Sunday, October 25, 1936. Formation of the Axis. Martyrdom of Fr. Recaredo Centelles Abad, Ferragut Roig, María de Jesús, María Verónica, María Felicidad, Josefa de la Purificación.

Ferragut Roig was executed by a firing squad with four of daughters, the latter of whom were nuns, by Spanish Republicans for being Catholic.  The daughters were María de Jesús, María Verónica, María Felicidad, Josefa de la Purificación.  They were all beatified in 2001.

Fr. Recaredo Centelles Abad, his brother in law, another priest and two laymen were likewise executed.

A person should make no mistake about it. The Spanish Republicans were not democrats. They were communists.

The Rome Berlin Axis was formalized with an alliance between Germany and Italy being signed.

The Rexist March on Brussels failed.

Over 70% of Republican Spain's gold left Spain for the USSR.

Last edition:

Saturday, October 24, 1936. The Estado Novo severs relations with the Republic.

Labels: 1930s, 1936, 1936 Election, Colorado (Denver), Portugal, Railroads, Republican Party, Spain, Spanish Civil War

Friday, October 23, 1936. No neutrality.

The Soviet Union informed the European committee of non-intervention in Spain that Russia would no longer be bound by the neutrality agreement which it wasn't honoring anyway.

The German Condor Legion was ordered to Spain.  Elements were already there.

The Denver Zephyr made a non-stop run from Chicago to Denver in 12 hours, 12 minutes, and 27 seconds.

The Denver Zephyr in 1936.  By SMU Central University Libraries - Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R.R., Original 'Denver Zephyr' Train, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45183743

Last edition:

Thursday, October 22, 1936. Worsening conflicts

Labels: 1930s, 1936, Belgium, Cartoons, China, China (Beijing), Clerico-fascism, Education, Imperial Japanese Army, Japan, Nazi Germany, Photography, Spain, Spain (Madrid), Spanish Army, Spanish Civil War, Spanish Republicans, USSR

Saturday, October 23, 1926. Trotsky and Kamenev get the boot.

Trotsky and Lev Kamenev were booted out of the Politburo.  They'd ultimately meet the same fate.

A motion for a new trial for Sacco and Vanzetti was denied.

It was, of course, hunting season, and the New Yorker dedicated its cover to hunting with its characteristic weird art style

Japan's Meiji Jingu (Shrine) Stadium opened to the public and a home run was hit on the same day in the stadium's inaugural game.  The stadium is still in use.

Last edition:

Saturday, October 16, 1926. Fighting in Eastern China.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, China, China (Zheijiang), Chinese Warlord Era, Crime, Food, Kuomintang, Northern Expedition, Railroads

Tuesday, October 22, 1946. Operation Osoaviakhim

Operation Osoaviakhim was carried about by Soviet authorities in Germany.  The Soviets rounded up over 2,500 German scientists, engineers and technicians, who had worked on German advanced technological matters, some of whom were attending a Soviet party in their honor, to be shipped to the USSR. The last of them would be returned to Germany in 1953.

HMS Saumarez and HMS Volage struck mines in the Straits of Corfu where they were demonstrating in opposition to Albanian intentions.

Answering a question I had earlier on this topic, there were in fact a lot more hunters in the field in 1946 due to the ongoing meat shortage.

The same front page recalls how cattle were once shipped by rail, instead of truck as they are today.

Last edition:

Monday, October 21, 1946. Law for the Special Establishment of Independent Cultivators

Labels: 1890s, 1895, 1940s, 1945, 1946, Agrarianism, Agriculture, Chiang Kai-shek, China, Chinese Civil War, Distributism, Japan, Japanese Empire, Occupation of Japan, Qing Dynasty, Taiwan

Thursday, October 22, 1936. Worsening conflicts

Spanish General José Miaja was put in charge of the Republican defence of Madrid, where things were getting overall worse in general.

Contrary to the common assumption, about 40% of Spanish Army officers remained loyal to the Spanish Republic.

And it wasn't just in Europe where things were getting worse.

The far political right wasn't just on the march in Spain. The Belgian far right wing Rexist Party announced its intention to march on Brussels in order to "sweep out the Paul van Zeeland government and its corruption" in a move inspired by Mussolini's march on Rome.  Van Zeeland declared martial law.

The News issued its awards it its photo contest.

And a cartoon shows how some common comments I'll hear from some people today were common ninety years ago.

University education was expanding, but was far from what it is now.  It's interesting to see the contempt of youth for professors expressed here.  

I don't think that's a common view, but I have heard it from the time I was in university, up to now, from time to time, probably most recently when Chuck Gray's current campaign manager just went off on how professors at the University of Wyoming were all left wing, coming from a person whose views are closer to those who were advancing on Madrid on this day in 1936.

Last edition:

Friday, October 16, 1936. Siege of Oviedo broken.

Labels: 1930s, 1936, 1970s, 1979, France (Paris), Monarchy, Nationalist, Personalities, Siege of Oviedo, Spanish Civil War, Spanish Nationalist, Spanish Republicans, War

Monday, October 12, 1936. Armor to the Spanish Republicans, FDR in Cheyenne.

It was Columbus Day, which had been officially recognized as a permanent honorific day in 1934.

Republican T-26.

Fifty Soviet T-26 tanks and some BA-3 armored cars arrived in Cartagena, Spain.

The T-26 tank was a very good tank for the period and would serve in the Red Army throughout World War Two.

A cross channel locomotive ferry service commenced between Dover and Dunkirk.

The Rocky Mountain News reported that Franklin Roosevelt had been in Cheyenne the day prior, where he attended Episcopal Church services.

He was in Denver today.

Last edition:

Sunday, October 11, 1936. End of the Arab General Strike, Fascists attacks in London, War Concerns, Hermaphrodites.

Labels: 1930s, 1936, 1936 Election, Agriculture, Arab General Strike, Austria, British League of Nations Mandates, Franklin Roosevelt, Great Palestinian Revolt, Hermaphrodite, Men, Palestine, Science, Third Parties, Women

Monday, October 11, 1926. Gang warfare in Chicago.

Mob boss Earl J. "Hymie" Weiss (born Henryk Wojciechowski) was gunned down with fellow gang member Paddy Murray by hitmen working for Al Capone. The murders were in retaliation for an earlier attempt by the Weiss lead North Side Gang to kill Capone.

The Soviets announced that Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev and Georgy Pyatakov would be placed on trial for being excessively critical of Communist Party decisions.

Last edition:

Sunday, October 10, 1926. Cardinals take the series.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, 1926 World Series, Automobiles, baseball, Chinese Army, Chinese Warlord Era, Kuomintang, Northern Expedition, Wyoming (Carbon County)

Thursday, October 8, 1936. Picture Page.

The British television, yes television, news and feature series Picture Page was first broadcast.  It ran continually until 1952 except for World War Two when television broadcasts were stopped by the BBC.

There were only between 100 to 300 television sets in the entire UK at the time.

Germany condemned the USSR's threats of intervention in the Spanish Civil War but denied that itw as providing military supplies to the Nationalists.

Last edition:

Wednesday, October 7, 1936. Soviet Ultimatum over Spain.

Labels: 1930s, 1936, Agrarianism, baseball, Basque, Finland, German Army, Germany, Italy, Personalities, Portugal, Spain, Spanish Civil War, USSR

Wednesday, October 7, 1936. Soviet Ultimatum over Spain.

The USSR issued an ultimatum to Portugal, Italy and Germany that unless they stopped aiding the Spanish Nationalist in the ongoing civil war, the USSR would take an active involvement.

On the same day, German armored troops arrived in Spain as trainers with their focus being on tanks and antitank guns.

José Antonio Aguirre became the 1st President of the Basque Country, an autonomous region in the Spanish Republic.  He'd muster local forces to fight on the Republican side, and accordingly went into exile for the rest of life when the Nationalist won the civil war.  He died in 1960 of a heart attack at age 56 and, as a Catholic, was given a funeral Mass.

Agrarian Party member, and Lutheran Pietist, Kyösti Kallio became Prime Minister of Finland.

The Dodgers fired Casey Stengel.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 6, 1936. Yankees take the series.

Labels: 1930s, 1936, 1936 Spanish Elections, 1936 World Series, Anarchy, Communism, Communists, Spain

Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 8. Donald Trump, China's (and Russia's) greatest ally edition, additional labels.

 

Tuesday, September 24, 1946. The Clifford-Elsey Report.

White House counsel Clark Clifford  presented President Truman with a top secret report, authored by George Elsey, stating that the "U.S. must be prepared to wage atomic and biological warfare".

The disturbing report would help lead to the Marshall Plan.

Mrs.Temis Sullivan,coal miners wife, preparing to go to a weekly Daughters of America meeting with other ladies in her community, in the kitchen of her home rented from the Inland Steel Coal Company, Wheelwright,Kentucky 9/24/46.

Cartoon from the Rocky Mountain News that sort of rhymes today.

Last edition:

Monday, September 23, 1946. Alienating hearts and minds in Vietnam.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Democracy, Denmark, Faroe Islands, French Empire, French Indochina, South Vietnam

Monday, September 16, 1946. The arrival of the 1946-47 Soviet Famine.

Drought and poor harvest resulted in the Soviet Union massively increasing the cost of meat, dairy products and bread.  This would soo be followed by order reducing who could receive bread rations.  The famine which would follow, would result in 1,000,000 lost lives into 1947.

Enzo Ferrari produced his first V12 engine.

Member of both of Major League Baseball's leagues privately voted to 15 to 1 to approve a recommendation allowing for black players.

Blues singer Mamie Smith died at age 55.

Last edition:

Thursday, September 12, 1946. Wallace takes a different route.

Labels: 1940s, 1943, 1946, 1948, Colorado (Denver), Disease, Education, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Henry A. Wallace, Personalities

Tuesday, August 31, 1926. Non aggression pacts and spiffy caps.

The Soviet Union and Afghan government signed a Pact of Neutrality and Non-Aggression.

General Yang Sen seized the SS Wanhsien for a second time in a week, and captured a second ship. The HMS Cockchafer lacked sufficient bluejackets to intervene, so it radioed for help.

The general would subsequently join the Kuomintang that year and side with Chiang Kai-shek following the latters expulsion of the Communists.  He became a figure in the Nationalist Chinese Army and ended up in exile in Taiwan.

He was also an avid mountaineer.

A polygamist, he had 22 daughters and 21 sons born between 1912 and 1960.  He died in 1977 at age 93.

Shakeups were occuring in Greece due to the recent overthrowal of the military government there, including the sacking of the Army Chief of Staff, Major General Ptolemaios Sarigiannis.

He was imprisoned by the Germans during World War Two and served a role in the post war Greek government.

Last edition:

Monday, August 30, 1926. The end of Italian voting.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, actors and actresses, boats and ships, Catholic, Disaster, Fascism, religion, Russia (Kronstadt)

Thursday, August 15, 1946. The Truman Doctrine.

Truman told Turkish President İsmet İnönü that the United States would provide its assistance to help Turkey resist Soviet demands for control of the Dardanelles straits ushering in the Truman Doctrine in which the US pledged support to countries resisting authoritarian pressure.

Notorious was released.

Last edition:

Tuesday, August 13, 1946. Humble Congressman and no so humble one.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Joseph McCarthy, McCarthy Era, Native Americans, Personalities, The written word

Saturday, August 14, 1926. More killings in Mexico.

The Mexican Government arrested Father Luis Bátiz Sainz at a private house.  He and three members of the Mexican Association for Catholic Youth would be driven out of town, and then shot, the following day.

Before the closure of the churches, he had spoken at a gathering where the topic of armed resistance to suppression of the Church had been discussed.

He was later canonized.

The USSR claimed Wrangel Island.

An Ethel Hays' cartoon for the day.

It was a Saturday

Last edition:

Tuesday, August 10, 1926. Executions in Mexico, Hurricane in Nova Scotia.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, boats and ships, Cartoons, Cristero War, Disaster, J.R. Williams, Mexico, Nova Scotia, Weather

Wednesday, August 7, 1946. The Dardanelles Crisis commences.

Stalin demanded that Turkey permit a joint defense of the Dardanelles.  This resulted in Truman sending the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt to the region.

The crisis would last until Stalin's death.

Last edition:

Monday, August 5, 1946. Neil Armstrong becomes a private pilot.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Aircraft, Personalities, Teenagers