In the proposal of the Congregation of the Mosaic, the Swedish government approves the acceptance of about 1 000 Jews from Germany as refugees in transit. The parish is responsible for them and visa requirements are introduced for all non-Nordicrefugees in country.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the 1939 State of the Union Address to Congress. "A war which threatened to envelop the world in flames has been averted; but it has become increasingly clear that world peace is not assured", Roosevelt warned. "The deadline of danger from within and from without is not within our control. The hour-glass may be in the hands of other nations. Our own hour-glass tells us that we are off on a race to make democracy work, so that we may be efficient in peace and therefore secure in national defense."[3]
Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck visited Adolf Hitler at the Berghof and was surprised when Hitler demanded that the Free City of Danzig be returned to Germany. Hitler offered a guarantee on Poland's borders if a "final settlement" on Danzig could be reached. Beck avoided committing to a response but said that Polish public opinion would oppose any change in Danzig's status.[5]
Judge Clarence Elliot Craig of the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles County declared Amelia Earhart to be legally dead, in absentia. Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, had disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937, while circumnavigating the world.[6]
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his foreign minister Lord Halifax met with their French counterparts Édouard Daladier and Georges Bonnet in Paris. Britain agreed to stand with France in rejecting any Italian terrorial demands made upon French colonial possessions.[12]
Comedian Jack Benny was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of smuggling jewelry, in part of the same investigation that George Burns had already pleaded guilty to.[13]
Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax traveled on to Rome and met with Benito Mussolini. Chamberlain hoped to persuade Mussolini to advise Hitler not to make any warlike moves. Mussolini said that Italy desired peace but made no promises. Chamberlain was heartened by the loud cheers he received from Italians during his visit.[14]
A British delegation led by Neville Chamberlain met Pope Pius XI. The pope talked of the resistance democracies must make against the dangerous regimes of the world, as well as racial persecution and the need to help refugees.[18]
Arthur "Doc" Barker, Dale Stamphill, William Martin, Rufus McCain and Henri Young tried to escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary by sawing through their cell bars and then bending the bars of a window. Prison guards spotted them at the shoreline – three of the five men surrendered but Barker and Stamphill refused and were shot. Barker died from his injuries.[19]
The Black Friday bushfires in Australia kill 71 people during an intense heatwave, which saw Melbourne record temperatures of 45.6°C
Died:Arthur Barker, 39, American criminal (shot trying to escape Alcatraz); Jacob Ruppert, 71, American businessman, politician and owner of the New York Yankees baseball team
Norway laid claim to about a million square miles in the Antarctic to be used for whaling.[21]
The Reich Propaganda Ministry notified the German press that Hitler was no longer to be referred to as "Führer and Reich Chancellor" but was now to be called simply "Führer".[22]
Three early morning bomb explosions occurred in the London suburbs, one of them knocking out a power station in the north of the city that affected 25,000 people. These were the first of the S-Plan bombings conducted by the Irish Republican Army.[24]
Superman premiered as a daily newspaper comic strip.
A column by noted American gossip writer Hedda Hopper denounced the choice of Vivien Leigh to play Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, criticizing the casting of an English actress in such a sought-after American role. Hopper printed a letter from a reader predicting that millions of Americans would stay away from the film in protest.[25]
A board of trustees of the New York Yankees, newly created in accordance with the will of the late Jacob Ruppert, met for the first time. Ed Barrow was made team president.[27]
Born:Christodoulos of Athens, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, in Xanthi, Greece (d. 2008); Maury Povich, television presenter and talk show host, in Washington, D.C.
Czechoslovak Foreign Minister František Chvalkovský went to Berlin to see Adolf Hitler, who made a series of harsh demands. Czechoslovakia was ordered to quit the League of Nations, drastically reduce the size of its military, do as Germany instructed with regard to foreign policy and pass antisemitic legislation.[32]
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain launched a recruitment drive with the goal of mobilizing 30 million Britons for the voluntary civil defense army.[34]
Joe Louis retained the world heavyweight boxing title, defeating John Henry Lewis in the first round at Madison Square Garden. The referee stopped the bout after 2 minutes and 29 seconds once Lewis had been knocked down three times.[35] It was Lewis' last fight.
German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop went to Warsaw to meet with Józef Beck and repeated Hitler's offer of January 5. Beck once again only said he was willing to consider the offer, which Ribbentrop understood to mean rejection.[37]
Hitler made a speech to the Reichstag on the sixth anniversary of the Nazis' coming to power, predicting that if "Jewish financiers" started a war, the result would be "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."[41]
President Roosevelt held a meeting with several powerful senators in the Oval Office and said that "the safety of the Rhine frontier does necessarily interest us." When asked if he meant that he considered the Rhine frontier to be America's frontier, the president said he did not, but "practically speaking if the Rhine frontiers are threatened the rest of the world is too." Someone at the meeting leaked the details to the press, resulting in a wave of alarmist articles warning the American public, which mostly favored isolationism at the time, that Roosevelt was prepared to entangle the country in a European war.[42][43]
George Burns was fined $8,000 for jewelry smuggling in addition to the $9,770 already paid in duties and penalties. He was also sentenced to a year and a day in prison but that sentence was suspended.[44]
^Tony Cliff (1990). State Capitalism in the USSR from Stalin to Gorbachev. Translated by Jacques Fournier. Atelier Editions. p. 94. ISBN978-2-85139-095-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^McMahon, Paul (2008). British Spies and Irish Rebels: British Intelligence and Ireland, 1916–1945. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. p. 267. ISBN9781843833765.
^ abCortada, James W., ed. (1982). Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 513. ISBN0-313-22054-9.
^Darrah, David (January 24, 1939). "Britain Asks Home Defense of 30 Million". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 1.
^"Joe Louis Stops Lewis; Bout Ends in 2½ Minutes". Chicago Daily Tribune. January 26, 1939. p. 1.
