It was Labor Day in the United States, falling of course on the first Monday in September.
On this Monday, the German government announced that all Jews within the confines of the territory controlled by it, at home or conquered, were required to wear yellow Stars of David.
German poster declaring that "Whoever wears this badge is an enemy of our people."
The barbarity of this action can hardly be imagined today. It marked the wearer as somebody to be subject to public scorn merely for his religion, or ethnicity, and ultimately it would mark them for death.
The yellow badge seems to date as far back as the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate in the early 8th Century and have been subsequently revived and kept in force for centuries as a means of marking Jews living within the caliphates control. Both Christians and Jews were subject to repressive religious laws within Muslim territories, and indeed in some Muslim countries today being an open Christian is extremely risky, and conversion from Islam, although widely occurring, illegal. Clothing requirements were in fact expanded beyond this to include other features.
Having said that, the practice of requiring Jews, and Muslims, to wear distinct clothing also expanded to Christian countries by the 13th Century, although with a different concern in mind. As has been dealt with here elsewhere, originally marriage did not require a Priest to officiate and could be privately contracted in a fairly informal manner. There were concerns in the 1200s that Christians and non Christians were falling into sexual relations that gave rise to invalid marriages in a hasty fashion, and therefore clothing requirements were imposed so that couples in the heat of the moment might be aware that they were going where they couldn't legally go and contracting what would have been regarded as invalid marriages.
The Germans, of course, were readopting the practice in order to make the Jews despised "others". It was resisted in some occupied areas, such as Denmark, where non Jews took up wearing them as well, and in occupied areas of Catholic Czechoslovakia the authorities had to ban hat tipping to those wearing them, where the residents had taken it up as a sign of respect to the victims.
On the same day, Leningrad came within German artillery range.
The Canadians began to accept enlistments for the Canadian Army Women's Corps. Of note, the day prior the British had deployed women in mixed gender anti-aircraft units in the UK, a rare example of women in a Western Allied military having a combat role in the war.
The United States assumed responsibility for Atlantic convoys from Newfoundland to Iceland. This was undoubtedly an example of direct participation in the war, even though the United States had not yet declared war.
The Soviet Union murdered retired Estonian military commander Karl Parts.
Parts had served in the Imperial Russian Army but had gone over to his native Estonia upon its separation from Russia. He'd served against the German Freikorps and the Reds there, but had retired in 1925 and was a farmer thereafter. The Soviets took him into custody in 1940 when they invaded the country and then murdered him on this day. He was 55 years old.
President Roosevelt delivered a Labor Day address in which he stated that American labor bore the responsibility of winning World War Two.
KYW-TV, the first US television station outside of New York City, went on the air in Philadelphia. It's still on the air there.
Ted Williams appeared on the cover of Life Magazine.
Cornell, Wisconsin, suffered a serious flood.
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