The Central Executive Committee of the USSR issued a decree prohibiting the possession of almost all firearms, with the exception of shotguns for hunting, although much hunting in much of Russia, which was fairly common, was in fact done with rifles by necessity.
Following 1933, the penalty for violation was five years imprisonment. In 1935 knives were added to the list.
During World War Two the ban was expanded with all firearms being required to be turned over to the state, although following the war, the USSR was awash in captured German weapons.
Presently, rifles may be registered for hunting.
The USSR/Russia we might note, shares this status with Ireland, in being a country whose freedom, if you will, was brought about through the private exercise of arms, that then went around banning them. In the USSR's case it isn't too surprising, as armed resistance against the Communists continued on into the 1930s in some areas and revived during the Second World War, to continue on until nearly 1950 after the war.
Truly, there's a lesson here.
The first issue of the weekly Saudi Arabian newspaper Umm Al-Qura, the official newspaper of the Saudi government, was published
Last edition.
Ali of Hejaz was proclaimed the King of Hejaz. His predecessor King Hussein bin Ali had fled from Mecca to Jeddah to avoid the conquest of Nejd by the Sultanate of Nejd, led by Ibn Saud.
Atypically for an Arab monarch/chieftain, he was married just once. He had five children. He died in Baghdad in the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq in 1935.
Radio Marconi, the first public radio station in Italy, began broadcasting.
Last edition:
It was Thanksgiving Day for 1923, Calvin Coolidge having fixed the very late date for this year on November 5.
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The American people, from their earliest days, have observed the wise custom of acknowledging each year the bounty with which divine Providence has favored them. In the beginnings, this acknowledgment was a voluntary return of thanks by the community for the fruitfulness of the harvest. Though our mode of life has greatly changed, this custom has always survived. It has made thanksgiving day not only one of the oldest but one of the most characteristic observances of our country. On that day, in home and church, in family and in public gatherings, the whole nation has for generations paid the tribute due from grateful hearts for blessings bestowed.
To center our thought in this way upon the favor which we have been shown has been altogether wise and desirable. It has given opportunity justly to balance the good and the evil which we have experienced. In that we have never failed to find reasons for being grateful to God for a generous preponderance of the good. Even in the least propitious times, a broad contemplation of our whole position has never failed to disclose overwhelming reasons for thankfulness. Thus viewing our situation, we have found warrant for a more hopeful and confident attitude toward the future.
In this current year, we now approach the time which has been accepted by custom as most fitting for the calm survey of our estate and the return of thanks. We shall the more keenly realize our good fortune, if we will, in deep sincerity, give to it due thought, and more especially, if we will compare it with that of any other community in the world.
The year has brought to our people two tragic experiences which have deeply affected them. One was the death of our beloved President Harding, which has been mourned wherever there is a realization of the worth of high ideals, noble purpose and unselfish service carried even to the end of supreme sacrifice. His loss recalled the nation to a less captious and more charitable attitude. It sobered the whole thought of the country. A little later came the unparalleled disaster to the friendly people of Japan. This called forth from the people of the United States a demonstration of deep and humane feeling. It was wrought into the substance of good works. It created new evidences of our international friendship, which is a guarantee of world peace. It replenished the charitable impulse of the country.
By experiences such as these, men and nations are tested and refined. We have been blessed with much of material prosperity. We shall be better able to appreciate it if we remember the privations others have suffered, and we shall be the more worthy of it if we use it for their relief. We will do well then to render thanks for the good that has come to us, and show by our actions that we have become stronger, wiser, and truer by the chastenings which have been imposed upon us. We will thus prepare ourselves for the part we must take in a world which forever needs the full measure of service. We have been a most favored people. We ought to be a most generous people. We have been a most blessed people. We ought to be a most thankful people.
Wherefore, I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States, do hereby fix and designate Thursday, the twenty-ninth day of November, as Thanksgiving Day, and recommend its general observance throughout the land. It is urged that the people, gathering in their homes and their usual places of worship, give expression to their gratitude for the benefits and blessings that a gracious Providence has bestowed upon them, and seek the guidance of Almighty God, that they may deserve a continuance of His favor.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this 5th day of November, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States, the One Hundred and Forty-eighth.
CALVIN COOLIDGE
By the President:
CHARLES E. HUGHES, Secretary of State.
The Casper paper apparently gave its staff the day off, but the Saratoga one did not, and also informed its readers that childhood vaccinations for smallpox were now mandatory.
Wilhelm Marx was chosen as the new Chancellor of Germany. He's serve twice in the 1920s.
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He was charged with criminal activity in the early 30s by the Nazi regime for his leadership of the People's Association for Catholic Germany (Volksverein für das katholische Deutschland) but the charge against him was dropped in 1935. He died in 1946. The Catholic association he headed, which had dated back to the 1890s, was recreated as the Volksverein Mönchengladbach after World War Two.
The Greek Army rebelled in the 11 September 1922 Revolution (Επανάσταση της 11ης Σεπτεμβρίου 1922) so named as Greece remained on the Julian calendar at the time.
This confusing event followed in the wake of public upset at the loss of the Greek effort in Anatolia, proving if nothing else that defeated armies are dangerous to their own governments, if to nobody else.
The rebellion led to the abdication of the king, who was on his second reign, having suffered from military discontent during World War One as well. He'd opposed entering the war. The Greek monarchy would be restored a few days later and King George II would take over, who would also have two reigns, one ending in 1924, and a second running from 1935 to 1947.
Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of embattled Britain, and Franklin Roosevelt, President of the ostensibly neutral United States, jointly wrote Josef Stalin, the head of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union who had presided over the decimation of its officer corps just before World War Two, stating:
We realize fully how vitally important to the defeat of Hitlerism is the brave and steadfast resistance of the Soviet Union and we feel therefore that we must not in any circumstances fail to act quickly and immediately in this matter on planning the program for the future allocation of our joint resources
It's often noted that the United States was quite involved, obviously, in aiding the fighting Allies prior to December 7, 1941, but running across these day by day entries such as this really do provide quite a revelation. The US, in a communication such as this, was effectively acting as if it was at war.
It nearly was, although it wasn't a declared belligerent yet. Just this past week, however, the US had entered into a "charter" with the UK about what the post-war world should look like, and it had made a declaration under the Monroe Doctrine, quite sensibly and in keeping with its historical position, that it would not allow German U-boat attacks in the Western Hemisphere. But at the same time the House of Representatives had nearly started sending inductees into the Army home, as the first inductees had planned on, when their October conscription dates were up.
Roosevelt remains a controversial President in some quarters, particularly for his role in expanding the government in the Great Depression. It's interesting how the shock and horror of the Second World War, once we were in it, has pretty much silences his pre-war actions in edging up, and indeed over, the line that crossed into war. His view and attitude were correct, but the degree to which the US not only flaunted its neutrality, but pretty much ignored it short of an actual declaration of war, is really remarkable.
On the same day, the Philippine Army Air Corps was inducted into the United States Army Air Forces in the Far East.
The United States Navy was about to get a brand new, and very advanced, torpedo bomber in the form of the Grumman TBF.
A patent was issued to Heinrich Hoerlein of the Bayer company for a sulfanilamide, the first synthesized sulfonamide.
It was not until1935 that the antibiotic properties of sulfonamides were realized.
Hoerlien would go on to rise to power in the IG Farben company. He joined the Nazi Party in 1934 after having campaigned against Hermann Göring's law banning testing on animals, showing how radical movements then and now had similar traits. He went on to have knowledge of the company's production of Zyklon B and was tried after the war was a war criminal, but acquitted. He had a place on the board of Bayer after the war.
Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia, chose his 14-year-old grandson Lij Iyasu as his successor.
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