Historydraft LogoHistorydraft Logo
Historydraft
beta
Historydraft Logo
Historydraft
beta

  • Karkow, Poland
    1938
    Pope John Paul II

    Germans Occupied Poland

    Karkow, Poland
    1938

    In 1939, Nazi German occupation forces closed the university after invading Poland.




  • Karkow, Poland
    1938
    Pope John Paul II

    Jagiellonian University

    Karkow, Poland
    1938

    In mid-1938, Wojtyła and his father left Wadowice and moved to Kraków, where he enrolled at the Jagiellonian University. While studying such topics as philology and various languages, he worked as a volunteer librarian and was required to participate in compulsory military training in the Academic Legion, but he refused to fire a weapon.




  • China
    1938
    Ho Chi Minh

    Returning to China

    China
    1938

    In 1938, Quốc (Ho) returned to China and served as an advisor to the Chinese Communist armed forces. He was also the senior Comintern agent in charge of Asian affairs.




  • La Habra, California, U.S.
    1938
    Richard Nixon

    Opening up his own branch of Wingert and Bewley

    La Habra, California, U.S.
    1938

    Richard began practicing in Whittier with the law firm Wingert and Bewley. In 1938,opened up his own branch of Wingert and Bewley in La Habra, California, and became a full partner in the firm the following year.




  • Germany
    1938
    Martin Bormann

    Bormann was Granted SS Number 555

    Germany
    1938

    By special order of Heinrich Himmler in 1938, Bormann was granted SS number 555 to reflect his Alter Kämpfer (Old Fighter) status.




  • Austria
    1938
    Martin Bormann

    The Trips to Austria

    Austria
    1938

    Bormann travelled everywhere with Hitler, including trips to Austria in 1938 after the Anschluss (the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany), and to the Sudetenland after the signing of the Munich Agreement later that year.




  • Nuremberg, Germany
    1938
    Martin Bormann

    Organizing the 1938 Nuremberg Rally

    Nuremberg, Germany
    1938

    Bormann was placed in charge of organising the 1938 Nuremberg Rally, a major annual party event.


  • Berlin, Germany
    1938
    Martin Bormann

    Bormann ruled that any members of the Clergy Who Were Holding Party Offices should be Dismissed

    Berlin, Germany
    1938

    In 1938, Bormann ruled that any members of the clergy who were holding party offices should be dismissed, and that any party member who was considering entering the clergy had to give up his party membership.


  • U.S.
    1938
    Cameras

    The Super Kodak

    U.S.
    1938

    The first camera to feature automatic exposure was the selenium light meter-equipped, fully automatic Super Kodak Six-20 pack of 1938, but its extremely high price (for the time) of $225 (equivalent to $4,087 in 2019) kept it from achieving any degree of success. By the 1960s, however, low-cost electronic components were commonplace and cameras equipped with light meters and automatic exposure systems became increasingly widespread.


  • Rome, Italy
    Wednesday Jan 5, 1938
    Juan Carlos I

    Born

    Rome, Italy
    Wednesday Jan 5, 1938

    Juan Carlos was born to Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona, and Princess María de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies in Rome, Italy, where his grandfather King Alfonso XIII of Spain and other members of the Spanish royal family lived in exile following the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931.


  • France
    1938
    Charles de Gaulle

    De Gaulle became a disciple of Émile Mayer

    France
    1938

    De Gaulle became a disciple of Émile Mayer (1851–1938), a retired lieutenant-colonel (his career had been damaged by the Dreyfus Affair), and a military thinker.


  • Tarragona, Spain
    Saturday Jan 15, 1938
    Spanish Civil War

    Tarragona fell

    Tarragona, Spain
    Saturday Jan 15, 1938

    Tarragona fell on 15 January.


  • Barcelona, Spain
    Wednesday Jan 26, 1938
    Spanish Civil War

    Barcelona fell

    Barcelona, Spain
    Wednesday Jan 26, 1938

    Barcelona fell on 26 January.


  • Germany
    Feb, 1938
    Adolf Hitler

    The Sino-German alliance

    Germany
    Feb, 1938

    In February 1938, on the advice of his newly appointed foreign minister, the strongly pro-Japanese Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler ended the Sino-German alliance with the Republic of China to instead enter into an alliance with the more modern and powerful Empire of Japan.


  • Girona, Spain
    Wednesday Feb 2, 1938
    Spanish Civil War

    Girona fell

    Girona, Spain
    Wednesday Feb 2, 1938

    Girona fell on 2 February.


  • London, England, United Kingdom
    Feb, 1938
    Winston Churchill

    Matters came to a head

    London, England, United Kingdom
    Feb, 1938

    At first, Churchill welcomed Chamberlain's appointment but, in February 1938, matters came to a head after Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigned over Chamberlain's appeasement of Mussolini, a policy which Chamberlain was extending towards Hitler.


  • Chongqing, China
    Friday Feb 18, 1938
    Second Sino-Japanese War

    Japanese raiders hit Chongqing

    Chongqing, China
    Friday Feb 18, 1938

    With Japanese casualties and costs mounting, the Imperial General Headquarters attempted to break Chinese resistance by ordering the air branches of their navy and army to launch the war's first massive air raids on civilian targets. Japanese raiders hit the Kuomintang's newly established provisional capital of Chongqing and most other major cities in unoccupied China, leaving millions dead, injured, and homeless.


  • Spain
    Sunday Feb 27, 1938
    Spanish Civil War

    United Kingdom and France recognized the Franco regime

    Spain
    Sunday Feb 27, 1938

    On 27 February, the United Kingdom and France recognized the Franco regime.


  • Ingyo-dong, Daegu, South Korea
    Mar, 1938
    Samsung

    Founding

    Ingyo-dong, Daegu, South Korea
    Mar, 1938

    In 1938, Lee Byung-chul (1910–1987) of a large landowning family in the Uiryeong county moved to nearby Daegu city and founded Samsung Sanghoe (삼성상회, 三星商會). Samsung started out as a small trading company with forty employees located in Su-dong (now Ingyo-dong). It dealt in dried-fish, locally-grown groceries and noodles.


  • London, England, United Kingdom
    1938
    Winston Churchill

    Churchill warned the government against appeasement and called for collective action to deter German aggression

    London, England, United Kingdom
    1938

    In 1938, Churchill warned the government against appeasement and called for collective action to deter German aggression. In March, the Evening Standard ceased publication of his fortnightly articles, but the Daily Telegraph published them instead.


  • Aragon, Spain
    Monday Mar 7, 1938
    Spanish Civil War

    Nationalists launched the Aragon Offensive

    Aragon, Spain
    Monday Mar 7, 1938

    On 7 March, Nationalists launched the Aragon Offensive, and by 14 April they had pushed through to the Mediterranean, cutting the Republican-held portion of Spain in two. The Republican government attempted to sue for peace in May, but Franco demanded unconditional surrender, and the war raged on. In July, the Nationalist army pressed southward from Teruel and south along the coast toward the capital of the Republic at Valencia, but was halted in heavy fighting along the XYZ Line, a system of fortifications defending Valencia.


  • Germany
    Saturday Mar 12, 1938
    Adolf Hitler

    Unification of Austria with Nazi Germany

    Germany
    Saturday Mar 12, 1938

    On 12 March 1938, Hitler announced the unification of Austria with Nazi Germany in the Anschluss.


  • Austria
    Saturday Mar 12, 1938
    The Holocaust

    Germany annexed Austria

    Austria
    Saturday Mar 12, 1938

    On 12 March 1938, Germany annexed Austria. Austrian Nazis broke into Jewish shops, stole from Jewish homes and businesses, and forced Jews to perform humiliating acts such as scrubbing the streets or cleaning toilets. Jewish businesses were "Aryanized", and all the legal restrictions on Jews in Germany were imposed.


  • Austria
    Saturday Mar 12, 1938
    World War II

    Germany annexed Austria

    Austria
    Saturday Mar 12, 1938

    In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria.


  • New York, U.S.
    1938
    Father's Day

    Dodd had the help of the Father's Day Council

    New York, U.S.
    1938

    By 1938, Dodd had the help of the Father's Day Council, founded by the New York Associated Men's Wear Retailers to consolidate and systematize the holiday's commercial promotion.


  • Poland
    1938
    Itzak Stern

    Stern was engaged to Sophia

    Poland
    1938

    In 1938, Stern was engaged to Sophia Backenrot, although the marriage was postponed until after the war.


  • Jiangsu, China
    Thursday Mar 24, 1938
    Second Sino-Japanese War

    The Battle of Tai'erzhuang

    Jiangsu, China
    Thursday Mar 24, 1938

    With many victories achieved, Japanese field generals escalated the war in Jiangsu in an attempt to wipe out Chinese resistance, but were defeated at the Battle of Taierzhuang (March–April 1938).


  • Berlin, Germany
    Monday Mar 28, 1938
    Adolf Hitler

    Secret meeting with Henlein

    Berlin, Germany
    Monday Mar 28, 1938

    On 28–29 March 1938, Hitler held a series of secret meetings in Berlin with Konrad Henlein of the Sudeten German Party, the largest of the ethnic German parties of the Sudetenland. The men agreed that Henlein would demand increased autonomy for Sudeten Germans from the Czechoslovakian government, thus providing a pretext for German military action against Czechoslovakia.


  • Wilhelmshaven, Germany
    Friday Apr 1, 1938
    Adolf Hitler

    Battleship Tirpitz

    Wilhelmshaven, Germany
    Friday Apr 1, 1938

    In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for the launch of the battleship Tirpitz on 1 April, he threatened to denounce the Anglo-German Naval Agreement if the British continued to guarantee Polish independence, which he perceived as an "encirclement" policy.


  • Germany
    Apr, 1938
    Adolf Hitler

    Fall Grün

    Germany
    Apr, 1938

    In April Hitler ordered the OKW to prepare for Fall Grün (Case Green), the code name for an invasion of Czechoslovakia.


  • Italy
    Apr, 1938
    Benito Mussolini

    Britain and Italy signed the Easter Accords

    Italy
    Apr, 1938

    In April 1938, Britain and Italy signed the Easter Accords under which Britain promised to recognize Ethiopia as Italian in exchange for Italy pulling out of the Spanish Civil War.


  • Germany
    Sunday Apr 3, 1938
    Adolf Hitler

    Prepare for Fall Weiss

    Germany
    Sunday Apr 3, 1938

    On 3 April, Hitler ordered the military to prepare for Fall Weiss ("Case White"), the plan for invading Poland on 25 August.


  • London, England, United Kingdom
    Friday Apr 8, 1938
    Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

    Uncle Lord Milford Haven died

    London, England, United Kingdom
    Friday Apr 8, 1938

    The following year, Philip's uncle and guardian Lord Milford Haven died of bone marrow cancer.


  • U.S.
    1938
    Anna May Wong

    Dangerous to Know

    U.S.
    1938

    Bosley Crowther was not so kind to Dangerous to Know (1938), which he called a "second-rate melodrama, hardly worthy of the talents of its generally capable cast".


  • Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.
    1938
    Anna May Wong

    "The World's most beautiful Chinese girl"

    Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.
    1938

    In 1938 Look magazine named her "The World's most beautiful Chinese girl".


  • California, U.S.
    1938
    Anna May Wong

    Chinese Benevolent Association of California honored Wong

    California, U.S.
    1938

    In 1938, having auctioned off her movie costumes and donated the money to Chinese aid, the Chinese Benevolent Association of California honored Wong for her work in support of Chinese refugees.


  • Germany
    Thursday Apr 28, 1938
    Adolf Hitler

    Renounced both the English and Polish Agreement

    Germany
    Thursday Apr 28, 1938

    In a Reichstag speech on 28 April, he renounced both the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact.


  • Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.
    Wednesday Jun 1, 1938
    Alan Turing

    Turing Obtained His PhD From The Department of Mathematics

    Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.
    Wednesday Jun 1, 1938

    In June 1938, he obtained his PhD from the Department of Mathematics at Princeton; his dissertation, Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals, introduced the concept of ordinal logic and the notion of relative computing, where Turing machines are augmented with so-called oracles, allowing the study of problems that cannot be solved by Turing machines. John von Neumann wanted to hire him as his postdoctoral assistant, but he went back to the United Kingdom.


  • U.S.
    Jun, 1938
    DC Comics

    Action Comics

    U.S.
    Jun, 1938

    Detective Comics, Inc. soon launched a fourth title, Action Comics, the premiere of which introduced Superman. Action Comics #1 (June 1938), the first comic book to feature the new character archetype—soon known as "superheroes"—proved a sales hit. The company quickly introduced such other popular characters as the Sandman and Batman.


  • France
    Sunday Jun 5, 1938
    Charles de Gaulle

    De Gaulle appointed government minister

    France
    Sunday Jun 5, 1938

    On 5 June, the day the Germans began the second phase of their offensive (Fall Rot), Prime Minister Paul Reynaud appointed de Gaulle a government minister, as Under-Secretary of State for National Defence and War, with particular responsibility for coordination with the British.


  • U.S.
    1938
    W. E. B. Du Bois

    Canceled project

    U.S.
    1938

    In 1932, Du Bois was selected by several philanthropies – including the Phelps-Stokes Fund, the Carnegie Corporation, and the General Education Board – to be the managing editor for a proposed Encyclopedia of the Negro, a work Du Bois had been contemplating for 30 years. After several years of planning and organizing, the philanthropies canceled the project in 1938, because some board members believed that Du Bois was too biased to produce an objective encyclopedia.


  • Texas, U.S.
    Monday Jun 20, 1938
    Juneteenth

    Texas governor J. V. Allred issued a proclamation

    Texas, U.S.
    Monday Jun 20, 1938

    In 1938, Texas governor J. V. Allred issued a proclamation stating in part: Whereas, the Negroes in the State of Texas observe June 19 as the official day for the celebration of Emancipation from slavery; and Whereas, June 19, 1865, was the date when General Robert [sic] S. Granger, who had command of the Military District of Texas, issued a proclamation notifying the Negroes of Texas that they were free; and Whereas, since that time, Texas Negroes have observed this day with suitable holiday ceremony, except during such years when the day comes on a Sunday; when the Governor of the State is asked to proclaim the following day as the holiday for State observance by Negroes; and Whereas, June 19, 1938, this year falls on Sunday; NOW, THEREFORE, I, JAMES V. ALLRED, Governor of the State of Texas, do set aside and proclaim the day of June 20, 1938, as the date for observance of EMANCIPATION DAY in Texas, and do urge all members of the Negro race in Texas to observe the day in a manner appropriate to its importance to them.


  • Washington D.C., U.S.
    1938
    Library of Congress

    John Adams Building completed

    Washington D.C., U.S.
    1938

    Congress acquired nearby land in 1928 and approved construction of the Annex Building (later the John Adams Building) in 1930. Although delayed during the Depression years, it was completed in 1938 and opened to the public in 1939.


  • Paris, France
    1938
    Eiffel Tower

    Decorative arcade around the first level was removed

    Paris, France
    1938

    In 1938, the decorative arcade around the first level was removed.


  • France
    Wednesday Jul 6, 1938
    The Holocaust

    Évian Conference

    France
    Wednesday Jul 6, 1938

    The Évian Conference was held in France in July 1938 by 32 countries, as an attempt to help the increased refugees from Germany, but aside from establishing the largely ineffectual Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, little was accomplished and most countries participating did not increase the number of refugees they would accept.


  • New York, U.S.
    Thursday Jul 14, 1938
    Howard Hughes: The Aviator

    Around the world record

    New York, U.S.
    Thursday Jul 14, 1938

    On July 14, 1938, Hughes set another record by completing a flight around the world in just 91 hours (three days, 19 hours, 17 minutes), beating the previous record set in 1933 by Wiley Post in a single-engine Lockheed Vega by almost four days. Hughes returned home ahead of photographs of his flight. Taking off from New York City, Hughes continued to Paris, Moscow, Omsk, Yakutsk, Fairbanks, Minneapolis, then returning to New York City. For this flight, he flew a Lockheed 14 Super Electra (NX18973, a twin engine transport with a four-man crew) fitted with the latest radio and navigational equipment. Harry Connor was the co-pilot, Thomas Thurlow the navigator, Richard Stoddart the engineer, and Ed Lund the mechanic. Hughes wanted the flight to be a triumph of American aviation technology, illustrating that safe, long-distance air travel was possible. Albert Lodwick of Mystic, Iowa provided organizational skills as the flight operations manager. While he had previously been relatively obscure despite his wealth, being better known for dating Katharine Hepburn, New York City now gave Hughes a ticker-tape parade in the Canyon of Heroes.


  • Germany
    Monday Jul 18, 1938
    Oskar Schindler (Schindler's List)

    Getting arrested

    Germany
    Monday Jul 18, 1938

    His tasks for the Abwehr included collecting information on railways, military installations, and troop movements, as well as recruiting other spies within Czechoslovakia, in advance of a planned invasion of the country by Nazi Germany. He was arrested by the Czech government for espionage on 18 July 1938 and immediately imprisoned but was released as a political prisoner under the terms of the Munich Agreement, the instrument under which the Czech Sudetenland was annexed into Germany on 1 October.


  • Terres de l'Ebre and Lower Matarranya, Spain
    Jul, 1938
    Spanish Civil War

    Battle of the Ebro

    Terres de l'Ebre and Lower Matarranya, Spain
    Jul, 1938

    The Republican government then launched an all-out campaign to reconnect their territory in the Battle of the Ebro, from 24 July until 26 November, where Franco personally took command.


  • Wuhan, Hubei, China
    Aug, 1938
    Hirohito

    The Emperor authorized the use of Toxic gas in Wuhan invasion

    Wuhan, Hubei, China
    Aug, 1938

    During the invasion of Wuhan, from August to October 1938, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions, despite the resolution adopted by the League of Nations on May 14 condemning Japanese use of toxic gas.


  • Vienna, Austria
    Aug, 1938
    The Holocaust

    Adolf Eichmann was put in charge of the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna

    Vienna, Austria
    Aug, 1938

    In August that year, Adolf Eichmann was put in charge of the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna (Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung in Wien).


  • London, England
    Sep, 1938
    Alan Turing

    Turing had been Working Part-Time With The Government Code and Cypher School

    London, England
    Sep, 1938

    From September 1938, Turing had been working part-time with the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), the British codebreaking organisation. He concentrated on cryptanalysis of the Enigma with Dilly Knox, a senior GC&CS codebreaker.


  • England, United Kingdom
    Sep, 1938
    Winston Churchill

    Four volumes of Marlborough: His Life and Times were published

    England, United Kingdom
    Sep, 1938

    Between October 1933 and September 1938, the four volumes of Marlborough: His Life and Times were published.


  • Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom
    1938
    Severo Ochoa

    Ochoa in Oxford

    Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom
    1938

    From 1938 until 1941 he was Demonstrator and Nuffield Research Assistant Ocho at the University of Oxford.


  • Munich, Germany
    Thursday Sep 29, 1938
    Adolf Hitler

    Munich Agreement

    Munich, Germany
    Thursday Sep 29, 1938

    On 29 September Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier, and Mussolini attended a one-day conference in Munich that led to the Munich Agreement, which handed over the Sudetenland districts to Germany.


  • Germany
    1938
    Nobel Prize

    Forbidden laureates

    Germany
    1938

    In 1938 and 1939, Adolf Hitler's Third Reich forbade three laureates from Germany (Richard Kuhn, Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt, and Gerhard Domagk) from accepting their prizes. Each man was later able to receive the diploma and medal. Even though Sweden was officially neutral during the Second World War, the prizes were awarded irregularly.


  • Munich, Germany
    Friday Sep 30, 1938
    Winston Churchill

    Chamberlain signed up to the Munich Agreement

    Munich, Germany
    Friday Sep 30, 1938

    On 30 September, Chamberlain signed up to the Munich Agreement, agreeing to allow German annexation of the Sudetenland.


  • Munich, Germany
    Friday Sep 30, 1938
    World War II

    Munich Agreement

    Munich, Germany
    Friday Sep 30, 1938

    Hitler began pressing German claims on the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia with a predominantly ethnic German population. Soon the United Kingdom and France followed the appeasement policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and conceded this territory to Germany in the Munich Agreement, which was made against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands.


  • Munich, Germany
    Oct, 1938
    Martin Bormann

    Moving To Munich

    Munich, Germany
    Oct, 1938

    He moved to Munich in October 1928, where he worked in the SA insurance office.


  • London, England, United Kingdom
    Wednesday Oct 5, 1938
    Winston Churchill

    Churchill called the Munich Agreement "a total and unmitigated defeat"

    London, England, United Kingdom
    Wednesday Oct 5, 1938

    Speaking in the House of Commons on 5 October, Churchill called the agreement "a total and unmitigated defeat".


  • Spain
    1938
    Spanish Civil War

    Franco feared an immediate French intervention against a potential Nationalist victory in Spain

    Spain
    1938

    In 1938, Franco feared an immediate French intervention against a potential Nationalist victory in Spain through French occupation of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and Spanish Morocco.


  • Washington D.C., U.S.
    Monday Oct 10, 1938
    Lucky Luciano

    U.S. Supreme Court refused to review his case

    Washington D.C., U.S.
    Monday Oct 10, 1938

    Luciano's legal appeals continued until October 10, 1938, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review his case. At this point, Luciano stepped down as family boss, and Costello formally replaced him.


  • Wuhan, Hubei, China
    Thursday Oct 27, 1938
    Second Sino-Japanese War

    The Japanese captured Wuhan

    Wuhan, Hubei, China
    Thursday Oct 27, 1938

    The Japanese captured Wuhan on October 27, 1938, forcing the KMT to retreat to Chongqing (Chungking), but Chiang Kai-shek still refused to negotiate, saying he would only consider talks if Japan agreed to withdraw to the pre-1937 borders.


  • Berlin, Germany
    Saturday Oct 29, 1938
    Joseph Goebbels

    Goebbels were distributed Free radios

    Berlin, Germany
    Saturday Oct 29, 1938

    Free radios were distributed in Berlin on Goebbels' birthday in 1938.


  • Germany
    Tuesday Nov 1, 1938
    Oskar Schindler (Schindler's List)

    Joining the Nazi Party

    Germany
    Tuesday Nov 1, 1938

    Schindler applied for membership in the Nazi Party on 1 November 1938, and was accepted the following year.


  • Paris, France
    Monday Nov 7, 1938
    The Holocaust

    Polish Jew shot the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in the German Embassy in Paris

    Paris, France
    Monday Nov 7, 1938

    On 7 November 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew, shot the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in the German Embassy in Paris, in retaliation for the expulsion of his parents and siblings from Germany.


  • Germany
    Tuesday Nov 8, 1938
    Joseph Goebbels

    Goebbels instigated the murder of Jews

    Germany
    Tuesday Nov 8, 1938

    The situation was further inflamed by a speech Goebbels gave at a party meeting on the night of 8 November, where he obliquely called for party members to incite further violence against Jews while making it appear to be a spontaneous series of acts by the German people.


  • Paris, France
    Wednesday Nov 9, 1938
    The Holocaust

    Ernst vom Rath died

    Paris, France
    Wednesday Nov 9, 1938

    When vom Rath died on 9 November, the government used his death as a pretext to instigate a pogrom against the Jews. The government claimed it was spontaneous, but in fact, it had been ordered and planned by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, although with no clear goals, according to David Cesarani. The result, he writes, was "murder, rape, looting, destruction of property, and terror on an unprecedented scale".


  • Germany
    Wednesday Nov 9, 1938
    The Holocaust

    30,000 Jews were sent to the Buchenwald, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps

    Germany
    Wednesday Nov 9, 1938

    Between 9 and 16 November, 30,000 Jews were sent to the Buchenwald, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Many were released within weeks; by early 1939, 2,000 remained in the camps. German Jewry was held collectively responsible for restitution of the damage; they also had to pay an "atonement tax" of over a billion Reichmarks. Insurance payments for damage to their property were confiscated by the government.


  • Germany
    Thursday Nov 10, 1938
    The Holocaust

    Kristallnacht

    Germany
    Thursday Nov 10, 1938

    Known as Kristallnacht (or "Night of Broken Glass"), the attacks on 9–10 November 1938 were partly carried out by the SS and SA, but ordinary Germans joined in; in some areas, the violence began before the SS or SA arrived.


  • U.S.
    1938
    Xerox

    Chester Carlson invented a process for printing images

    U.S.
    1938

    In 1938, Chester Carlson, a physicist working independently, invented a process for printing images using an electrically charged photoconductor-coated metal plate and dry powder "toner". However, it would take more than 20 years of refinement before the first automated machine to make copies was commercialized, using a document feeder, scanning light, and a rotating drum.


  • China
    Sunday Nov 20, 1938
    Mao Zedong

    4th Marriage

    China
    Sunday Nov 20, 1938

    On the Long March, Mao's wife He Zizen had been injured by a shrapnel wound to the head. She traveled to Moscow for medical treatment; Mao proceeded to divorce her and marry an actress, Jiang Qing on 20 November 1938.


  • Germany
    1938
    Nuclear Power

    Contradicting Fermi

    Germany
    1938

    In 1938, German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, along with Austrian physicist Lise Meitner and Meitner's nephew, Otto Robert Frisch, conducted experiments with the products of neutron-bombarded uranium, as a means of further investigating Fermi's claims. They determined that the relatively tiny neutron split the nucleus of the massive uranium atoms into two roughly equal pieces, contradicting Fermi.


  • Italy
    1938
    Benito Mussolini

    Members of "TIGR" plotted to kill Mussolini

    Italy
    1938

    Members of TIGR, a Slovene anti-fascist group, plotted to kill Mussolini in Kobarid in 1938, but their attempt was unsuccessful.


  • Germany
    1938
    The Holocaust

    Approximately half the German Jewish population had left Germany

    Germany
    1938

    By the end of 1938, approximately half the German Jewish population had left, among them the conductor Bruno Walter, who fled after being told that the hall of the Berlin Philharmonic would be burned down if he conducted a concert there. Albert Einstein, who was in the United States when Hitler came to power, never returned to Germany; his citizenship was revoked and he was expelled from the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and Prussian Academy of Sciences. Other Jewish scientists, including Gustav Hertz, lost their teaching positions and left the country.


  • Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
    1938
    Jimmy Hoffa

    First Child

    Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
    1938

    The couple had a daughter, Barbara Ann Crancer in 1938, in Detroit, Michigan.


  • Germany
    1938
    Joseph Goebbels

    Goebbels urged to produce inexpensive home receivers, called Volksempfänger

    Germany
    1938

    Manufacturers were urged by Goebbels to produce inexpensive home receivers, called Volksempfänger (people's receiver), and by 1938 nearly ten million sets had been sold.


  • Germany
    1938
    Joseph Goebbels

    Goebbels redirected his propaganda machine against Poland

    Germany
    1938

    In 1938, Goebbels soon redirected his propaganda machine against Poland. From May onwards, he orchestrated a campaign against Poland, fabricating stories about atrocities against ethnic Germans in Danzig and other cities. Even so, he was unable to persuade the majority of Germans to welcome the prospect of war.


<