Manchukuo and the Franco regime exchanged documents granting each other formal recognition.[4]
In Burgos, the National Council of the FET was ceremonially sworn in. The new governing body was modeled after the Grand Council of Fascism in Italy.[5]
Eugen Weidmann was arrested by French police for murder. Weidmann shot one officer in the arm with a revolver, but the other officer managed to beat him down with a hammer.[17]
The USS Panay incident took place when Japanese aircraft and shore batteries opened fire on the U.S. Navy gunboat Panay while it was evacuating personnel from the embassy at Nanjing.[22]
Mae West appeared on The Chase and Sanborn Hour with Edgar Bergen and performed a sexually suggestive "Adam and Eve" sketch. In one sequence, the snake in the Garden of Eden tries to squeeze through a fence as West exhorts: "Oh, shake your hips! ... Yeah, you're doing all right. Get me a big one, I feel like doing a big apple." West was unofficially banned from the radio for years afterward as a result.[23]
President Roosevelt demanded that Japan apologize for the Panay attack, render compensation and provide a guarantee that no such thing would happen again.[24]
Local elections were held in the Philippines, marred by rioting around the country which killed 3 people. It was the first Philippine election in which women could vote.[25]
Nazi Germany restricted the issuing of passports to Jews to exceptional cases such as emigration, traveling in the economic interest of Germany, serious illness or death.[27]
The Romanian pro-Fascist newspaper Țara Noastră ordered its readers to use every means to prevent Jews from voting in Monday's election. Jews were warned to stay away from the polls as their presence might provoke "reflex movements."[29]
Died:Robert Worth Bingham, 66, American politician, judge, newspaper publisher and diplomat
English author J. R. R. Tolkien wrote to C. A. Furth of Allen & Unwin, the firm which had published Tolkien's novel The Hobbit on September 21, saying, "I have written the first chapter of a new story about Hobbits - 'A long expected party'. A merry Christmas." This would become the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings.[30]
Japanese Ambassador Hiroshi Saito made a radio address to the American people saying that the Panay attack was a "shocking blunder", and that Japan would be "only too anxious" to make amends.[31]
The French Social Party was banned in France. François de La Rocque and other leaders of the party were ordered by court to pay fines for reconstituting a political league that was supposed to have been dissolved.[33]
Octavian Goga addressed the Romanian people in a radio broadcast in which he outlined a series of antisemitic measures he intended to introduce against the country's Jews, whom he accused of having "exploited" Romania after entering "illegally" after the war.[42]
^Tucker, Spencer C. (2010). A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, LLC. p. 1874. ISBN978-1-85109-672-5.
^Hand, Richard J. (2006). Terror on the Air!: Horror Radio in America, 1931–1952. McFarland. ISBN978-0-7864-9184-1.
^Edwards, Willard (December 14, 1937). "President Puts 3 Demands to Mikado in Note". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 1.
^"Filipinos Hold First Election; 3 Killed, 7 Wounded in Riots". Chicago Daily Tribune. December 15, 1937. p. 1.