The following events occurred in December 1937:
December 1, 1937 (Wednesday) The Battle of Nanjing began as Japan's Emperor Hirohito ordered Imperial Army General Iwane Matsui to order the Japanese troops capture and occupy the Chinese capital. At a ceremony in Tokyo, Japan formally recognized Francisco Franco as the leader of Spain, in return for the Franco government's recognition of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in China as a legitimate nation. Franco also agreed to add Spain to the Anti-Comintern Pact, created by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1936, against Communist International. Before Nanjing's Mayor Ma Chaochun left the capital, he ordered all civilian residents to relocate to the demilitarized Nanking Safety Zone. Otto Meissner, the Chief of Staff for President Hindenburg and for his successor, the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, was appointed as Germany's Minister of State (Staatsminister). Born: Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, President of Latvia from 1999 to 2007; in Riga Klaas Bom, Dutch engineer and pioneer on ultrasound technology; in Velsen (d.2025)Klaas (1937-2025) veranderde met zijn werk het leven van veel mensen: ‘Hij was een briljante geest’ ("Klaas (1937-2025) changed the lives of many people with his work: 'He was a brilliant mind'"), by Bert Woudenberg, Algemeen Dagblad, November 7, 1925 Chuck Low, American character actor in Robert De Niro films; in New York City (d. 2017) Gordon Crosse, English composer; in Bury, Lancashire (d.2021) Died: Alfred Lodge, 83, English mathematician and author of British maths textbooks."Prof. Alfred Lodge", Obituary, Nature. Nature Publishing Group. Retrieved 13 April 2014
December 2, 1937 (Thursday) Brazil's President Getulio Vargas, who had taken power in a coup d'état on November 10 and proclaimed the Estado Novo, outlawed all political parties by issuing Decree Number 37. The Mineiro Republican Party, the Paulista Republican Party, and all other political parties were barred from any activities until President Vargas declared otherwise. Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek agreed to peace with Japan on the conditions that had been proposed by the German Ambassador to China, Oskar Trautmann on November 5. By then, however, Japan, which had warned that it would only allow a limited time to join in the proposed settlement terms, declined Chiang's offer.Tetsuya Kataoka, Resistance and Revolution in China: The Communists and the Second United Front (University of California Press, 1974) On December 7, when German Ambassador Herbert von Dirksen told Japan's Foreign Minister Kōki Hirota about Chiang's willingness to make peace, provided that China would not lose any more territory, Japan rejected the chance to keep Shanghai and other territories.Yoshiro Miwa, Japan's Economic Planning and Mobilization in Wartime, 1930s–1940s (Cambridge University Press, 2015) p.132 In Burgos, the 50-member National Council of the Movement, drawn from the FET and the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (JONS), appointed by Francisco Franco and modeled after Italy's Grand Council of Fascism, was sworn into office as the advisory body for Franco. Manchukuo and the Franco regime exchanged documents granting each other formal recognition."Franco Joins Anti-Communist Bloc as Japs Give Recognition— Tokio Appoints Envoy to Spain Rebels", by James R. Young, Oakland Post-Enquirer, December 1, 1937, p.2
The German stop motion film Die 7 Raben (The Seven Ravens), one of the first animated feature films, premiered in Germany after being released by the Puppentrickfilm studios.Ronald M. Hahn, Volker Jansen and Norbert Stresau, Lexikon des Fantasy-Films: 650 Filme von 1900 bis 1986 (Munich: Heyne, 1986) p.444 ISBN 3-453-02273-4 Based on the fairy tale of the same name by the Brothers Grimm, the film came to cinemas less than three weeks before Disney's film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released. Born: Katherine Hoover, American classical composer; in Elkins, West Virginia (d.2018) Manohar Joshi, Indian politician who served as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha from 2002 to 2004, and Chief Minister of the Maharashtra state from 1995 to 1999; in Nandavi, Bombay State, British India (d.2024)
December 3, 1937 (Friday) Neville Chamberlain appointed Harold MacMichael to be the next High Commissioner for Palestine to replace Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, who was retiring for health reasons."Sir Harold MacMichael Is Named Replacing Wauchope in Palestine", by Ferdiand Wauchope, The Gazette, December 3, 1937, p.1 (Montreal)
Japanese forces took Danyang in China's Jiangsu province Born: Bobby Allison, American NASCAR stock car driver and team owner, winner of the Daytona 500 in 1978, 1982 and 1988, inductee to the NASCAR Hall of Fame; in Miami (d. 2024)Bobby Allison, ‘Alabama Gang’ legend and Hall of Famer, dies at 86 NASCAR John Seymour, U.S. Senator for California from 1991 to 1992; in Chicago
December 4, 1937 (Saturday) Nazi Germany tested its third rocket design, the Aggregat 3 as part of "Operation Lighthouse" supervised by designers Wernher von Braun and Walter Dornberger, launching from the Baltic Sea island of Usedom near Peenemünde. Soon after takeoff, the Aggregat 3 rocket's parachute deployed prematurely and its engine failed, and the rocket crashed, and the second test on December 6 failed as well. The children's comic book The Dandy, which would run for 75 years before going out of print was first published in the United Kingdom, marking the first appearance of the character of Desperate Dan. Writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster signed an employment contract with Detective Comics, Inc. (now "DC"), at a pay rate of $10 per page, where they would soon bring their creation, "Superman", to print. Three months later, on March 1, 1938, they would release their rights to DC for one of the most successful fictional characters in history. In Baku, capital of the Azerbaijani SSR of the Soviet Union, Shakespearean actor Abbas Mirza Sharifzadeh was arrested by secret police after returning home from his final performance, a production of the play Macbeth. Sharifzadeh was one of many artists caught in the Great Purge throughout the Soviet Union, and was accused of espionage. He would be executed eleven months later on November 16, 1938, at a prison in Baku. Born: Max Baer Jr., American television actor and producer best known for his portrayal of "Jethro Bodine" The Beverly Hillbillies, and producer of the films Macon County Line (1974) and Ode to Billy Joe; in Oakland, California as the son of former world heavyweight champion boxer Max Baer Sr. and Mary Sullivan Baer Stewart R. Mott, American philanthropist; in Flint, Michigan as the son of General Motors co-founder C. S. Mott and Ruth Rawlings Mott (d.2008) Valentin Kuptsov, Soviet Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Russian SFSR Communist Party before the dissolution of the Soviet Union; in Mindyukino Died: Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum Khan, 73, Chief Minister of British India's North-West Frontier Province for five months, died of an apparent stroke."", Radio Pakistan, 4 December 2012 Elín Briem, 81, Icelandic writer and teacher known for her popular book Kvennafræðarinn (The Women's Teacher) as a guide to housekeeping and cooking Ralph Lewis, 65, American silent film actor in D. W. Griffith's films The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), died nine days after being struck by a limousine driven by Jack L. Warner's chauffeur.
December 5, 1937 (Sunday) The General Labour Confederation of Belgium (Flemish, Belgisch Vakverbond; French, Confédération Générale du Travail de Belgique) was created from an agreement between 26 labor unions, including the 121,000-member General Union (construction and factory workers), the 116,000-member Union of the Belgian Metal Industry and more than 300,000 members from other occupations, becoming the largest trade union federation in the kingdom. In 1945, the General Confederation would merge with two other labor unions to form the General Labour Federation of Belgium. In China, the Great Way Municipal Government of Shanghai was created by Japan as a puppet government to administer the occupation of Shanghai. With the assistance of banker Fu Xiao'an, Japan selected Professor Su Xiwen (a graduate of Japan's Waseda University) as Shanghai's mayor, and Zhang Songlin as the city police chief, though another collaborator, Wang Zihui, oversaw most of the administration. Emperor Hirohito's uncle Prince Yasuhiko Asaka took over command of the Japanese Shanghai Expeditionary Army besieging Nanjing. Yugoslavian Prime Minister Milan Stojadinović held talks with Benito Mussolini in Rome."Premier Of Yugoslavia Is Welcomed To Rome— Mussolini, Count Ciano And Reich's Envoy Greet Stoyanovich", The Sun (Baltimore), December 6, 1937, p.9 The Tax Foundation was formed by four business executives as a think tank of taxation experts for sharing and publishing of research on matters affecting American tax policy, with a goal "to monitor the tax and spending policies of government agencies". The founders were General Motors Chairman Alfred P. Sloan Jr. and GM Financial Vice President Donaldson Brown, William S. Farish, President of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, Lewis H. Brown, President of Johns-Manville Corporation, with Brown becoming the foundation's first chairman. Died: Gustave Verbeek, 70, American cartoonist, known for the comic strip The Upside Downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo, which had two different stories depending on which way the panels were viewed.
December 6, 1937 (Monday)
Italy inaugurated the first train service to exceed 200 kilometers per hour, with its FS Class ETR 200, setting a world record by averaging from Campoleone to Nettunia on its Bologna-Rome-Naples express route. The U.S. Supreme Court decided Breedlove v. Suttles, unanimously upholding the constitutionality of the poll tax, used to discourage voter registration as not being a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The suit had been brought by Nolan Breedlove, a white resident of the U.S. state of Georgia. The state would abolish its poll tax in 1945, and poll taxes in all other states would be barred with the ratification in 1966 of the 24th Amendment. The Court also decided, by a 5 to 4 decision, James v. Dravo Contracting Co., determining that in some instances, an individual American state could tax the U.S. government, marking the first departure from previous decisions that held taxation by the states on the federal government to be a violation of the "Supremacy Clause" in Article Six of the Constitution, and introducing the "legal incidence test" for tax cases.Christopher R. Drahozal, The Supremacy Clause: A Reference Guide to the United States Constitution. (Westport CT: Praeger, 2004), pp.131-132 Ford C. Frick was re-elected president of baseball's National League for another three-year term. Born: Alberto Spencer, Ecuadorian footballer who played for both the Ecuadorian national team (11 caps) and the Uruguayan national team (5 caps); in Ancón (d. 2006)www.espectador.com: Falleció Alberto Spencer , El Espectador (Montevideo), November 4, 2006 Gene Case, American advertising executive known for memorable ad campaigns; in Knoxville, Tennessee (d.2010)Todd Stone, "Gene Case, 72, Dies of Heart Attack", Advertising Age, September 13, 2010Bruce Weber, . "Gene Case, Who Marketed After-Shave and Politicians, Dies at 72", The New York Times, September 13, 2010 Died: Francis Cadell, 54, Scottish painter, died from cancer. Lindsay McIntosh, "Colourful life of Scottish national treasure", The Times (London) October 20, 2011Biographical Details of Reginald Francis Joseph Fairlie Architect Accessed on September 3, 2009
December 7, 1937 (Tuesday)