This is where the Daily Chronicles are posted
Berlin, Germany · January 5, 1939 On this date in 1939, eight months before the armed forces of Nazi Germany surged over Polish borders to launch World War II in Europe, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler told Poland’s visiting Foreign Minister Józef Beck that Germany would guarantee his country’s frontiers were a “final settlement” reached over the…
Budapest, Hungary · January 4, 1945 In March 1944 Adolf Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to occupy his wavering Axis ally Hungary, whose Nagykanizsa (German, Grosskirchen) oil reserves and fuel storage tanks southwest of the capital Budapest in the Lake Balaton (German, Plattensee) area had grown strategically more important to the German war machine—this following punishing…
London, England · January 3, 1943 By the end of 1942 U-boats operating from ports in Germany and occupied Europe had sunk just over 1,160 ships (see Battle of the Atlantic). U‑boats claimed nearly 70 percent of all Allied and neutral shipping losses (about 7.8 million tons), and the Kriegsmarine appeared to be winning the tonnage race, sinking…
Manila, Philippines · January 2, 1942 Japan intended to occupy the Philippine Islands as part of its plan for a “Greater East Asia War.” The nation’s Southern Expeditionary Army Group was tasked with seizing the islands, British Malaya (today’s Malaysia), and the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia) simultaneously with the Japanese Navy’s assault on the…
Washington, D.C. · January 1, 1942 On August 14, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter on a warship off the Canadian coast. The two leaders hoped that, following the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Germany, countries around the world would renounce the use of force in international…
Berlin, Germany · September 27, 1937 On this date in 1937 the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Reich Security Main Office (known by its acronym RSHA), was created by Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler through the merger of the SS (Schutzstaffel) intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), or Security Service, and the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo), or Security Police. The SiPo comprised the notorious…
Washington, D.C. · October 2, 1939 On January 31, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt held a closed-door meeting with the Senate Military Affairs Committee at the White House. Reportedly FDR made the comment that “the frontier of the United States is the Rhine,” meaning France’s eastern border with Nazi Germany. When the statement was leaked…