Vienna Award: An Italo-German arbitration commission gave Hungary a large piece of Czechoslovakian territory consisting of 5,000 square miles of land and a million people.[2]
The Spanish cargo ship SS Cantabria was sunk by a Nationalist cruiser.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe addressed the nation, announcing a "New Order in East Asia" based, he said, on cooperation between Japan, China and Manchukuo.[3]
Herschel Grynszpan, whose Jewish parents were among those deported from Germany to Poland, shot the diplomat Ernst vom Rath at the German embassy in Paris.[6]
Kristallnacht: A wave of violence targeting Jews occurred throughout Germany and Austria in retaliation for the assassination of Ernst vom Rath. Nazi authorities did not interfere as Jewish shops and synagogues were burned and looted, but 20,000 Jews were arrested. The vast amounts of broken glass littering the streets outside the Jewish shops gave the night its name.[6]
Swiss citizen Maurice Bavaud attended a parade in Munich celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch with the intention of assassinating Adolf Hitler with a pistol. However, Hitler marched on the far side of the street relative to Bavaud's position making the shot too difficult, so he abandoned his attempt.[7]
All of Germany's Jews were ordered to pay a collective fine of 1 billion Reichsmarks for the murder of Ernst vom Rath. Each Jew in possession of property over 50,000 RM was required to pay 20 percent of its value.[12]
The Changsha fire began in Changsha, China. The fire was deliberately set by Chinese soldiers to keep the city's wealth from the Japanese.
Maurice Bavaud was caught stowing away on a train in Augsburg. Later when interrogated by the Gestapo he admitted his plan to assassinate Hitler.[7][14]
All Jewish children were banned from German public schools.[11]
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt read a statement to the media strongly condemning the persecution of Jews in Germany and announcing that he had recalled the American ambassador to Germany.[15]
Italy ordered the removal of all books by Jewish authors from schools.[6]
The Halifax Slasher scare began in West Yorkshire, England when two young women reported being attacked by an unseen assailant with a mallet or hatchet.[18]
The Italian Racial Laws passed on October 7 were adopted and became known as the November Laws.[12]
11 people were trampled to death in Istanbul when the crowd pushed forward at Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's lying in state, fearing the doors would close before they could see his flag-draped coffin.[19]
Ernst vom Rath was given a state funeral in Düsseldorf attended by Hitler.[20]
3,500 members of the motion picture industry attended a "Quarantine Hitler" rally at the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles. John Garfield, Frank Capra, Joan Crawford and Thomas Mann were among the participants. The crowd unanimously voted to send a telegram to President Roosevelt urging him to use his authority to "express further the horror and the indignation of the American people" at the Nazi persecutions of Jews and Catholics.[21]
Neville Chamberlain told the House of Commons of plans to lease at least 10,000 square miles in British Guiana to provide homes for German Jewish refugees.[23]
Édouard Daladier gave a radio address to the French people saying he would use all means necessary to break up the scheduled general strike and claiming that the labour agitation was a plot to set up a leftist dictatorship.[33]
Frank Sinatra was arrested by the Bergen County Sheriff's Office. Sinatra was arrested for carrying on with a married woman, a criminal offense at the time.
Nazi leaders were instructed to have flowers held by onlookers confiscated by security wherever Hitler's motorcade was about to pass through. The Nazis had been trying unsuccessfully for years to discourage the practice of throwing flowers at Hitler because it was feared that an assassin could throw a bouquet containing a bomb.[38]
Henry Ford issued a statement urging that Germany's persecuted Jews be allowed to come to the United States. "I believe that the United States cannot fail at this time to maintain its traditional role as a haven for the oppressed", Ford's statement read. "I am convinced not only that this country could absorb many of the victims of oppression who must find a refuge outside of their native lands, but that as many of them as could be admitted under our selective quota would constitute a real asset to our country."[39]
^Wu, T'ien-Wei. "Contending Political Forces." China's Bitter Victory: The War with Japan, 1937–1945. Ed. James C. Hsiung & Steven I. Levine. New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc. 1992. p. 67. ISBN9780765636324.
^"Hungary Takes Czech Sector". Brooklyn Eagle. November 5, 1938. p. 1.
^ abcd"1938". MusicAndHistory. Archived from the original on August 28, 2012. Retrieved September 19, 2015.
^ abThomsett, Michael C. (1997). The German Opposition to Hitler: The Resistance, the Underground, and Assassination Plots, 1938–1945. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 96–97. ISBN9780786403721.
^ abCymet, David (2010). History vs. Apologetics: The Holocaust, the Third Reich, and the Catholic Church. Plymouth: Lexington Books. pp. 123, 155. ISBN9780739132951.