Timeline - 1930-1939

1930

• 5th January -   The Soviet Politburo adopted a resolution calling for the completion of collectivization that would ultimately dispossess the kulaks.
• 3rd February -  The Indochinese Communist Party of Vietnam was established.
• 8th February -  Pope Pius XI published a letter in L'Osservatore Romano condemning the persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union.
• 12th February -     At the Convocations of Canterbury and York, Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury attacked the Soviet Union for "...the imprisonment, the exile, the deliberate putting to death of prelates and parish priests, of monks and nuns, and of the humblest folk."
• 15th February -  The Soviet newspapers Izvestia and Pravda declared that foreign attacks on the government for its suppression of churches were part of a concerted international movement against the USSR
• 1st July -  Great Britain signed an accord for the Independence of Iraq.

1931

• 2nd January -  Ernest Lawrence invented the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics.
• 24th August -  The Labour Government of James Ramsay MacDonald resigned in Britain, it was replaced by a National Government of people drawn from all parties, also under MacDonald.
• 15th September -   Strikes were called in the British Royal Navy, due to decreased pay known as the Invergordon Mutiny.
• 18th September - The Japanese military stage the Mukden Incident, as a pretext for the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
• 7th November -  The Chinese People's Republic was proclaimed by Mao Zedong.
• 11th December -  The Statute of Westminster gave complete legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland (Free State), and Newfoundland (not then part of Canada).

1932

• 2nd February - A general World Disarmament Conference began in Geneva.     
• 25th February - Adolf Hitler obtained German citizenship by naturalization, opening the opportunity for him to run in the 1932 election for Reichspresident (President of Germany).
• 10th May - James Chadwick discovered the neutron.
• 10th April -   Paul von Hindenburg was re-elected President of Germany in a runoff election against Adolf Hitler

1933

• 30th January -  President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor of Germany who formed a government with Franz von Papen
• 4th March -  Franklin D. Roosevelt became President of the USA.
• 16th November -  The United States recognised the Soviet Union.

1934

• The Soviet Union was admitted to the League of Nations.
• Irene Joliot Curie and Frederic Joliot Curie discovered "artificial" radioactivity.

1935

• 7th June -  Stanley Baldwin (Conservative) became British Prime Minister.

1936

• 22th January -  HRH George V died and was succeeded by HRH Edward VIII.
• 11th December -  HRH Edward VIII abdicated and was succeeded by by his younger brother HRH George VI.

1937

• 28th May  -   Neville Chamberlain (Conservative) became British Prime Minister.

1938

• 12th March -  German troops marched into Austria to annex the German-speaking nation for the Third Reich, the Anschluss.
• September -  In the UK the Observer Corps were activated for one week, in response to the Munich Crisis.
• 30th September -  Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini met in Munich and agreed that Hitler should have the Sudetanland, of Czechoslovakia the people of Czechoslovakia  were not consulted.
• Chamberlain returned to London with his "piece of paper".

• 17th December -  Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission.

1939

• January -  Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch explained fission theoretically.
• Leo Szilard realised the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction.
• 15th March -  Germany invaded Czechoslovakia.
• Britain reassured Poland that if they were invaded then Britain would respond.
• 23rd August -  The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany concluded a non-aggression pact
• 24th August -  Mobilisation notices were issued to all Civil Defence Services in the UK, including the Observer Corps, AFS WVS & ARP.
• 1st September -  German forces invaded Poland.
• 3rd September - The UK and France declared war against Germany.
• The news that Britain was at war was broken by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain at 11.15am. In a 3 minute broadcast on the Home Service, he announced that as Hitler had failed to respond to British demands to leave Poland, "This country is at war with Germany".

• The King spoke to the Nation, and the Empire, at 6pm

• 17th September -  Soviet troops entered Poland, which was then divided between Germany and the USSR.
• 30th November -  Russia invaded Finland, triggering the Russian-Finnish War, which ended with Finland ceding territory to the USSR - the present Russian constituent republic of Karelia.