Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek agreed to peace with Japan on the conditions that had been proposed by the German Ambassador to China, Oskar Trautmann on November 5. By then, however, Japan, which had warned that it would only allow a limited time to join in the proposed settlement terms, declined Chiang's offer.[12] On December 7, when German Ambassador Herbert von Dirksen told Japan's Foreign Minister Kōki Hirota about Chiang's willingness to make peace, provided that China would not lose any more territory, Japan rejected the chance to keep Shanghai and other territories.[13]
The German stop motion film Die 7 Raben (The Seven Ravens), one of the first animated feature films, premiered in Germany after being released by the Puppentrickfilm studios.[17] Based on the fairy tale of the same name by the Brothers Grimm, the film came to cinemas less than three weeks before Disney's film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released.
Bobby Allison, American NASCAR stock car driver and team owner, winner of the Daytona 500 in 1978, 1982 and 1988, inductee to the NASCAR Hall of Fame; in Miami (d. 2024)[24]
Nazi Germany tested its third rocket design, the Aggregat 3 as part of "Operation Lighthouse" supervised by designers Wernher von Braun and Walter Dornberger, launching from the Baltic Sea island of Usedom near Peenemünde. Soon after takeoff, the Aggregat 3 rocket's parachute deployed prematurely and its engine failed, and the rocket crashed, and the second test on December 6 failed as well.[26]
The children's comic book The Dandy, which would run for 75 years before going out of print[27] was first published in the United Kingdom, marking the first appearance of the character of Desperate Dan.[28]
Writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster signed an employment contract with Detective Comics, Inc. (now "DC"), at a pay rate of $10 per page, where they would soon bring their creation, "Superman", to print. Three months later, on March 1, 1938, they would release their rights to DC for one of the most successful fictional characters in history.[29]
In Baku, capital of the Azerbaijani SSR of the Soviet Union, Shakespearean actor Abbas Mirza Sharifzadeh was arrested by secret police after returning home from his final performance, a production of the play Macbeth. Sharifzadeh was one of many artists caught in the Great Purge throughout the Soviet Union, and was accused of espionage. He would be executed eleven months later on November 16, 1938, at a prison in Baku.[30]
Valentin Kuptsov, Soviet Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Russian SFSR Communist Party before the dissolution of the Soviet Union; in Mindyukino
Elín Briem, 81, Icelandic writer and teacher known for her popular book Kvennafræðarinn (The Women's Teacher) as a guide to housekeeping and cooking[34]
ベルギー労働総同盟(フラマン語: Belgisch Vakverbond、フランス語: Confédération Générale du Travail de Belgique )は、12万1000人の組合員を擁する総合労働組合(建設・工場労働者)、11万6000人の組合員を擁するベルギー金属産業組合、その他30万人以上の組合員を含む26の労働組合間の合意により設立され、ベルギー王国最大の労働組合連合となった。[ 37 ] 1945年、総合労働総同盟は他の2つの労働組合と合併し、ベルギー労働総連盟を結成した。[ 37 ]
Eugen Weidmann was arrested by French police for murder. Weidmann shot one officer in the arm with a revolver, but the other officer managed to beat him down with a hammer.[73]
Hans Molisch, 81, Czech-born Austrian botanist known for creating Molisch's test, a chemical test for detecting carbohydrates.
Rossa Matilda Richter, 77, English aerialist and actress who was the first woman to perform the human cannonball. Billed under the stage name of "Zazel, the Beautiful Human Cannonball", she would be fired from a spring equipped cannon and fly through the air to be caught by a net.[76]
Mikhail Ostroumov, 57, Russian Orthodox bishop, venerated as a saint, was executed along with other prisoners in the Katyn forest[77]
The ocean liner President Hoover ran aground at Kasho-to off Taiwan. The 503 passengers and crew were evacuated and the ship was declared a total loss.[104]
The Toronto Argonauts edged the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 4 to 3, to win the Grey Cup, the championship of Canadian football. Toronto led, 3–1, on a field goal and a one-point rouge in the first quarter, while Winnipeg's points came on three rouges.[105]
Seraphim Chichagov, 81, Russian Orthodox bishop, was executed at the Butovo firing range, 11 days after he had been arrested by the NKVD on charges of "monarchist propaganda".[109]
Jaan Anvelt, 53, founder and former chairman of the Estonian Communists, died from injuries inflicted by his NKVD interrogator, Aleksandr Langfang. Langfang would be dismissed from the KGB in 1956, arrested and found guilty of the killing in 1957, and would serve 15 years in prison.[110]
Sargis Lukashin, 53, Chairman of the Armenian Council of People's Commissars and former First Secretary of the Armenian Communist Party, was executed six months after being arrested on charges of counterrevolutionary activity.[111]
Mamia Orakhelashvili, 56, former First Secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia, was executed [112]
December 12, 1937 (Sunday)
The U.S. Navy gunboat USS Panay was fired upon, bombed and sank by Japanese aircraft and shore batteries, while it was evacuating personnel from the embassy at Nanjing along the Yangtze River.[113] The attack wounded 45 servicemen, two of them fatally, and killed civilians on the Panay, and the Japanese airplanes killed numerous civilians on other ships on the Yangtze.[114]
Parliamentary elections were held in the Soviet Union[115] for the new Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, created in the 1936 Constitution to replace the former "Congress of Soviets". Voting was for candidates for all 569 seats of the lower house (the Soviet of the Union) and the 574 seats of the upper house (the Soviet of Nationalities). Although the Soviet Communist Party had initially announced that voters would have a choice of more than one candidate on the ballot, the vote was limited to the tradition of a Party-approved list of unopposed candidates in each district, with the option of crossing out the name. Although most of the candidates were members of the Communist Party, the slate of candidates included 108 for the Soviet of the Union and 165 for the Soviet of Nationalities who were not members of the only legal political party, and designated as "independents". The result was more than 89 million in favor of the candidate list, and less than 563,000 voting against.[116]
Mae West appeared on The Chase and Sanborn Hour with Edgar Bergen and performed a sexually suggestive "Adam and Eve" sketch. In one sequence, the snake in the Garden of Eden tries to squeeze through a fence as West exhorts: "Oh, shake your hips!... Yeah, you're doing all right. Get me a big one, I feel like doing a big apple." West was unofficially banned from the radio for years afterward as a result.[117]
The patent application for the first electric toothbrush, invented by Tomlinson Moseley, and sold as the "Motodent", was filed with the U.S. Patent Office. Patent 2,196,667 would be granted on April 9, 1940.
The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NABLA) was signed in Havana in Cuba by the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, allocating the radio broadcasting frequencies to be used by each nation, and adding the 10 AM radio frequencies in the range of 1510 to 1600 kilohertz.[130]
U.S. President Roosevelt demanded that Japan apologize for the Panay attack, render compensation and provide a guarantee that no such thing would happen again.[131]
In Rome, Pope Pius XI created five new cardinals, in his last appointments before his death, elevating the number of cardinals from 55 to 60, of whom more than half (39) were Italian.[132]
Former world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling of Germany defeated challenger Harry Thomas of the U.S. in the 8th round of a 15-round bout at Madison Square Garden in New York. Thomas would admit 13 months later that he had been paid $8,500 by gamblers to lose the fight.[133]
The Provisional Government of the Republic of China was established by Japan as a puppet state with a capital at Beijing and former Chinese Finance Minister Wang Kemin (referred to in the Western press as "Wang K'e-ming") as its head of state.[136] The boundaries of the "provisional republic" consisted of the Japanese-occupied provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan and Jiangsu. Wang would serve until March 30, 1940, and be tried for treason after the liberation of China in 1945.
Local elections were held in the Philippines, marred by rioting around the country which killed three people. It was the first Philippine election in which women could vote.[137]
The Greek Operation, a mass persecution of the Soviet Greek minority, was started by Directive No. 50215 of the NKVD, signed by the secret police agency's director, Nikolai Yezhov. On December 11, Yezhov declared that "on December 15 of this year, simultaneously in all republics, territories and regions, arrests are to be made of all Greeks suspected of espionage, sabotage, rebel and nationalist anti-Soviet work," based on an NKVD investigation that concluded that Greek operatives were "actively conducting espionage, sabotage, and rebellious work in the USSR, carrying out assignments from British, German, and Japanese intelligence."[140] Over the next 13 years, Greek-language institutions were closed, mass arrests took place, and at least 15,000 were executed, with 20,000 deported to the Gulag prisons,[141] while another author would estimate the number of deaths at more than 50,000.[142]
The Battle of Teruel, a turning point in the Spanish Civil War and one of its bloodiest clashes, began in Spain's Province of Teruel during one of the coldest winters in Spain's history.[143] Although Francisco Franco's Nationalists would defeat the Spanish Republican Army by February 22, each side sustained nearly 60,000 casualties.[144]
A fire killed 81 schoolchildren and adults at the Minami Tomita Elementary School in Minami—Tomita (now part of Shirahama) in Wakayama Prefecture. According to reports, the fire broke out while 300 students and 150 adults were in the school auditorium to watch a film about the ongoing war between Japan in China.[175][176]
Died:Erich Ludendorff, 72, German general who led his army to victory at the Battle of Tannenberg and the Battle of Liège in 1914 and oversaw German strategy from 1916 to Germany's surrender in 1918 in World War One, died while recovering from surgery.[181]
December 21, 1937 (Tuesday)
Disney's depiction of Snow White
The Walt Disney animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated feature film in the U.S., was shown for the first time, premiering at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Hollywood.[182][183] It would become the highest-grossing film of 1938 upon its nationwide premiere on February 4.
Frank B. Kellogg, 80, U.S. Secretary of State from 1925 to 1929 and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, known for the Kellogg–Briand Pact, died from pneumonia following a stroke.[192]
Germany's Ambassador to Japan, Herbert von Dirksen, came to China and presented Japan's terms for a Chinese surrender to the Chinese-Japanese War, with a two-week deadline of January 5 for a reply by China's leader Chiang Kai-shek. The conditions were that China would pay war reparations to Japan, to acknowledge the loss of China's Manchurian territory that had become the puppet state of Manchukuo, to acknowledge Inner Mongolia's autonomy, and the withdrawal of troops from designated demilitarized zones in North China and inner Mongolia. Chiang let the January 5 deadline with no reply.[194]
The PERC rail car
The prototype of the first "pendulum car" for railroad travel was unveiled by the Pacific Railway Equipment Company (PERC) at its factory in Los Angeles. Testing scheduled of the car, designed to tilt while traveling on curves to begin on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.[195]
The French Social Party was banned in France. François de La Rocque and other leaders of the party were ordered by court to pay fines for reconstituting a political league that was supposed to have been dissolved.[196]
After crossing the Yellow River on December 23, the 10th Division of the Japan's Manchurian Area Army captured Jinan, capital of China's Shandong province.[216] Despite being ordered by his superiors to defend Jinan to the last man, General Han Fuju and his Chinese Nationalist Army troops abandoned the city, after burning the provincial government offices and the Japanese consulate.[217][218] General Han was subsequently arrested by the Nationalist Army Chief of Staff, General Hu Zongnan, and executed for disobeying orders.[219]
The Japanese Mongolia Garrison Army was raised, under the command of General Shigeru Hasunuma, and charged with the task of defending China's Inner Mongolia region from a possible attack from the neighboring Soviet Union, which was, at the time, not an enemy of Japan.[221]
African-American schoolteacher Harriet Brown achieved a major victory after her employer, the Calvert County Board of Education in the U.S. state of Maryland for racial discrimination, settled the case and agreed to equal pay for its employees, regardless of race.[222] Before the suit, brought by future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, led to a similar settlement by the Montgomery County Public Schools and, in 1939, the passage by the state legislature of the Maryland Teachers Pay Equalization Law.
The new Constitution of Ireland went into effect. The Irish Free State was abolished and the country was renamed, as Article 4 of the new Constitution stated simply "The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland. The designation of "Republic of Ireland" would not be made until 1949.[231]
A general strike by 120,000 public service workers began in France. The strike was settled after one day.[232][233]
Pierre Michelin, president of the Michelin tire company since 1933, was fatally injured in a car accident at Loiretdépartement near Montargis, when he collided with a car driven by Louis Lagorgette, who was killed instantly, along his wife and son. Michelin died in a hospital the next day.[236]
Wayne Huizenga, American businessman and sports team owner who founded, the American trash collecting company Waste Management, Inc. (1968), the video rental company Blockbuster (1985), and the car retailer and rental company AutoNation (1996), and owned the Miami Dolphins NFL team, the Florida Panthers NHL team and the Miami Marlins MLB team; in Evergreen Park, Illinois (d.2018)[238]
Dieter Thomas Heck (stage name for Carl-Dieter Heckscher), German television host of the ZDF program ZDF-Hitparade and actor in the West German film Das Millionspiel; in Flensburg(d. 2018)[239]
King Farouk of Egypt dismissed the government of Prime MinisterMustafa el-Nahhas after the cabinet refused to appoint Aly Maher Pasha as chief of the royal cabinet. The King replaced Nahhas with Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha, along with and a cabinet that included several pro-Italian ministers. Rioting broke out in several districts of Cairo by demonstrators angry at the replacement.[241]
The Soviet Union's "Navy of the Red Army" was separated out as its own service of the Soviet Armed Forces, with only 24 warships (17 destroyers, 4 battleships and 3 battle cruisers) but 150 submarines.[242]
Tagalog was declared to be national language of the Philippines by Executive Order No. 134 from President Manuel Quezon.[243]
Raquel Olmedo (stage name for Siomara Anicia Orama), Cuban-born Mexican singer and actress; in Caibarién[248]
Boualem Rahal, 19, Algerian independence fighter noted for being executed by French Algerian authorities; in Algiers[249]
Died:
Alaksandar Ćvikievič, 49, who had served as the Soviet premier of the Byelorussian SSR (now the Republic of Belarus) from 1923 to 1925, was executed in Minsk, after having been accused of being a member of an organization called "the Union of Liberation of Belarus".[250]
Frederick Nodder, 50, was hanged at Lincoln Prison for the January 5 murder of 10-year-old Mona Tinsley, after her body was discovered on June 6.
Octavian Goga addressed the Romanian people in a radio broadcast in which he outlined a series of antisemitic measures he intended to introduce against the country's Jews, whom he accused of having "exploited" Romania after entering "illegally" after the war.[252]
Born:
Avram Hershko, Hungarian-born Israeli biochemist and Nobel laureate; in Karcag
↑Bix, Herbert (2016). Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. Harper Perennial. p.339.
↑Rodao, Florentino (July 2009). "Japan and the Axis, 1937-8: Recognition of the Franco Regime and Manchukuo". Journal of Contemporary History. 44 (3). Sage Publications, Ltd: 431–447. doi:10.1177/0022009409104117. JSTOR40543042. S2CID144278984. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
↑"Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume IV, p. 724, Document 2097-PS"(PDF). Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality. 1946.
↑"Tageseinträge für 1. Dezember 1937". chroniknet. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
↑Vitols-Dixon, Nadine (2005) [2006]. A Life's journey: Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, President of Latvia. Riga: Pētergailis. ISBN978-9984-33-174-4.
↑Klaas (1937-2025) veranderde met zijn werk het leven van veel mensen: ‘Hij was een briljante geest’ ("Klaas (1937-2025) changed the lives of many people with his work: 'He was a brilliant mind'"), by Bert Woudenberg, Algemeen Dagblad, November 7, 1925
↑"Chuck Low, Robert De Niro's landlord who landed gruesome role in 'Goodfellas,' dies at 89". Los Angeles Times. October 3, 2017. Retrieved 2024-09-07.
↑"Obituary: Gordon Crosse". Britishmusicsociety.co.uk. November 24, 2021.
↑Meade, Teresa (2010). A Brief History of Brazil (2d.ed.). New York: Facts on File. p.136. ISBN978-0-81607-788-5.
↑Bourne, Richard (1974). Getulio Vargas of Brazil, 1883—1954 Sphinx of the Pampas. London: C. Knight Publishing. pp.86–87. ISBN978-0-85314-195-2.
↑Tetsuya Kataoka, Resistance and Revolution in China: The Communists and the Second United Front (University of California Press, 1974)
↑Yoshiro Miwa, Japan's Economic Planning and Mobilization in Wartime, 1930s–1940s (Cambridge University Press, 2015) p.132
↑Salvadó, Francsico J. Romero (2005). The Spanish Civil War: Origins, Course and Outcomes. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN978-1-137-25892-2.
↑"Franco Joins Anti-Communist Bloc as Japs Give Recognition— Tokio Appoints Envoy to Spain Rebels", by James R. Young, Oakland Post-Enquirer, December 1, 1937, p.2
↑"Tageseinträge für 2. Dezember 1937". chroniknet. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
↑Ronald M. Hahn, Volker Jansen and Norbert Stresau, Lexikon des Fantasy-Films: 650 Filme von 1900 bis 1986 (Munich: Heyne, 1986) p.444 ISBN 3-453-02273-4
↑ピラト、ハービー (2016). 50年代、60年代、70年代のテレビ界を代表する男性アイコンたち. テイラー・トレード. p. 152. ISBN9781630760533。
↑Martin, Douglas (June 14, 2008). "Stewart R. Mott, 70, Offbeat Philanthropist, Dies". The New York Times.
↑"Death anniversary of Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum Khan observed on December 4", Radio Pakistan, 4 December 2012
↑Gunnar Friðrik Ingibergsson and Sigurður Hallbjörnsson. "Elin Briem (1856-1937)" (in Icelandic). Notendur. Archived from the original on 2 January 2022. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
↑"Ralph Lewis injured". The New York Times. November 26, 1937. p.27. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
↑Hal Erickson (2015). "Ralph Lewis". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2015-01-23.
12"Belgisch Vakverbond / Confédération Générale du Travail de Belgique (1938-1945)". ODIS.
↑Christian Henriot; Yeh Wen-hsin, eds. (2004). In the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Shanghai under Japanese Occupation. Cambridge University Press. pp.145–167. ISBN0-521-82221-1.
↑"Hirohito's Uncle to Command Troops in China". The Daily Chronicles of World War II. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
↑"Premier Of Yugoslavia Is Welcomed To Rome— Mussolini, Count Ciano And Reich's Envoy Greet Stoyanovich", The Sun (Baltimore), December 6, 1937, p.9
↑"Tax Foundation 1937–1987: The First Fifty Years"(PDF). Tax Foundation. 1987-12-05. Retrieved 2017-02-15.
↑"Celebrating Our 65th Year". Tax Foundation. September 1, 2002.
↑"Gustave Verbeck, Ex-Cartoonist, 70. His Work Appeared for Eleven Years in the Old New York Herald". New York Times. December 6, 1937. Retrieved 2015-09-14.
↑"Gli ETR 200 FS". Interrail.publinet.it. Archived from the original on 2013-02-08.
↑Franklin, Ben A. (November 13, 1964). "U. S. Bench Backs Virginia Poll Tax: Negroes Expect to Appeal to the Supreme Court"(PDF). The New York Times. p.19. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
↑デル・ボカ、アンジェロ (1992)。アフリカ・オリエンタルのグリ・イタリアーニ。 Ⅲ. La caduta dell'impero (イタリア語)。314–327ページ。
↑ Блок коммунистов и беспартийных в СССР, политический союз Коммунистической партии с беспартийными трудящимися (「ソ連の共産主義者と無党派人民のブロック - 共産党と無党派労働者との間の政治同盟」)、VM サヴェリエフ著、 50 年 10 月 - マルクス・レーニン主義の勝利(モスクワ、1967 年)
↑Clark, R. N. (2003). "Nils Gustaf Dalén (1869–1937): Inventor, experimenter, engineer, and nobel laureate". IEEE Control Systems Magazine. 23 (4): 68–70. Bibcode:2003ICSys..23d..68C. doi:10.1109/MCS.2003.1213605.
↑"Biographie de Carlègle, illustrateur (Charles Émile Égli 1877-1937)".
↑Asher, R. E. (2004). "Armstrong, Lilias Eveline (1882–1937)". In Matthew, H. C. G. (ed.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol.2. Oxford University Press. pp.437–438. ISBN978-0-19-861352-7.
↑"Nobel Prizes Awarded; Brilliant Ceremonies Are Held in Stockholm and Oslo". The New York Times. December 11, 1937. p.17.
↑"34 Killed, 60 Hurt in Scottish Wreck;". The New York Times. December 11, 1937. p.2.
↑"Japs Push Into 2 More Cities in Nanking Area". Chicago Daily Tribune. December 10, 1937. p.1.
↑Soll, Beverly (2005). I Dream a World: The Operas of William Grant Still. University of Arkansas Press. ISBN978-1-55728-789-2.
↑Pulver, Andrew (24 December 2024). "Jack Bond, cult British director and Pet Shop Boys collaborator, dies aged 87". The Guardian. ISSN0261-3077. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
↑Adamson, Hugh C. (2009). "Mírzá Muhammad-ʻAlí". The A to Z of the Baha'i Faith. Rowman & Littlefield. p.232. ISBN978-0810868533.
↑ギカス、アナスタシス (2007)。Οι Έλληνες στη διαδικασία οικοδόμησης του σοσιαλισμού στην ΕΣΣΔ [ソ連における社会主義建設へのギリシャの参加] (でギリシャ語)。アテネ:シグスロニ・エポキシ。 p. 254.ISBN978-960-451-056-6。
↑ Agtzidis, Vlasis (1991). "ソビエト連邦におけるポントス系ギリシャ人の迫害". Journal of Refugee Studies . 4 (4): 372– 381. doi : 10.1093/jrs/4.4.372 .
↑Piazza, Tom (November 11, 2001). "Music; At the End, Fiddling His Way Back To His Beginnings". The New York Times. Retrieved April 21, 2019.
↑"1937: Llega al mundo Raquel Olmedo, famosa actriz de cine y televisión"[1937: Raquel Olmedo, famous actress of film and television, arrives to the world]. El Siglo de Torreón. 30 December 2015.
↑"Portrait de Rahal Boualem — Arrestation des auteurs des attentats à la bombe des stades d'Alger et d'El-Biar". Ministère des Armées / ImagesDéfense.
↑Lizaveta Kasmach, The Road to the First Belarusian State: Nation-Building in the Context of the First World War and Revolution (University of Alberta Press, 2016), p.25
↑"The grisly Retford murder that changed British law forever", by James Peck, January 8, 2017
↑"New Rumanian Premier Orders Drive on Jews". Chicago Daily Tribune. January 1, 1938. p.4.
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