Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.
15. Winston Churchill, writing to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, said Singapore’s defences did not need to be completed for another fifteen to twenty years: “I do not believe there is the slightest chance of war with Japan in our lifetime. Japan is at the other end of the world. She cannot menace our vital security in any way.”
20. Adolf Hitler was released from Landsberg Prison, as part of a general amnesty for political prisoners, having served less than 9 months of a 5 year sentence.
24. Imperial Airways de Havilland DH34 airliner crashes soon after take-off from London’s Croydon Airport killing all eight people aboard; this leads to the first public inquiry into a civil aviation accident ever held in the United Kingdom.
26. Judy Garland made her show business debut, aged 2½, singing “Jingle Bells” at her parents’ theatre in Grand Rapids, MN.
30. American astronomer Edwin Hubble announced that Andromeda, previously believed to be a nebula, is another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe.