Events, Verisoph

24 February 1918 Independence of Estonia 0 cit. no story Estonia declares independence from Russia; after Soviet annexation in 1940, independence was restored in August 1991. politics / war ●●●

18 November 1918 Independence of Latvia 0 cit. no story Latvia proclaims independence from Russia; after Soviet annexation in 1940, independence was restored in 1991. politics / war ●●●

16 February 1918 Independence of Lithuania 0 cit. no story The Council of Lithuania proclaims the restoration of an independent Lithuanian state; independence was restored again from the USSR in 1990. politics / war ●●●

11 November 1918 Independence of Poland 0 cit. no story Poland regains independence at the end of World War I, 123 years after being partitioned by Russia, Prussia and Austria. politics / war ●●●●

November 1918 Dissolution of Austria-Hungary 0 cit. In November 1918, as World War I ended, the Habsburg monarchy collapsed and Austria-Hungary broke apart. Several new nation-states emerged from its former territories. politics / war ●●●●

9 November 1918 Fall of the German Empire 0 cit. On 9 November 1918 revolution forced Kaiser Wilhelm II from power, and a republic was proclaimed. The German Empire ended just before the armistice that closed World War I. politics / war ●●●●

22 January 1918 Ukrainian People's Republic Declares Independence 0 cit. Amid the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Central Rada proclaimed a fully independent Ukrainian People's Republic. The young state was soon caught between competing armies in the civil war. politics / war ●●●●

8 January 1918 Wilson's Fourteen Points 0 cit. President Woodrow Wilson set out fourteen principles for peace in an address to Congress, including open diplomacy, free trade, and a general association of nations. His wartime rhetoric of a world made safe for democracy shaped the postwar settlement. politics / war ●●●●

3 November 1918 Kiel Mutiny 0 cit. German sailors at Kiel mutinied rather than obey orders for a final, likely suicidal, sortie against the British fleet in the war's last days. The mutiny spread rapidly to other ports and cities, triggering the German Revolution that toppled the Kaiser within days. It stands as one of the clearest cases of a navy's rank and file refusing an order that precipitated the collapse of a regime. politics / war ●●●

1 June 1918 Battle of Belleau Wood 0 cit. U.S. Marines helped halt a German advance toward Paris in brutal, weeks-long fighting through the forest at Belleau Wood, suffering heavy casualties. The battle became one of the founding legends of the modern Marine Corps and is credited with the nickname 'Devil Dogs,' allegedly given by German soldiers. It remains one of the most commemorated engagements in Marine Corps history. war ●●

1 April 1918 Royal Air Force founded as an independent service 0 cit. Britain merged the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service to form the Royal Air Force, the world's first air force independent of army or navy command. Its founding was driven partly by the shock of German bombing raids on London and the belief that air power needed unified command. The RAF's structure became a model later copied by other nations building independent air services. politics / war ●●●

30 October 1918 Armistice of Mudros and Allied occupation 0 cit. The Ottomans sign an armistice ending their part in World War I, and Allied forces soon occupy Istanbul and much of Anatolia. The government in the capital is reduced to a figurehead under foreign control. The occupation set the stage for a nationalist resistance movement in the interior. diplomacy / politics / war ●●

1918 to 1921 Civil-war pogroms kill tens of thousands in Ukraine 0 cit. During the Russian Civil War, Jewish communities in Ukraine suffered a wave of pogroms far deadlier than those of the 1880s. Forces on many sides took part, including troops loyal to the Ukrainian leader Symon Petliura, White armies, and peasant bands. Historians estimate the massacres killed tens of thousands of Jews, with some counts running higher, in a foretaste of worse to come. politics / society / war ●●

28 May 1918 to 1920 First Republic of Armenia 0 cit. As the Russian and Ottoman empires collapse, Armenians in the former Russian territory declare an independent republic centered on Yerevan. The young state struggles with war, famine, and masses of genocide refugees, and its promised borders under the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres never take effect. Squeezed between Turkish nationalist forces and the advancing Red Army, it lasts barely two years before being sovietized. politics / war ●●

28 June 1919 Treaty of Versailles 0 cit. The peace treaty assigns Germany responsibility for the war, imposes reparations, and redraws the map of Europe. Signed five years to the day after the assassination. politics / war ●●●●●

10 September 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye 0 cit. Peace treaty dissolving the Austrian half of the Habsburg Empire, recognizing the new states of central Europe, and forbidding union between Austria and Germany. It reduced Austria to a small alpine republic. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

19 August 1919 Independence of Afghanistan 0 cit. no story After the Third Anglo-Afghan War, Britain recognizes Afghanistan's full independence in foreign affairs under the Treaty of Rawalpindi. politics / war ●●●

February 1919 to 18 March 1921 Polish-Soviet War 0 cit. The reborn Polish state and Soviet Russia fight over their borderlands, with the Red Army turned back at Warsaw in 1920. The Polish victory halts the westward spread of Bolshevism for two decades. politics / war ●●●

21 January 1919 to 11 July 1921 Irish War of Independence 0 cit. no story The IRA fights a guerrilla war against British rule. The truce leads to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the Irish Free State, with the island partitioned. politics / war ●●●

19 May 1919 to 24 July 1923 Turkish War of Independence 0 cit. no story Mustafa Kemal leads Turkish nationalists against Greek, French, and Armenian forces and the Allied partition of Anatolia. Victory overturns the Treaty of Sevres and creates the Republic of Turkey. politics / war ●●●●

13 April 1919 The Amritsar Massacre 0 cit. British troops opened fire on an unarmed crowd in an enclosed garden, killing hundreds. The massacre outraged Indian opinion and became a turning point for the independence movement. society / war ●●●●●

1919 Treaty of Versailles restricts Krupp arms production 0 cit. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles sharply limited German arms manufacture, forcing Krupp to shift to civilian products. The firm quietly kept some weapons design work alive during the 1920s. politics / war ●●

1919 Mussolini's National Fascist Party takes its name and emblem from the fasces 0 cit. Benito Mussolini's movement adopts the fasces as its namesake symbol, and the party takes the name 'Fascism' from it, permanently associating the ancient Roman emblem in the 20th-century public mind with Italian Fascism, even though the symbol continued to appear unrelated on older American civic monuments predating this association. politics / war ●●

13 April 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar 0 cit. British troops under General Dyer fired on an unarmed crowd trapped in an enclosed garden, killing hundreds. The massacre shocked Indian opinion and destroyed much remaining faith in British rule. It pushed many moderates, including Gandhi, toward outright demands for independence. politics / war ●●

12 September 1919 to 1920 D'Annunzio seizes Fiume 0 cit. The poet Gabriele D'Annunzio leads war veterans to occupy the disputed city of Fiume and rules it for over a year. His theatrical politics of black shirts, balcony speeches, and the Roman salute supplied a template that Mussolini later borrowed. politics / war ●●

January 1919 The First Dáil and the War of Independence 0 cit. After a landslide win in the 1918 election, Sinn Féin members refused to sit at Westminster and set up their own parliament, the First Dáil, in January 1919. On the same day the Irish Republican Army began a guerrilla war against British forces and police. The conflict, marked by ambushes and reprisals including the Black and Tans, lasted until a truce in July 1921. politics / war ●●●

1919 The American Black Chamber 0 cit. Herbert O. Yardley set up a secret US code-breaking bureau, funded by the State and War Departments, that read the encrypted cables of foreign governments. It cracked Japanese diplomatic traffic and fed Washington its rivals' negotiating positions. Secretary of State Henry Stimson shut it down in 1929, reportedly saying that gentlemen do not read each other's mail. diplomacy / politics / war ●●

1919 The Soldier Settlement Scheme After the Great War 0 cit. After the First World War the government threw open highland land to British ex-servicemen through a lottery scheme, hoping to plant a larger, loyal white population. Thousands of new farms were carved out, many on land recently used by Africans, and the European population climbed sharply. The scheme deepened the alienation of African land and sharply increased the demand for squatter and wage labour to work the new farms. economy / politics / war ●●

4 June 1920 Treaty of Trianon 0 cit. Peace treaty with Hungary that transferred about two thirds of its prewar territory to neighboring states. It left large Hungarian minorities abroad and remains a national grievance. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

10 August 1920 Treaty of Sevres 0 cit. Peace treaty partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allies, Greece, and proposed Armenian and Kurdish entities. Rejected by Turkish nationalists, it was never implemented and was replaced at Lausanne. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

10 January 1920 League of Nations established 0 cit. The League of Nations came into being when the Treaty of Versailles took effect, creating the first permanent intergovernmental organization for collective security. It was headquartered in Geneva and was weakened by the absence of the United States. politics / war ●●●●●

c. March 1920 The Black and Tans recruited for Ireland 0 cit. As the Irish War of Independence spread, Britain recruited demobilized First World War soldiers to reinforce the depleted RIC, and shortages of uniforms left them in a mix of dark police and khaki army dress that earned the nickname Black and Tans. Loosely disciplined and often violent, they became notorious for reprisals against civilians and property. Their name endures in Ireland as shorthand for the brutality of paramilitary policing. politics / society / war ●●●

c. July 1920 The Auxiliary Division formed within the RIC 0 cit. Separate from the Black and Tans, the Auxiliary Division of the RIC was recruited from former British Army officers and organized into mobile companies to hunt the Irish Republican Army. Better paid and more heavily armed, the Auxiliaries operated with wide latitude and were tied to some of the war's most notorious reprisals. Together with the Black and Tans they came to symbolize Britain using ex-soldiers as a militarized police against an insurgency. politics / war ●●

21 November 1920 Bloody Sunday in Dublin 0 cit. On the morning of 21 November 1920 IRA units killed a group of British intelligence officers in Dublin. That afternoon, RIC forces including Auxiliaries and Black and Tans opened fire on the crowd at a Gaelic football match at Croke Park, killing fourteen civilians. The day became a defining atrocity of the war and a lasting example of how armed police reprisals fell on ordinary people. politics / society / war ●●

10 August 1920 Treaty of Sèvres and the partition 0 cit. The Allies impose a treaty that strips the empire of its Arab lands and much of Anatolia, handing territory to Greece, Italy, France, and proposed Armenian and Kurdish states. The terms were so harsh they galvanized the nationalist movement, which rejected the treaty and fought to overturn it. Sèvres was never fully carried out. diplomacy / politics / war ●●

1920 The Ulster Special Constabulary is raised in Northern Ireland 0 cit. Britain formed the Ulster Special Constabulary, whose part-time B Specials became a mostly Protestant armed home force during the Irish conflict. Unionists saw them as local defence against the IRA, while Catholics and nationalists saw a partisan force turned against their community. The B Specials were disbanded in 1970 after the Hunt Report, an early sign of how a loyalist home guard can deepen a divide (cross-referenced with the Northern Ireland thread). politics / war ●●

January 1920 British aerial bombardment ends the Dervish State 0 cit. In early 1920 Britain used the newly formed Royal Air Force to bomb the Dervish fortresses at Taleh, combined with ground columns of the Camel Corps. The air campaign broke the Dervish state within weeks after twenty years of resistance. Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan fled to the Ogaden and died later that year, most accounts say of illness. He is remembered as an early hero of Somali nationalism. politics / technology / war ●●●

6 December 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty 0 cit. Agreement ending the Irish War of Independence and creating the Irish Free State as a dominion, with Northern Ireland able to opt out. The split over its terms led to the Irish Civil War. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

June 1921 to May 1926 Rif War 0 cit. no story Abd el-Krim's Rif republic destroys a Spanish army at Annual before France and Spain combine to crush it, using chemical weapons. The war becomes a model for later anti-colonial insurgencies. war ●●

1 March 1921 to 1921 Kronstadt rebellion 0 cit. Sailors of the Kronstadt naval base rise against Bolshevik rule, demanding free soviets and an end to one-party control. The Red Army storms the fortress and the revolt's suppression marks the closing of dissent within the revolution. politics / war ●●●

24 May 1921 The Bulhoek massacre 0 cit. When Enoch Mgijima's Israelites refused police orders to leave their settlement, South African police opened fire and killed around 160 to 200 believers, most armed only with knobkerries and faith. The massacre showed how far the state would go against a religious community that would not submit. It became a lasting symbol of the violence at the heart of colonial and settler rule. politics / religion / war ●●

6 February 1922 Washington Naval Treaty 0 cit. Treaty among the five leading naval powers limiting battleship tonnage in a 5:5:3 ratio for Britain, the United States, and Japan. It was the first major modern arms limitation agreement. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

6 December 1922 Independence of Ireland 0 cit. no story The Irish Free State is established under the Anglo-Irish Treaty after the War of Independence, ending British rule in most of Ireland. politics / war ●●●

1 November 1922 Fall of the Ottoman Empire 0 cit. On 1 November 1922 the Grand National Assembly abolished the Ottoman sultanate, deposing Mehmed VI. The move ended an empire that had lasted more than six centuries. politics / war ●●●●●

6 February 1922 The Washington Naval Treaty grants the US parity with Britain 0 cit. The treaty set equal capital-ship tonnage limits for the United States and Britain, ending the Royal Navy's long claim to unmatched supremacy. It marked a formal acceptance that American sea power now equaled Britain's. politics / war ●●

6 February 1922 Washington Naval Treaty signed 0 cit. The major naval powers, the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy, agreed to fixed tonnage ratios for capital ships and a ten-year halt on new battleship construction, the first major international arms-control treaty of the industrial era. The treaty scrapped or cancelled dozens of ships already under construction. It shaped naval design and diplomacy through the interwar period until Japan withdrew in the mid-1930s. diplomacy / war ●●●

May 1922 Bondelswarts Rebellion and aerial bombing 0 cit. South African administrator Jan Christiaan Smuts' government imposed a heavy dog tax on the Bondelswarts Nama community, provoking an armed protest that South African authorities crushed using aircraft to bomb and strafe Nama encampments. More than 100 Nama people were killed in the operation. The League of Nations criticized the disproportionate use of force but took no further action. war ●●

June 1922 The Irish Civil War 0 cit. Supporters and opponents of the treaty fought a bitter civil war from 1922 to 1923. The pro-treaty Free State forces, backed by Michael Collins until his death, defeated the anti-treaty republicans led politically by Éamon de Valera. The war was short but left deep divisions that shaped Irish party politics for decades. politics / war ●●

6 February 1922 The Washington Naval Treaty grants the United States parity 0 cit. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 set limits on capital ships among the major naval powers. It fixed a ratio that gave the United States and Britain equal tonnage, with Japan below them. For the first time Britain formally accepted a rival as its equal at sea, ending the long era of unmatched Royal Navy supremacy. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●●

24 July 1923 Treaty of Lausanne 0 cit. Peace treaty recognizing the Republic of Turkey within essentially its modern borders, replacing the failed Treaty of Sevres. It also sanctioned a compulsory population exchange between Greece and Turkey. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

29 October 1923 Proclamation of the Republic of Turkey 0 cit. no story Mustafa Kemal Ataturk proclaims the Republic of Turkey after the War of Independence, succeeding the Ottoman Empire. politics / war ●●●●

1923 Settlers plot to kidnap the Governor and seize Kenya 0 cit. As the Indian question came to a head, Kenya's settlers threatened armed rebellion. Led by Brigadier-General Philip Wheatley, they laid plans to kidnap Governor Sir Robert Coryndon, hold him at a remote farm, replace the colonial officials, and appeal to white South Africa, even threatening to secede from the Empire. The threat of a settler revolt pushed London toward a compromise. politics / war ●●●

c. 1924 to c. 1925 Saudi Conquest of the Hejaz 0 cit. Saudi forces defeated Sharif Hussein of the Hashemite dynasty and captured Mecca, Jeddah, and Medina. The conquest gave Ibn Saud control of Islam's two holiest cities. religion / war ●●●●

17 June 1925 Geneva Protocol 0 cit. Protocol prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons in war, drawn up after the gas warfare of the First World War. It banned use but not production or stockpiling. diplomacy / science / war ●●●

December 1925 Founding of IG Farben 0 cit. BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, and other German chemical firms merge into IG Farben, the largest chemical company in the world. Deeply complicit in Nazi crimes, including a factory at Auschwitz, it is broken up by the Allies after 1945. economy / politics / war ●●●

28 October 1925 Court-martial of Billy Mitchell 0 cit. US Army Brigadier General Billy Mitchell was court-martialed for insubordination after publicly accusing military leadership of incompetence and near treasonous neglect for failing to invest in air power. He was convicted and suspended from duty, resigning shortly after, but many of his warnings about air power's importance were vindicated within two decades. The case became a touchstone in debates over dissent and doctrine within a military hierarchy. politics / war ●●

25 September 1925 Sidney Reilly Captured via the Trust 0 cit. British intelligence agent Sidney Reilly, lured by the fake Trust organization run by Soviet secret police, crossed into the USSR believing he was meeting genuine anti-Bolshevik conspirators. He was arrested almost immediately and executed by the OGPU weeks later. His capture is documented as the culmination of the Operation Trust deception. politics / war ●

1926 Northern Expedition 0 cit. The Nationalist army launched the Northern Expedition in 1926 to defeat the warlords and unify China. It brought much of the country under a Nationalist government based in Nanjing. politics / war ●●●

1 August 1927 to 7 December 1949 Chinese Civil War 0 cit. no story Nationalists and Communists fight an on-and-off civil war spanning two decades, interrupted by the Japanese invasion. Communist victory in 1949 founds the People's Republic of China and drives the Nationalists to Taiwan. politics / war ●●●●●

1927 Start of the Chinese Civil War 0 cit. In 1927 the Nationalists violently purged their Communist allies, opening a long civil war. The two sides fought, paused, and fought again over the next two decades. politics / war ●●●●

27 August 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact 0 cit. Multilateral treaty renouncing war as an instrument of national policy, eventually joined by most states. Though unable to prevent the Second World War, it underpinned later charges of waging aggressive war. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

29 March 1929 Ikhwan Revolt and the Battle of Sabilla 0 cit. Ibn Saud crushed a rebellion by Ikhwan factions who opposed his accommodation with Britain and modern technology. The battle broke the Ikhwan as an independent military force. religion / war ●●●

21 July 1930 Founding of the Veterans Administration 0 cit. Herbert Hoover's Executive Order 5398 consolidates the Veterans' Bureau, pension office, and soldiers' homes into a single Veterans Administration. It is elevated to the cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs in 1989. society / war ●●●

22 April 1930 London Naval Treaty signed 0 cit. The United States, Britain, and Japan extended naval arms limitation from the 1922 Washington treaty to cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, setting further tonnage ratios among the three powers. Japan's dissatisfaction with its allotted ratio fed resentment that contributed to its withdrawal from naval treaty limits later in the decade. The treaty marked the high point, and near end, of interwar naval arms control. diplomacy / war ●●

c. 1930 Italian Reconquest of Cyrenaica Begins 0 cit. General Rodolfo Graziani launched a renewed campaign to crush the Senussi resistance led by Omar Mukhtar in eastern Libya. Italian forces built a 270-kilometer barbed-wire fence along the Egyptian border to cut off supply routes and began forcibly deporting the civilian population of the Jebel Akhdar plateau. The campaign combined aerial bombing, including with poison gas against encampments, and mass internment of civilians. politics / war ●●

16 September 1931 Execution of Omar Mukhtar 0 cit. Italian forces captured the Senussi resistance leader Omar Mukhtar after he was wounded in battle. He was tried in a summary military proceeding and publicly hanged at the Suluq concentration camp in front of thousands of interned Libyans as a deliberate act of intimidation. His death effectively ended organized armed resistance to Italian rule in Cyrenaica, though the camps remained in operation for two more years. politics / war ●●

18 September 1931 Mukden Incident 0 cit. Japanese army officers secretly detonated a small charge on the South Manchuria Railway near Mukden and blamed it on Chinese saboteurs. The Kwantung Army used the staged blast as the pretext to invade and occupy all of Manchuria within months. Japanese investigations and postwar tribunals confirmed the bombing was carried out by Japanese officers themselves. diplomacy / war ●●●

September 1931 The League fails the test of Manchuria and Abyssinia 0 cit. When Japan seized Manchuria in 1931 and Italy invaded Abyssinia in 1935, the League condemned the aggressors but could not stop them. Sanctions were half-hearted and the great powers put their own interests first. These failures exposed the League as toothless and hastened the slide toward the Second World War. diplomacy / war ●●●

23 September 1932 Unification of Saudi Arabia 0 cit. no story Abdulaziz Ibn Saud proclaims the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, uniting Nejd and Hejaz after three decades of conquest. politics / war ●●●●

9 September 1932 to 12 June 1935 Chaco War 0 cit. no story Bolivia and Paraguay fight over the arid Chaco region, rumored to hold oil, in South America's bloodiest twentieth-century war. Paraguay wins most of the disputed territory at a cost of some 100,000 lives. war ●●●

1933 Nazi regime and total dictatorship 0 cit. Hitler turned a democracy into a totalitarian state that controlled the courts, press, and daily life and crushed all opposition. It became the most extreme case of the modern total state. politics / war ●●●●●

14 July 1933 to 1945 Nazi Germany's forced sterilization law 0 cit. The Nazi Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, enacted in 1933, led to the forced sterilization of roughly 400,000 people deemed genetically unfit. The program drew directly on American eugenic laws and preceded the regime's mass murder of disabled people. politics / war ●●●●●

c. September 1933 Libyan Concentration Camps Closed 0 cit. Italian authorities began closing the Cyrenaican concentration camps after the resistance had been crushed and much of the pre-war population had died from disease, starvation, and executions. Survivors were resettled under continued Italian control, and colonization by Italian settlers accelerated in the following years. The episode remained largely absent from Italian public memory for decades after the war. society / war ●

14 July 1933 Nazi Germany Passes Sterilization Law 0 cit. The Nazi government enacted the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, mandating compulsory sterilization of people with conditions including schizophrenia, epilepsy, and hereditary blindness or deafness. German eugenicists, including Eugen Fischer and Ernst Rudin, had studied American sterilization statutes and cited California's program in particular as proof such a law could be implemented at scale. The law took effect January 1, 1934, and roughly 400,000 people were sterilized under it. politics / science / war ●●●

27 February 1933 Reichstag Fire 0 cit. The German parliament building was set ablaze weeks after Hitler became chancellor, and the Nazi government blamed a lone Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, who was tried and executed. The fire was used to suspend civil liberties and consolidate Nazi power. Whether the Nazis themselves secretly set the fire as a false-flag pretext, or opportunistically exploited a fire genuinely set by van der Lubbe acting alone, has been debated by historians for decades and remains formally unresolved; this event should be treated as contested, not settled. politics / war ●●●

15 June 1933 National Defense Act amendments create the dual-status Guard 0 cit. Amendments to the National Defense Act created the National Guard of the United States as a distinct federal reserve component, so that Guard members simultaneously held membership in their state militia and in a reserve of the United States Army. The change let the president order Guard units into federal active duty without going through the older, more cumbersome militia-draft process. It fixed the modern dual state-federal legal status that still governs the Guard. politics / war ●●●

October 1934 to 1935 The Long March 0 cit. Chinese communist forces retreat some 9,000 kilometers from Jiangxi to Shaanxi under Nationalist attack. The march secures Mao Zedong's leadership and becomes the founding legend of Chinese communism. politics / war ●●●

c. 1934 Schacht creates the Mefo bills to fund rearmament 0 cit. Schacht devised the Mefo bills, credit notes drawn on a dummy company and guaranteed by the Reichsbank, to hide the scale of German rearmament. The scheme let the state pay for weapons off the books until the bills came due. economy / war ●●●●

1934 Special Districts and the Neglect of the North 0 cit. The Special Districts Administration Ordinance of 1934 gave officials in the north sweeping powers of collective punishment, letting them seize the stock and restrict the movement of whole communities for the acts of a few. Combined with the closed-district system, it locked the region into policing and underdevelopment. The frontier's peoples entered independence far behind the rest of Kenya, and the unresolved anger helped drive the Shifta secession war of the 1960s, covered elsewhere. politics / war ●●

December 1934 The Walwal incident on the Somali border 0 cit. A clash between Ethiopian and Italian colonial troops at the Walwal wells, deep inside Ethiopian territory, left dozens dead and gave Mussolini the pretext he wanted. Italy demanded an apology and reparations for an incident on Ethiopia's own land. Ethiopia took the dispute to the League of Nations, which dithered while Italy prepared to invade. diplomacy / war ●

1934 Schacht engineers Nazi rearmament finance 0 cit. As Reichsbank president and economics minister, Hjalmar Schacht designed the financial machinery that funded German rearmament, including off-the-books credit instruments known as Mefo bills that hid the true scale of military spending. His skill kept the regime solvent while it rebuilt its forces. He was later tried at Nuremberg and acquitted. economy / politics / war ●●●

1 March 1935 Hitler publicly reveals the Luftwaffe 0 cit. Adolf Hitler publicly announced the existence of the Luftwaffe as an independent air force, openly violating the disarmament terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Germany had secretly been training pilots and developing aircraft designs for years beforehand. The Luftwaffe was rapidly built into one of the most powerful air forces in the world and became central to Nazi Germany's blitzkrieg strategy. politics / war ●●

1935 Ludendorff Publishes Der Totale Krieg 0 cit. Former World War I commander Erich Ludendorff published Der Totale Krieg (The Total War), arguing that modern war required mobilizing an entire nation's economy, population, and politics under military direction, with civilian leadership subordinated to the demands of war. The book argued explicitly against the idea of civilian control over military strategy, inverting the standard civil-military relationship. It became an influential statement of militarist ideology in the interwar period. politics / war ●●

3 October 1935 Second Italo-Ethiopian War Begins 0 cit. Italian forces under Marshal Pietro Badoglio invaded Ethiopia in a war of colonial conquest condemned by the League of Nations but met with only token sanctions. The campaign employed systematic aerial bombing of civilian targets alongside conventional military operations. It ended with the Italian occupation of Addis Ababa in May 1936 and the proclamation of Italian East Africa. diplomacy / war ●●

1935 Protesting Italy's invasion of Ethiopia 0 cit. Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 galvanised Black activists in Britain, and Kenyatta joined the campaigns defending the one African state that had kept its independence. The cause bound the London Pan-Africanists together and sharpened their anti-colonial edge. It was a formative moment for the movement that met again in 1945. politics / war ●

7 March 1936 Remilitarization of the Rhineland 0 cit. German troops re-enter the demilitarized Rhineland in open breach of Versailles; Britain and France do nothing. politics / war ●●●

20 July 1936 Montreux Convention 0 cit. Convention giving Turkey control of the Bosporus and Dardanelles and regulating passage of warships in and out of the Black Sea. Its rules still govern the straits today. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939 Spanish Civil War 0 cit. no story Franco's Nationalists, backed by Germany and Italy, defeat the Republic, backed by the Soviet Union and international volunteers. Around half a million die and Franco rules Spain until 1975. politics / war ●●●●

1936 to 1939 The 1936-39 Arab Revolt 0 cit. Palestinian Arabs staged a widespread revolt against British rule and Jewish immigration from 1936 to 1939. Britain suppressed it and later curbed Jewish immigration. politics / war ●●●

c. 1 January 1936 Palestine Police CID expands during the Arab Revolt 0 cit. During the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt, the Palestine Police CID and its political intelligence branch greatly expanded surveillance, informant networks, and interrogation of Arab nationalist organizers. Zionist paramilitary and political groups were also monitored, and the CID's methods and personnel later influenced British colonial policing elsewhere, including Malaya. politics / war ●●

17 July 1936 Military uprising ignites the Spanish Civil War 0 cit. A group of generals launches a coup against the elected Republic, splitting Spain into war. Franco takes command of the Nationalist side, which absorbs the fascist Falange and receives troops and aircraft from Hitler and Mussolini. The war becomes a proving ground for the Axis powers. politics / war ●●●

1936 Italy folds Somaliland into Italian East Africa 0 cit. After Fascist Italy invaded and occupied Ethiopia in 1935 and 1936, it merged Italian Somaliland, Eritrea, and conquered Ethiopia into the colony of Italian East Africa. For a brief period much Somali-inhabited land, including the Ogaden, sat under one administration. Italian rule was harsh and short-lived, ended by British conquest during the Second World War. politics / war ●

31 March 1936 Italy uses poison gas at Maychew and beyond 0 cit. As Ethiopian resistance stiffened, Italy sprayed mustard gas from aircraft over troops, civilians, herds, and water sources, in breach of the Geneva Protocol it had signed. The decisive Battle of Maychew broke the emperor's main army and opened the road to the capital. The gas attacks were widely reported and condemned, yet no power moved to punish Italy for them. technology / war ●●

1937 Second Sino-Japanese War and the Nanjing Massacre 0 cit. Full-scale war with Japan began in 1937 after a clash at the Marco Polo Bridge. Japanese forces committed atrocities including the mass killing and rape at Nanjing. war ●●●●●

c. 1937 Peenemuende rocket center established 0 cit. The German army opened a research center on the Baltic coast to develop long-range rockets under Wernher von Braun. It became the birthplace of the V-2 missile. science / technology / war ●●●

1937 Japan's Ministry of Education Publishes Kokutai no Hongi 0 cit. Japan's Ministry of Education issued Kokutai no Hongi (Cardinal Principles of the National Entity), a state-sponsored text promoting emperor worship, self-sacrifice, and military duty as the core of Japanese national identity. It was distributed widely in schools as part of a broader state effort to fuse Shinto ideology, imperial loyalty, and military expansion into official doctrine. The text is a documented example of state-driven militarist ideology in Imperial Japan during the lead-up to the Pacific War. religion / war ●●

19 February 1937 Yekatit 12 Massacre in Addis Ababa 0 cit. After an assassination attempt on Viceroy Rodolfo Graziani, Italian forces and Blackshirt militia carried out three days of reprisal killings against the civilian population of Addis Ababa. Estimates of the dead range from about 3,000 in early Italian accounts to 19,000 or more according to Ethiopian government estimates presented after the war, with historian Ian Campbell's more recent research supporting a toll of around 19,000-30,000. The massacre was followed by further executions of educated Ethiopians and Orthodox clergy in the following weeks. politics / war ●●●

7 July 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident 0 cit. A clash between Japanese and Chinese troops near the Marco Polo Bridge escalated into full-scale war between Japan and China. Unlike the Mukden Incident, most historians regard this clash as beginning from a genuine, unplanned skirmish, possibly triggered by a misfired shot or missing soldier, that was then deliberately escalated by Japanese commanders seeking pretext for wider war. Claims that it was a fully staged provocation from the outset, comparable to Mukden, are contested rather than established fact. diplomacy / war ●●

1938 Nazi seizure of the Austrian Rothschild bank 0 cit. After Germany annexed Austria in 1938, the Nazi regime seized the Vienna Rothschild bank and family assets. Louis Nathaniel von Rothschild was arrested and released only after a large ransom in property. economy / politics / war ●●●●

c. March 1938 Nazi Germany seizes control of Interpol 0 cit. After Germany annexed Austria in March 1938, the Vienna-based International Criminal Police Commission came under Nazi control along with the rest of the Austrian state apparatus. By 1940 the organization's presidency and headquarters had passed to senior SS and Reich Security Main Office officials, including Reinhard Heydrich and later Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and historians have documented that its files and networks were used to help track down political dissidents and Jews during the war. politics / war ●●●