in all of their wool and fur clothing.

1943 World War II: Various:

From a memorandum by Raeder:

The Importance of German Surface Forces for Conducting the War by the Powers Signatory to the Three Power Pact . . . . it was planned by the leaders of the National Socialist Reich to give the German Navy by 1944-45 such a strength that it would be possible to strike at the British vital arteries in the Atlantic with sufficient ships, fighting power, and range . . . . In 1939, the war having begun 5 years earlier, the construction of these forces was still in its initial stages,"

Stalingrad: The Red Army launches an offensive aimed at reducing the Stalingrad pocket. The Soviet 62nd and 64th Armies to the east and southeast are notably under-strength. The main forces engaged in the offensive are the Soviet 65th and 22nd Armies to the west. Forces of the German 6th Army are forced to retreat. [See: Campaign in Russia.]

1944 The first mobile electric power plant in the US is delivered by the General Electric Company to the U.S. Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks, Navy Yard, Philadelphia, Pa. It was built within six specially designed railway cars. Oil-fired boilers powered a steam-turbine generating plant, accompanied by the switchgear and transformer apparatus. The unit could be hauled at speeds up to 40 mph to a new destination where it could be set up within 24 hours, with a capability of generating 10,00 kilowatts of electric power.

1945 Various:

World War II: Ardennes: US First and Third Armies continue to advance. [See: The Last Days of the Third Reich.]

Churchill to FDR:

Eden has particularly asked me to suggest that Stettinius might come on forty-eight hours earlier to Malta with the United States Chiefs of Staff, so that he (Eden) can run over the agenda with him beforehand. Even though Molotov were not invited, I am sure this would be found very useful. I do not see any other way of realizing our hopes about a World Organization in five or six days. Even the Almighty took seven. Pray forgive my pertinacity.

1946 Various:

First meeting of the United Nations:

The first General Assembly of the United Nations, comprising 51 nations, convenes at Westminster Central Hall in London, England. One week later, the U.N. Security Council met for the first time and established its rules of procedure. Then, on January 24, the General Assembly adopted its first resolution, a measure calling for the peaceful uses of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction.

In 1944, at the Dumbarton Oaks conference in Washington, D.C., the groundwork was laid by Allied delegates for an international postwar organization to maintain peace and security in the postwar world. The organization was to possess considerably more authority over its members than the defunct League of Nations, which had failed in its attempts to prevent the outbreak of World War II. In April 1945, with celebrations of victory in Europe about to commence, delegates from 51 nations convened in San Francisco to draft the United Nations Charter. On June 26, the document was signed by the delegates, and on October 24 it was formally ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatories. (History.com)

Nuremberg Tribunal: Thirty-First Day

Continuation of the Case Against Rosenberg;

Presentation of the Case against Frank;

Presentation of the Case Against Streicher;

Beginning of the Case Against Schacht.

 


 







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