Article snapshot taken from[REDACTED] with creative commons attribution-sharealike license.
Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat.
We can research this topic together.
U.S. Congress amended the Neutrality Act of 1937, repealing the embargo on arms to belligerents but placing sales on a cash and carry basis to avoid a repeat of the situation after World War I when Britain and France ran into difficulty with making their war debt payments to the United States.
The German-controlled American freighter City of Flint entered port in Haugesund despite being ordered by its Norwegian escort, the minelayer Olav Tryggvason, not to. The German captain later told interrogators he was just following orders from his government and did not know why he was instructed to dock in Haugesund, but it was probably to get instructions from the vice consul on how and when to proceed to Germany. Norway decided to seize the freighter and return its command to the Americans, and at 23:30 a boarding party stormed the ship and removed the German prize crew. The Germans were interned for violating international law, which forbade a ship from entering a neutral port without sufficient cause.
Three German Army commanders (Fedor von Bock, Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb and Gerd von Rundstedt) who believed an invasion of France would fail held a secret meeting to discuss ways to dissuade Hitler from ordering an attack on the western front.
13 minutes after Hitler concluded a speech at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich on the 16th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch, a time bomb exploded near the speaking platform that killed 8 people. Carpenter Johann Georg Elser was arrested with incriminating documents at the Swiss border and brought back to Munich for interrogation. His attempt to assassinate Hitler would have succeeded if the Führer's annual speech had not begun 30 minutes earlier than it did in previous years.
Hitler flew for the first time in his new personal transport plane – an Fw 200A-0 named Immelmann III after the World War I flying ace Max Immelmann.
The United States Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia unanimously ruled that schoolchildren did not have to salute the American flag if such action conflicted with their religious beliefs.
Hitler appeared unexpectedly in Munich at the funeral for the victims of the Bürgerbräukeller bombing. He stayed only a few minutes to hear Rudolf Hess deliver the eulogy and then left without speaking.
Although Britain did not hold an official Armistice Day ceremony at the Whitehall Cenotaph this year, wreaths were laid on behalf of the King and Queen and people still came to leave flowers. There was no official two minutes' silence at 11 a.m. either, but Britons publicly observed it anyway.
Queen Elizabeth made a broadcast to the women of the British Empire reminding them that in the war "we, no less than men, have real and vital work to do."
Died:Jan Opletal, 24, Czech student (died of gunshot wound sustained during the October 28 demonstrations in Prague)
France said that the Belgian and Dutch offer of mediation required Germany to repair "the injustices which force has imposed on Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland" before peace could be discussed. George VI wrote a reply explaining that the "essential conditions upon which we are determined that an honorable peace must be secured have already been plainly stated", but if the Queen of the Netherlands was "able to communicate to me any proposals from Germany of such a character as to afford real prospect" of achieving Britain's aims he would "give them my most earnest consideration."
Died:Norman Bethune, 49, Canadian physician and humanitarian
Joachim von Ribbentrop informed the Belgian and Dutch envoys that Germany was turning down their joint mediation offer based on the responses already made from Britain and France.
The German heavy cruiser Deutschland was renamed Lützow, both to confuse enemy intelligence and to avoid the potential damage to national pride that would occur if a ship bearing the name of the country were to be sunk in action.
A funeral held in Prague for Jan Opletal turned into another spontaneous anti-Nazi demonstration.
Al Capone was released from federal custody after serving seven-and-a-half years of his eleven-year sentence for tax evasion. Capone was suffering heavily from paresis and upon release he immediately went to a Baltimore hospital for treatment.
Germans stormed the university dorms in Prague and other towns in the former Czechoslovakia, attacking and arresting thousands of students. The Nazis executed nine Czechs by firing squad without trial that day for leading the recent demonstrations. Today International Students' Day is observed on November 17 in remembrance of the students who were killed or sent to concentration camps for opposing the Nazis.
The Dutch liner Simon Bolivar set off two mines and sank 20 miles off Harwich, England. 86 lives were lost out of the approximately 400 on board. The British accused the Germans of laying the mines in violation of Article VIII of the 1907 Hague Conventions, which forbade using mines in circumstances likely to endanger commercial shipping.
The Nazis closed all the technical schools in the former Czechoslovakia.
An official German communique announced that barricades had been erected around the Warsaw Ghetto and that Jewish districts would be placed under strict control.
The British government declared a blockade of German exports in reprisal for numerous incidents at sea such as the sinking of the Athenia and the Simon Bolivar. "I may remind the House that in the last war, as a measure of justified reprisal for submarine attacks on merchant ships, exports of German origin or ownership were made subject to seizure on the high seas", Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain explained in the House of Commons. "The many violations of international law and the ruthless brutality of German methods have decided us to follow a similar course now, and an Order-in-Council will shortly be issued giving effect to this decision."
The British destroyer HMS Gipsy struck a mine outside Harwich and sank with the loss of 30 crew.
Shelling of Mainila: The Soviet Union conducted a false flag operation by shelling the Russian village of Mainila near the Finnish border and blaming the attack on Finland.
Twelve Bristol Blenheims of the Royal Air Force conducted a bombing raid on the German seaplane base at Borkum. Little damage was done but all the British aircraft returned safely.
The British government ceremonially turned over a copy of Magna Carta to the Library of Congress for safekeeping during the war. The 13th century document had been brought to the United States for display during the New York World's Fair and it was deemed too dangerous to ship it back during wartime.
Hitler issued Directive No. 9, Instructions for Warfare against the Economy of the Enemy. The directive focused on attacking British shipping and ports and blockading sea lanes using U-boats and naval mines.
The Winter War began when the Soviet Union invaded Finland. 600,000 soldiers of the Red Army began to cross the Finnish border and Soviet aircraft bombed Helsinki.
^ Haarr, Geirr H. (2013). The Gathering Storm: The Naval War in Northern Europe September 1939 – April 1940. Seaforth Publishing. pp. 339–341. ISBN9781848321403.
"New Troubles Face Flint; May Become Orphan". Chicago Daily Tribune. November 5, 1939. p. 4.
^ Rohwer, Jürgen (2005). Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939–1945. London: Chatham Publishing. pp. 7, 9. ISBN9781591141198.
Sobek, David (2013). The Causes of War. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN9780745655468.
Zimmerman, Joshua D. (2015). The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945. Cambridge University Press. p. 48. ISBN9781107014268.
^ "Reich Rejects Offer Of Mediation From Belgium and Holland". Brooklyn Eagle. November 14, 1939. p. 1.
Wardzyńska, Maria (2009). Był rok 1939. Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion (in Polish). Warszawa: IPN. p. 211.
^ "1939 Timeline". World War II Database. Retrieved November 7, 2015.
Collins, Sandra. "Tokyo/Helsinki 1940." Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement. Ed. John E. Findling and Kimberley D. Pelle. Greenwood Publishing, 2004. p. 121. ISBN9780313322785.
"Finns to Russia: We'll Move Back Army If You Do". Chicago Daily Tribune. November 28, 1939. p. 1.
Blair, Casey (2000). Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939–1942. Modern Library. p. 117. ISBN9780679640325.
Paczkowski, Andrzej (1998). Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. p. 43. ISBN9780271047539.
Fulton, William (November 30, 1939). "Kuhn Convicted on All Counts; Faces 30 Years". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 1.
Trotter, William (1991). A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939–1940. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books. p. 272. ISBN9781565122499.