The Wahhabi raided into Transjordan.
President Coolidge established the boundaries of Glacier Bay National Monument, which is now Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve.
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The U.S. Immigration Act of 1924 was signed into law.
The Battle of Turubah was fought between the Kingdom of Hejaz and the Sultanate of Nejd. The defeat of Hajaz by the Saudi forces of Nejd paved the way for modern Saudi Arabia.
Wilhelm Marx resigned as Chancellor of Germany.
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The tornado Super Outbreak of 1974 concluded
What I really wanted to note, but the story above is more important, is that Hank Aaron tied the career record of Babe Ruth on this day in a game in which his Braves played the Reds.
Jordanian women were granted the right to vote. Parliament was also suspended at the time, so it wasn't as impactful immediately as it might sound.
The ban against the Ulster Volunteer Force, in effect since 1966, was lifted. The loyalist militia had been formed the prior year, 1965.
While the UVF's motto is "For God and Ulster", and it was supposed to disband, since the 1994 ceasefire it reportedly has been involved in rioting, drug dealing, organized crime, loan-sharking and prostitution. Some members have reportedly been involved in racist attacks.
I guess this all goes to show that even on days when there's an exciting event, a lot of cruddy things are occurring.
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I've used the term "Coastal Arabs" here recently to describe the culture that stretches from teh Sinai to Turkey and which includes a lot of Syria.
It turns out, the word that I should have used is Levantines.
The region has its own dialect of Arabic, its own (really good) cuisine, and those who genetic history from the region can be identified by their DNA.
Yes, they are Arabs, but they are not Bedouin.
The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic were admitted to the United Nations.
King Hussein issued a general amnesty for Palestinian terrorists held by Jordan.
Bormann is well known, but Höss less so. He was Auschwitz's longest commanding officer and was executed in 1947. Facing execution, he came to see his actions as gravely immoral and wrote this out to his wife prior to his execution:
My conscience compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison cell, I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity. As Commandant of Auschwitz, I was responsible for carrying out part of the cruel plans of the 'Third Reich' for human destruction. In so doing I have inflicted terrible wounds on humanity. I caused unspeakable suffering for the Polish people in particular. I am to pay for this with my life. May the Lord God forgive one day what I have done. I ask the Polish people for forgiveness. In Polish prisons I experienced for the first time what human kindness is. Despite all that has happened I have experienced humane treatment which I could never have expected, and which has deeply shamed me. May the facts which are now coming out about the horrible crimes against humanity make the repetition of such cruel acts impossible for all time.
On this same day, a Communist lead strike in the Ruhr expanded.
The British made the Emirate of Transjordan autonomous, but not independent of British oversight. It would achieve full independence in 1946.
Turkey waived reparations claims against Greece at Lausanne in exchange for the Thracian territory.
4,000 Marines, a substantial number, arrived in Iceland to replace British troops garrisoning the country.
Around 2,500 people were killed in an ammunition storage explosion in Yugoslavia.
On this day in 1941, the Afrika Corps took Halfaya Pass between Egypt and Libya and entered Egypt from the west. Given the dire situation, the British withdrew its Hurricanes from Tobruk, although they were down to two there at the time. This left only Westland Lysanders stationed there for artillery spotting purposes.
The move conceded control of the skies to the Luftwaffe over Tobruk.
On the same day, Arab recruits to the British forces paraded in Jerusalem.
In spite of manpower shortages, and in spite of the fact that Arab volunteers were forthcoming, the British made very little use of them. It made some, but not much. All in all, there seems to have been an element of lingering mistrust of Arab volunteers and forces in spite of the significant cooperation between the Hashemites, now ruling Transjordan (and recently overthrown, albeit temporarily, in Iraq), during World War One. This was partially amplified by Arab unrest between the wars.
On this day, the British forces were defeated at Thermopylae.
Be that as it may, however, the British defense there did amount none the less to a strategic victory given as the delaying action gave the British forces now withdrawing from Greece much needed time. The British forces made a 100 miles strategic withdrawal in twelve hours, a remarkable feat, and were greeted with flowers by crowds in Athens.
Many of the troops in Greece were New Zealand, so here again we'll not a bit of an irony in that on this day the British in the Middle East were observing ANZAC Day.
In a press conference, President Roosevelt compared Charles Lindbergh's position on the war to that of the Copperheads to the Civil War.
Transportation wasn't limited to the old fashioned and traditional, however. British aircraft were present at the Amman airfield.
On the same day that Eddie Brown, Centerfielder, was photographed, the first radio broadcast of a lightweight boxing match may, or may not have, been done:
Old Radio: April 11, 1921: The First Lightweight Boxing Match...: April 11, 1921: The first lightweight boxing match on radio between Johnny Ray and Johnny Dundee was broadcasted live on this day ...
Things went from bad to worse for Charles I, the last Austro Hungarian Emperor, when newly created Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia warned Hungary that if the regained the Hungarian throne, they'd declare war on Hungary.
All of those countries, combined with Austria, had been part of the Austro Hungarian Empire and they feared that Charles I's restoration as King of Hungary would be followed by a claim to restore the Austro Hungarian Empire.
Winston and Clementine Churchill were the subjects of a reception at the Government House in Jerusalem.
The U.S. launched the USS Corry, a Clemson class destroyer that would serve only nine years. The ship had been ordered in World War One, like all of the ships then being commissioned, but finished to late to serve in the war.
The Corry was one of 60 ships decommissioned as too expensive to maintain at the beginning of the Great Depression.
The Australian Department of Civil Aviation was formed as the Civil Aviation Branch of the Australian Defense Department.
An Easter Egg roll was held on the White House grounds. Easter was the day prior in 1921.
Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy, a short run return to capitalism under state control. It was essentially an acknowledgment of the complete failure of communism in the economy and darned near the complete failure of communism in general.
The policy was primarily an effort to revive agricultural production, which had fallen off dramatically. The mass of the Russian peasants were overwhelmingly opposed to Communism and were resisting collectivization. 80% of the Russian population was rural and support for Communism was nearly completely centered in urban areas, an interesting example of people basically voting for what they could get, as Communist appropriations benefited only the urban working class. Russian peasantry, in contrast, had viewed the Revolution as simply a chance to get formal ownership of the land they were working, a process that had in actuality been going on by default, but which was not yet completed, for some time.
Lenin thought that ultimately collectivization would occur, but only after the NEP had built up rural areas over a period of decades. He oddly acknowledged that creating a functioning capitalist economy, but under state control, would lift the Russian economy out of the basement, but he believed that by doing that the entire state would be educated in the benefits of Communism and then would convert to complete state ownership thereafter. It was a peculiar belief, as it welded the reality of the present with a clinging belief that somehow collectivization would ultimately benefit everyone.
Upon Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin, who had favored the NEP over objections like those of Trotsky, would reverse course and force collectivize agriculture, resulting in a massive man made famine. This isn't the only area where Stalin would follow a path first suggested by his arch rival, and it should make fans of Trotsky, who have traditionally assumed he was a more benign malignancy than Stalin, pause. In reality he was an even bigger fanatic. At any rate, the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture in the 1920s through the early 1930s, which took that long, resulted in a massive death toll from starvation. What remains surprising is that the Soviet populations didn't rise up in rebellion at the time.
Lenin fans have continued to note that Lenin, in his political will, suggested that Stalin be sidetracked and that if he had been, Communism would have succeeded. This is probably completely incorrect, however. In reality if the NEP had progressed in Soviet Russia a capitalist middle class would have developed. Where the country would have gone from there is unclear, but it wouldn't have been further into Communism.
Indeed, there's reason to look at modern Red China as a state employing what is essentially the NEP. The present leaders of that state have expressed the view that the NEP better represented what Communism was supposed to be about and have basically employed elements of it in their economy. How that will play out for them remains to be seen. At any rate, modern Red China's state run capitalism is similar to what the NEP imagined, and imagined would then go into full collective ownership.
The Constituent Assembly of Georgia held its last session, and then abandoned the country to the invading Soviet Union.
The British changed the Mandate for Palestine to allow for the creation of Transjordan, which is now Jordan.
The most successful Irish Republican Army raid in County Kerry occurred when the IRA ambushed a British troop train at Headford. Like most IRA/British battles, there were low casualties.
Anti Bolshevik sailors took the Kronstandt fortress, on an island, but accessible from the mainland in February due to frozen ice.
Striking miners in the Italian occupied Croatian city of Labin declared a communist republic for the town. The rebellion is regarded as the first anti fascist rebellion in the world, but the reason for it being so regarded really isn't clear. The city was under Italian governance at the time, but while fascism was rising in Italy, it had not yet come into control of the Italian monarchy. The rebellion would last until April 8 when the Italian government put it down.
Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein relocated to Amman in anticipation of ruling the Emirate of Transjordan
It was agreed –As noted, above, the Italian delegation reserved its assent given that the conference hadn't reached a resolution on its interests in Asia Minor.
(a) To accept the terms of the Mandates Article as given below with reference to Palestine, on the understanding that there was inserted in the proces-verbal an undertaking by the Mandatory Power that this would not involve the surrender of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine; this undertaking not to refer to the question of the religious protectorate of France, which had been settled earlier in the previous afternoon by the undertaking given by the French Government that they recognized this protectorate as being at an end.
(b) that the terms of the Mandates Article should be as follows:
The High Contracting Parties agree that Syria and Mesopotamia shall, in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Article 22, Part I (Covenant of the League of Nations), be provisionally recognized as independent States, subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The boundaries of the said States will be determined, and the selection of the Mandatories made, by the Principal Allied Powers.
The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory, to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 8, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
La Puissance mandataire s’engage a nommer dans le plus bref delai une Commission speciale pour etudier toute question et toute reclamation concernant les differentes communautes religieuses et en etablir le reglement. Il sera tenu compte dans la composition de cette Commission des interets religieux en jeu. Le President de la Commission sera nomme par le Conseil de la Societe des Nations.
The terms of the mandates in respect of the above territories will be formulated by the Principal Allied Powers and submitted to the Council of the League of Nations for approval.
Turkey hereby undertakes, in accordance with the provisions of Article [132 of the Treaty of Sevres] to accept any decisions which may be taken in this connection.
(c) Les mandataires choisis par les principales Puissances allies sont: la France pour la Syrie, et la Grand Bretagne pour la Mesopotamie, et la Palestine.
In reference to the above decision the Supreme Council took note of the following reservation of the Italian Delegation:
La Delegation Italienne en consideration des grands interets economiques que l’Italie en tant que puissance exclusivement mediterraneenne possede en Asie Mineure, reserve son approbation a la presente resolution, jusqu’au reglement des interets italiens en Turquie d’Asia.
