1939

Notable Events, 1939 ​

January 1st: New Years day celebrations in France are marred by the outbreak of a fistfight in the General Assembly over a particularly heated debate in an emergency session on whether to break with Britain and move towards the Soviet-American camp to contain the German, Italian, and Japanese threat or stay the course and trust London. This argument is eventually won by the latter camp after several injuries.

January 1st cont: Future Commissar of the Soviet Navy and globally respected Bolshevist theoretician Valery Sablin is born.

January 6th: The Culture Secretariat formally announces its boycott of the upcoming Olympics in Tokyo in response to the ongoing Sino-Japanese conflict. The Soviet Union and Sportsintern support this action. European Olympic committees, as well as Cuba, announce their intentions to still compete.

January 13th: In one of Australia’s worst-ever bushfires, 102 people die, 4.9 million acres burned to the ground, and entire towns get obliterated in the state of Victoria. This becomes known as Black Friday after the fact.

January 16th: The last of the True Democrat Ten, Joe Starnes, is convicted and sentenced to life, as were the rest of the defendants.

January 20th: Commander Columbia half-film (named for its halved runtime of 45 minutes to allow for more digestible double-features) “Transamurian Troubles” sees Amanda Aaron pitted against the forces of Imperial Japan and dark kami who would seek to spread the Empire’s dark influences into the Russian hinterland.

January 24th: 26,000 people die in an 8.3 magnitude earthquake, which remains the single deadliest earthquake in Chilean history. Aid and recovery is sent from most of the Comintern to help in the cleanup and recovery efforts.

February 9th: The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Italian Parliament, is formally abolished and replaced with the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations, representing industries rather than geographic regions under the corporatist structure of the fascist state.

February 15th : Conscience of a Freedom Fighter , a collection of essays by Alcatraz prisoner Barry Goldwater, is published by Doubleday, to success outside the United Republics.

February 16th: The Argentine government’s Popular Front convenes for an emergency session regarding the possibility of war with Brazil. This will lead to the months-long “Green Sun” war games that determine that Argentina and Chile will likely require an American expeditionary force to repel Brazil.

February 20th: Subhas Chandra Bose and PC Joshi announce that the Congress Socialist Party will merge with the Communist Party of India to form the Indian Workers’ Party. The new Comintern backed party will advocate complete independence from Britain.

March 2nd: Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli is elected to succeed the recently deceased Pope Pius XI, taking the name Pope Pius XII.

March 7th: Created out of fear that the Brazilian population does not properly understand the homosexual threat, the first in a series of lurid propaganda reels are published by the Guarda Verde itself to educate the populace on homosexuals and the need to eliminate them. Chillingly, these videos emphasise that there is no cure save death.

March 10th: The Justice Secretariat formally announces a blanket ban on the True Democrats, citing “security concerns.” John Nance Garner resigns from the party (joining the DFLP), and the leadership voluntarily surrenders.

March 13th: New DFLP Congressional leader Harry Truman releases a statement supporting the ban on the True Democrats. Rumours circulate of a new “United Democratic Front”.

March 16th: Iranian Crown Prince Mohammed Reza, son of Reza Shah, marries Princess Fawzia Fuad, the oldest daughter of King Faud I of Egypt and sister of Prince Farouk. Harry Bennett (assistant to Henry Ford) and Rudolf Hess are among the guests.

March 20th: Flora Mandebaum, a transgender Soviet-American and Civil War volunteer, undergoes vaginoplasty at the Institute for Sexual Science, newly offered after months of replicating old research from its German counterpart. As the first American to undergo sex reassignment surgery at the Institute, she receives major attention from Libertine and other publications.

March 21st: Georgy Malenkov ascends to the position of the second secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, winning out against Andrei Zhdanov who instead takes the position of the head of the Propaganda Department.

March 25th: Agent X , starring Gary Cooper as a counterintelligence agent loosely based off John Dillinger, is released, featuring the titular Agent X fighting the “Black Legion”.

March 26th: General election in Turkey: Turanist and Neo-Ottoman parties ally with revanchist Kemalist factions in the Republican People’s Party to create a new Turkish nationalist coalition, sidelining moderates in the previously dominant Republican People’s Party.

April 2nd: Woman on the Moon , an English language remake of Fritz Lang’s 1929 silent film, is released, directed by Lang himself and written by Willey Ley. The film takes notable influence from American and Soviet rocketry experiments and concepts, including ones by Robert Goddard and Konstatin Tsiolkovsky.

April 10th: Popular American radio game show Dr.IQ debuts.

April 13th : Commander Columbia’s next instalment: Mission to China is released. The film actually outdoes its predecessor in gross and is often considered the entrypoint into the series for much of the moviegoing public. Written in large part by Chinese American fantasist Hu Geming with Samantha’s cooperation, the film draws particular attention to the brutality of Japan’s attack on China in support of Anti-communist warlords.

April 14th: John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is published, telling the story of the struggle of Okie farm workers during the Revolution.

April 18th: Paramount and Terrytoons announce a new Greek mythology epic film called “Pandora”, in the wake of the success of animation in America and Europe.

April 21st: French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet and his German counterpart Joachim von Ribbentrop sign a secret non-aggression pact. In exchange for ceding Eastern Europe to the German sphere of influence, Germany renounces claims on Alsace-Lorraine and signs a commercial agreement that will limit German autarky and open up avenues for French exports, particularly of coal and steel.

April 30th: The World’s Fair opens in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, New York. The Fair features pavilions from 10 nations, as well exhibits showcasing advancements of science and technology under socialism, including an automated communal home and a large demonstration of a futuristic city(now with automation) called “Futurama”. William Foster’s speech opening the Fair is televised, the first time for a speech by any public official.

May 1st: In a surprise radio address, Premier Foster allows prominent Spanish leftists Andreu Nin and Buenaventura Durruti to make his annual May Day radio address. The two proclaim that the battle in Spain is “far from over”. Behind the scenes, Reed and Nin discuss potential evacuation plans in case the stalemate is broken.

May 2nd : Batman, created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, debuts in Detective Comics #27, in a story where he investigates the “Clan of the Cross”.

May 4th: The execution of John Rankin is carried out in Chicago’s Haymarket Square. Rankin stands silent, simply hissing “Sic Semper Tyrannis”, in his final moments.

May 6th: A militant for the German American Bund, Veit Reder, is caught attempting to bomb the premiere of Confessions of a Nazi Spy.

May 7th : Japanese forces in China launch a thrust into Soviet allied Mongolia in an undeclared border war in what Baron Araki hopes will be the successful start of a northward strike against the USSR before the Americans can intervene. Clashes between Soviet and Japanese soldiers begin almost immediately.

May 9th: An Advisory Committee on Uranium and Neutrons is secretly set up by the Defense Secretariat to oversee experiments involving both. Among the early recommendations for uranium procurement, along with mining in the USSR and importation from the Belgian Congo, was to investigate possible uranium mines in the Apache ASR.

May 13th: Germany begins its invasion of Poland following an ultimatum for the Danzig Corridor and Upper Silesia.

May 15th: Riding the wave of increasingly anti-Nazi films is All Quiet on the Western Front, based on the book by Erich Maria Remarque, starring Peter Lorre in the lead.

May 17th: Hallie Flanagan, head of the Public Theatre (a part of the Academy of Arts and Science) protests the imprisonment of author Isaac Babel by Soviet authorities. This starts a minor row between the Public Theatre, the Soviet government and the Secretariat of Culture.

May 20th: A coalition of Italian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian forces begin the invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

May 22nd: The Soviet Union invades Poland from the East without a declaration of war. They quickly occupy and annex Ukrainian and Byelorussian speaking areas.

May 24th: At the behest of Premier Foster, the Congress of Soviets votes to declare a state of unlimited emergency. The decree is unusual in that the opposition, chiefly from the DRP and DFLP Christian pacifists, agree to abstain rather than vote against it.

June 1st: Under the rule of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu and the Iron Guard, Romania formally begins the enactment of anti-Jewish measures. More severe pogroms soon follow.

June 4th: The MS St. Louis , a cargo ship carrying 901 Jewish refugees, lands in Miami, Florida after being turned away at Havana. All refugees, as well as the crew and the captain, Gustav Schröder, are granted amnesty within the United Republics.

June 6th: Henry Winston announces his resignation from the position of Secretary of Public Safety. J. Edgar Hoover returns from retirement to replace him.

June 7th: Mexican Cristero and Synarchist forces in its west are dealt a harsh blow by the deaths of much of its leadership in a surprise raid on their headquarters that essentially decapitates the counter-revolutionaries. Though there will be insurgent activity for months afterwards, the west is mostly secure now.

June 9th: At an emergency session of the Revolutionary International Military Command (REVCOM) that serves as the military alliance structure underpinning the Third International’s gathering of parties; furious discussion is held on whether to declare war on Japan for its invasion as Japanese troops penetrate deeper into foreign soil. Notably, the Chinese government’s usual observer Liu Renjing speaks their mind; citing a fear of open REVCOM intervention in the war in China escalating out of control and bringing possible British or French intervention or harming the government’s legitimacy by playing into the National Republic’s propaganda that they are a tool of Communists.

June 10th: The last Yugoslavian forces surrender and the country is formally dissolved into the Italian Empire

June 12th: The Baseball Hall of Fame is established in Cooperstown, New York. The inaugural class is Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, Satchel Paige, and the late Lou Gehrig (killed in the Revolution). A statue of Gehrig is erected outside.

June 12th Cont: Zeras the Hammer , part of the wider setting established for Commander Colombia makes his debut, though less broadly successful than Mission to China, makes a distinctive impression on the African-American population of America who come to be enamoured of the black deity-like figure.

June 14th: The last Polish forces surrender to the German invaders, and Poland is forcibly annexed by the Third Reich. Polish President Władysław Raczkiewicz commits suicide shortly after the surrender.

June 15th: Longtime WCPA Party leader William L. Patterson is shot by a mysterious assailant in Brown, New Afrika, and dies a short time later. The rump Sons of the Confederacy, now under Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor, takes responsibility for the assassination.

June 20th: Morris Hillquit International Airport opens in Queens, New York, becoming the main airport for the Metropolis Autonomous Republic.

June 21st : The Jewish population of Poland begins to be corralled into Warsaw as part of Nazi racial programmes while the General Government of Poland meant to pave the way for Polish integration into the Reich begins.

June 24th: Riding the wave of the success of Superman , Joe Shuster begins his own hard science fiction comic called “Star Squadron”.

June 27th: Japanese forces engage in a large tank battle with their Soviet counterparts off the town of Nomonhon. The battle carries on for hours before Japanese forces are forced to retreat by Zhukov’s hidden reserves.

July 1st: The Presidium promulgates a decree announcing the beginning of military general mobilisation. Active Militia members are mobilised for service in the general armed forces duty for three-year terms. An additional six-hundred thousand reservists are also called up. It is the largest peace-time expansion of the standing army in American history.

July 2nd: The First Annual World Fantastik Convention (WorldCon) is held in conjunction with the World’s Fair. In addition to science fiction fans and authors from throughout the country (including new blood like Robert Heinlein and Isaak Ozimov), a notable guest is Alexei Tolstoy, whose own science fiction had been wildly successful in the United Republics.

July 4th: Captain America, the comic book creation of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, makes his dynamic debut punching Hitler in the jaw.

_July 7th:_Crisis in Michigan, a loose retelling of the Revolt of the Cadres with many of the names changed, debuts in theatres.

July 11th: The “Provisional Republic of the Chinese Nation” escalates its provision of slave labour to Manchukuo to one and a half million per year to meet Japan’s industrialization targets in a secret meeting with the Kwantung Army and Tokyo government, most of them from territory seized from the Republic of China. Most will not survive.

July 13th: The conflict between the Public Theatre and the Soviet Union continues when the Theatre stages Mikhail Bulgakov’s Batumi , based on the early life of Joseph Stalin. Secretary of Culture Louise Bryant announces that the play will be closed after one performance. Flanagan resigns as head of the Public Theatre, under-reported pressure from John Reed.

July 17th: In an emergency session following a hung parliament after the deaths of important Social Democratic politicians in an aircraft crash incident blamed on Communists, Gustav V of Sweden announces the dissolution of the Social Democratic government of Per Albin Hansson, and appoints a rightist coalition government under Konrad Hallgren and the National Union of Sweden; which includes both Fascists and ultra-conservatives.

July 20th: The first issue of LifeTime magazine (a collective merging the properties of the late Henry Luce, including Life and Time Magazine ) is published in Metropolis.

July 25th: A large air battle takes place over the skies of the Russian Far East and Outer Mongolia as both sides muster increasingly larger commitments of men and materiel to the ongoing undeclared war. American planes from the Star Walker squadron are also deployed, helping to win the day in the developing furball.

July 26th: The Daily Worker publishes an article revealing the existence of a secret pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union negotiating spheres of influence in Poland, effectively splitting the country between them.

July 28th: King Kong vs the Harbinger debuts in American theatres, featuring the Gorilla’s fierce struggle with a sinister machine awakened from the depths of the ocean.

July 29th: The Wild Party , based on Joseph Moncure March’s 1926 poem of the same name, sparks considerable controversy due to its overly lewd and bacchanalian depiction of a Roaring Twenties Hollywood party.

August 2nd: A Public Safety unit attempts to confront Bull Connor in a Mobile hotel, but after a shootout, he escapes.

August 5th: In response to an Ultimatum by Mussolini to allow Italian troops to occupy the country to “ensure its defense against communism” Metaxas of Greece capitulate when word that no assistance from Britain or France will be forthcoming as the Greek army faces collapse after months of fighting the Turkish army over the Constantinople international zone and a Bulgarian invasion of Macedonia. Greece will disappear into the Italian Empire in the next few days.

August 8th: Richard Gregg and Jeanette Rankin resign from the Central Committee. While they cite “internal disagreements”, many speculate the two’s pacifism and the preparation for a war in Europe was the main reason.

August 11th: To Mars and Back , an animated scifi epic releases in theatres. The Film will ultimately fail to make much of an impact with relatively mediocre reception both popularly and critically due to its often overloaded story and overly busy scenes save for its innovations in animation techniques that will be studied later.

August 13th : The Soviet Propaganda ministry starts a campaign to fully shift the ire of the Soviet people towards France, Britain, and Japan in the hopes of directing Germany towards the west while the nation prepares for war and turns its eyes eastwards.

August 15th: The Wizard of Oz , a musical adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s beloved novel of the same name, is released by Culver City Collective. The film features animated characters and sequences from Hyperion Animation.

August 18th: Kim , an epic adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s novel, is released by MGM, directed by Victor Saville and starring Errol Flynn (fresh off the success of Gone with the Wind) and Freddie Bartholomew. Notably, it is filmed in India in locations listed in the novel.

August 22nd: A game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds at Ebbets Field becomes the first baseball game broadcast on television by the experimental MBS TV station.

August 25th: Warner Bros and Columbia release their own version of The Wizard of Oz , taking elements from later books and having a more straight-forward approach, similar to the 1925 film.

August 28th: Suffering a meltdown, Frank Whittle gets put on leave for the remainder of the week and the following week as the Power Jets W.2 enters full production.

August 31st: The August 31st incident nearly sees the further escalation of the Mongolian incident (more crudely known as the “Mongolian Clusterfuck” by John Reed) as the Soviet pacific fleet is ordered to shadow a Japanese battleship division looming near the Transamurian shore with submarines for many tense hours before both naval formations are called back.

September 1st: Argentina announces a sweeping series of deals with the governments of Peru, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and Chile to consolidate and share resources. Most notably, it includes assurances that if one is attacked; it will be an attack on all. With tensions with Brazil increasingly high, this is seen as a necessary guarantee of safety.

September 5th: Japanese forces are being rapidly driven back from their gains by Zhukov’s skilful usage of his assets; particularly his familiarity with tanks, including the American armoured “Medusa regiment” from the UASR lead by Brigadier General Saren McConnell* dispatched to aid its Soviet ally.

September 7th: Lincoln Motors opens up the impressive Johannesburg Arsenal in South Africa as part of an endeavour to create jobs and bolster the empire’s military readiness. The massive factory complex will produce much of the Commonwealth’s vehicles in the war to come in its numerous assembly lines and is warmly welcomed as “a wonder to rival the Suez” by Jan Smuts.

September 9th: Mexican authorities announce the discovery of an attempt by German-Italian agents inserted via Cuba to spark a fascist uprising in occupied Honduras. The conspirators are detained for questioning but will eventually be found guilty and executed.

September 10th: Indo-Greek Nazi sympathizer Savitri Devi publishes A Warning to Hindus, urging Hindus in India to reject “foreign” influences like Islam, and embrace Hindu nationalism as an “Aryan religion”. The book gains the endorsement of VD Savarkar, head of the Hindu Mahasabha, and becomes a key part of the “Hindutva” movement.

September 13th: Italian Animated Film “Advance Italians!” is released to demonstrate the ever forward marching nature of the Italian people from the days of Rome onwards by following the history of an unbroken family line from the founding of the eternal city to the newest son’s meeting with Mussolini, who is portrayed as a benevolent and loving figure.

September 15th: Gildardo Magana succeeds Emiliano Zapata as the Premier of the Mexican Socialist Republic as the now sixty-year-old revolutionary wishes to create a tradition of short premierships. Magana inherits a rapidly modernizing nation that some are praising as the model developing socialist republic, but still is seeking to put down the last of the Cristeros in the west.

September 17th: A motion of no confidence for the Foster Central Committee following the revelation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact fails to reach a majority in the Central Executive Council, with Foster (along with Harry Truman) convincing a majority to follow the Soviet party line for the time being.

September 18th: Oil production in Arabia triples from the figures the year before. Much of the oil will be stockpiled by buyers rather than sold for consumption as war is felt to be increasingly near. Significant Italian investment into the project ensures that Il Duce gets more than his fair share of the cut.

September 19th: Production of Aircraft begins in the Salsbury Aerocraft Plant installed as part of the “dominion industrialization” project. The enormous factory is staffed by more than ten thousand workers who will create both civilian and military aircraft.

September 25th: The undeclared war for Mongolia comes to an end as the IJA loses the stomach for its planned conquest of the Russian Far east as its soldiers are driven back into Japanese controlled Inner Mongolia and Manchukuo. Despite the enthusiasm of the Kodoha and Araki for the conquest; Chichibu takes a more pragmatic view and instead wishes to secure Japan’s gains in China before trying again when the opportunity presents itself. An agreement brokered by Molotov ends the conflict, but tensions between Japan’s burgeoning Co-Prosperity sphere and REVCOM will remain extremely high. At the same time, this conflict will result in the Nomonhan Research Report the next year, which would lead to a comprehensive overhaul of the Japanese military towards a more modernized, well-equipped one instead of relying on spiritual mobilization.

October 1st: Frida Kahlo announces her resignation from the Central Committee of the Mexican Socialist Republic. It’s believed her deteriorating romantic relationship to General Secretary Diego Rivera is the primary reason.

October 3rd: The Garda Síochána, the national police force of Ireland, carry out arrests of over forty people across the country accused of being high-ranking members of the IRA, including three members of the Dáil. Organized under the codename Operation Snakes, the arrests take place as part of a government crackdown on left-wing Irish republicans, who continue to reject the 1938 constitution and the office of the Governor-General.

October 10th : A euthanasia program for people with disabilities or mental illness begins in Nazi Germany.

October 11th: HMAS Excalibur, the first “Super Cruiser” to be built by the new Elizabeth Shipyard at Sydney; is launched as a show of force by Australia. With its large 9.2 inch guns, the 15,000 tonne warship is a rival to anything short of a true battleship or cruiser at sea and after its commissioning the next year; will be made the flagship of the Australian navy even when the slightly larger carrier HMAS “Merlin” is commissioned in the same year.

October 12th: A plan is put in place to more than triple the size of the Brazilian army in a year by Integralist Brazil’s highest offices. Massive military preparations are made as fear sinks into the hearts of the continent afraid of its traditional sovereign’s ever-increasing bellicosity. Boaventura plans to quintuple the size of his ever-expanding Guarda Verde as they make greater usage of prison labour to build facilities that will be largely controlled by the paramilitary to house its ambitions.

October 13th: Beloved staple of British animated entertainment, James the Jester, debuts in theatres for the first time in the short James and the Wonderful Machine where his antics lead to a rather annoyed inventor getting the inspiration to build his machine.

October 15th: Soviet animated film Truth in Print is released, the film features a young wizard named Sasha Ivanova who seeks to share the teachings of their cloistered order with the wider people to make their lives better, and her struggle against the entrenched and often reactionary bureaucracy.

October 17th: Frank Capra’s Comrade Smith is released in theatres, starring Jimmy Stewart as an idealistic Party cadre recently elected to the Congress of Soviets, but encountering corruption and dealing with growing discontent in his home district.

October 18th: Japanese naval expansion plans are intensified once more with a new order for even more ships coming from the headquarters as more shipyards come online in the Empire’s territories furnished by the looting of resources from China and financial capital from Italy and Germany. Of key importance in the new plan is the expansion of the Destroyer and Cruiser fleet to ensure adequate protection for Japan’s vaunted capital ships.

October 19th: Japanese war games on the outcome of a war with the Comintern conclude. The results indicate that the key to victory will be Germany keeping the bulk of the armies of the Soviet Union busy while Japan prepares for a massive blitz to drive America out of the Pacific to be initiated with a crippling first strike at Pearl Harbour. Then the Soviet territories to the North will be conquered once America is no longer a threat, to be used as living space for the Japanese people. In the event that the western degenerates are unable to provide the resources for this, the far right nationalist movements in Asia that Japan is already funding will need to play their part.

October 25th: Commander Columbia half-movie “Alaskan Avenger ” debuts, featuring Amanda Aaron defending Alaska from the encroaching Canadians and British who seek to menace the indigenous and worker population of the ACSR.

October 27th: The Japanese Type 99 O-Ro Heavy Tank is introduced to devastating effect in one of the Chinese war’s largest tank battles so far, proving to be largely impervious to the guns of much of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army while its cannon shattered bunkers and pierced Chinese tanks with contemptuous ease.

October 31st: First recorded use of the Katyusha MLRS outside of the Soviet Union itself as Chinese forces launch a counterattack to attempt to stymie the traitor and Japanese offensives around Wuhan.

November 1st : King Edward and Wallis make another appearance in Berlin, where Edward is taken on a tour of an armaments factory by Henry Ford himself. The visit is criticized by politicians across the spectrum in the UK.

November 3rd: King Edward and National Socialist and Fascist League head William Joyce make a joint appearance in Trafalgar Square, agitating against war in Europe.

November 8th: Richard Sorge, Tokyo correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung , meets his friend Generalmajor Eugen Ott, the German military attache to Japan, for dinner and drinks. In their conversation, Ott reveals in confidence the existence of Fall Teutonische , the planned summer 1940 invasion of the Soviet Union.

November 11th: “Facility Three” in Manchuria is completed at the cost of more than thirty thousand dead. “Facility Three” is at the time of its completion; the largest tank and armoured car manufacturing complex in the world at the time of its completion; encompassing multiple factories; and will produce two-fifths of all armoured vehicles used by the Co-Prosperity Sphere in the war with the capacity to make use of tens of thousands of workers at a time. More than a half-million more workers will die inside of its halls to produce the vehicles for Japan’s war effort before the war’s end.

November 13th: The Italian garrison in Libya and East Africa is increased significantly to ensure that the wealth being extracted from Italy’s largest colonies remains secure in the face of possible communist or Africanist subversion. Major sweeps for remaining insurgent activity are also quietly launched.

November 15th: A German spy ring is exposed in upstate NY. Several ex-Bund members are arrested. J. Edgar Hoover warns of a “Nazi fifth column” slowly infecting the nation.

November 20th: Savitri Devi and her husband Asit Krishna Mukherji meet with VD Savarkar and fellow Hindutva advocate M. S. Golwalkar, Chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in Bombay to discuss a possible Hindutva alliance with the Japanese to ensure Indian independence. Devi and Murkherji are subsequently dispatched to meet exiled nationalist Rash Behari Bose and Japanese Army Major Iwaichi Fujiwara in Tokyo.

November 25th: Emma Goldman (in one of her last public appearances) and Jeanette Rankin speak at a New York peace rally to protest the build-up to war. Goldman states her opposition to wars between states, Rankin appeals to the lives lost during World War I and the Revolution.

November 27th: Baron Sadao Araki, one of the most powerful men in Japan and ally of Prince Yasuhito makes a speech in Japan urging its people to prepare for a war more grim, terrible, and awe inspiring than anything to have ever come before. One that will see all threats to Japan cleansed and the stains of impurity forever washed away from Asia. The “cleansing of blood” speech draws muted disquiet and alarm from much of the rest of the world but is met with enthusiasm in many right-wing pan-asianist circles such as the Hindutva movement.

December 1st: LifeTime Magazine names Vyacheslav Molotov as its first Man of the Year, for his roles in various foreign policy events.

December 7th: Jiang Jieshi, who had been missing for a month, reemerges as the “Chief Protector” (護国主席, Hùguózhǔxí) of the “Provisional Republic of the Chinese Nation”. This sends shockwaves throughout China as the “Red Napoleon” had defected to the Japanese. Why this happened would not emerge until after the war, but nevertheless this greatly weakened the Chinese Republic as many rightists also defected or engaged in resistance against the Left-KMT and CCP.

December 8th: In the wake of Jiang Jieshi’s defection, Wang Jinwei appoints himself into the role of Commander-in-Chief. His appointment is met with some apprehension within the military, given his relative inexperience on warfare.

December 10th: Captain Marvel, created by CC Beck and Bill Parker, makes his thunderous debut in Whiz Comics #2.

December 15th: Premier William Foster, DFLP head Harry S. Truman, and DRP head Robert Taft jointly announce the DFLP and DRP will not contest the next year’s elections, instead endorsing the Foster-Kantorovich government. Foster looks noticeably nervous throughout the conference.

December 17th: King Farouk causes international confusion by stealing King Edward’s pocket watch in a royal visit to Egypt, resulting in an irritated Edward trying to chase Farouk around his palace for about thirty minutes before giving up.

December 21st: In the midst of the Yuletide holiday, Foster meets with Soviet ambassador Andrei Gromkyo, Foreign Secretary John Reed, and Harry Truman for secret “foreign policy” discussions.

December 25th: At a winter holiday event, Leon Trotsky runs into Nestor Makhno by chance in the midst of a party resulting in “history’s most profoundly awkward silence”. While Trotsky remains convinced of the righteousness of his actions against Makhno, the two do not break into a fistfight as was feared.

December 26th: Heinrich Himmler concludes a discussion with Cristiano Boaventura during the master of the Guarda Verde’s visit to Germany where the two arch-homophobes engage in a horrific debate on the proper response to the homosexual threat and their differing religious views. Himmler passes on much of his antisemitism to Boaventura, while Himmler also comes away convinced of Boaventura’s belief that sapphic women are as great a threat as uranian men.

December 31st: Vladimir Triandafillov is dispatched on a year-long mission to the Union of American Socialist Republics to deepen ties and teach Soviet military theory, particularly deep operations. Among his most apt pupils will be George Patton and Saren McConnell. *[WPA]: Works Progress Administration *[NBI]: National Bureau of Investigation