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History on the 31st of December

History
Date Text
31 Dec 1687 RELIGIOUS The first shipload of emigrating Huguenots (French Protestants) left France for South Africa.
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31 Dec 1712 RELIGIOUS Birth of Peter Bohler, the Moravian missionary who, at age 25, influenced the religious spirit of John Wesley. Bohler taught the founder of Methodism the joys of personal conversion and self_surrendering faith, and Wesley later incorporated these spiritual emphases within Methodist theology.
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31 Dec 1823 RELIGIOUS Birth of William O. Cushing, American clergyman. He penned over 300 hymns, among them "When He Cometh," "Under His Wings" and "Hiding in Thee."
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31 Dec 1837 RELIGIOUS Birth of John R. Sweney, American sacred chorister. He composed over 1,000 gospel tunes, including SUNSHINE ("There is Sunshine in My Soul Today") and SWENEY ("More About Jesus Would I Know").
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31 Dec 1900 RELIGIOUS Birth of Stephen C. Neill, British clergyman and biblical scholar. A prolific writer, some of Neill's better_known titles are "A History of Christian Missions" (1964), "The Interpretation of the New Testament: 1871_1961" (1966) and "The Modern Reader's Dictionary of the Bible" (1966).
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31 Dec 1918 WW2 American transport West Caruth was launched at 0800 hours, sponsored by Betty Howard, daughter of the company vice president of Southwestern Shipbuilding, William Howard. 
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31 Dec 1920 WW2 Poland recognized the Republic of Estonia. 
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31 Dec 1921 WW2 Joseph Rochefort was assigned to USS Connecticut. 
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31 Dec 1928 WW2 Zhaohe was recommissioned into service. 
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31 Dec 1930 WW2 Mineichi Koga was named the commanding officer of cruiser Aoba. 
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31 Dec 1931 WW2 Mineichi Koga was named the commanding officer of battleship Ise. 
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31 Dec 1931 WW2 Chen Mingshu was stepped down from his role as the acting head of the Legislative Yuan of China. 
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31 Dec 1931 WW2 Japanese troops reached the Taling River en route toward Jinzhou, Liaoning Province, China. 
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31 Dec 1932 WW2 Mineichi Koga was promoted to the rank of rear admiral. 
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31 Dec 1934 WW2 Werner Mölders completed basic flying training at the Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule in Cottbus, Germany. 
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31 Dec 1934 WW2 The keel of submarine ShCh-324 was laid down by the Krasnoye Sormovo Factory No. 112 named after Andrei Zhdanov at Gorkiy, Russia. 
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31 Dec 1934 WW2 The keel of ShCh-320 was laid down at A. Marti shipyard (Yard 194) at Leningrad, Russia. 
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31 Dec 1934 WW2 The US War Department authorised the creation of a General Headquarters for the Army Air Corps, to be effective from 1 Mar 1935. Brigadier-General Frank M. Andrews was to head this new organisation at Langley Field, Virginia, with three tactical wings based at Langley, Barksdale (Louisiana) and March (California) Fields. The US Army's aviation branch thereby gained increased influence at planning levels as Andrews became a member of the General Staff. 
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31 Dec 1936 WW2 Mineichi Koga was promoted to the rank of vice admiral. 
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31 Dec 1936 WW2 The US 1st Marine Brigade completed its three-month amphibious and field landing exercise in and near Potomac, Maryland, United States. 
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31 Dec 1937 WW2 Douglas MacArthur retired from the US Army, but remained Philippine President Manuel Quezon's advisor as a civilian. 
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31 Dec 1937 WW2 Filipp Golikov was promoted to the rank of corps commander. 
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31 Dec 1937 WW2 The Japanese occupation forces in Nanjing, China began registering women. 
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31 Dec 1938 WW2 The Supreme Court of the USSR ruled that cases brought under Article 58 of the Kirov Law had to demonstrate the intent to commit counter-revolutionary or terrorist crime. This ruling went some way into restricting the activities of various kangaroo courts which had been using the law as virtual unrestricted power to kill anyone who came into their hands. During the course of 1939 a number of public trials were held of State Security officials, accused of fabricating evidence and perverting the course of justice. 
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31 Dec 1939 WW2 German submarine U-32 sank Norwegian ship Luna at 0947 hours with one torpedo. 
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31 Dec 1939 WW2 Chinese declared victory at Kunlun Pass 59 kilometers northeast of Nanning, Guangxi Province, China, although the remnants of Japanese troops trapped in the region would not capitulate until mid-Jan 1940. 
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31 Dec 1939 WW2 Finnish 9th Division secured the village of Suomussalmi after four days of heavy fighting, capturing 625 rifles, 33 light machine guns, 19 medium and heavy machine guns, 2 anti-aircraft machine guns, 12 anti-tank guns, 27 field and anti-aircraft guns, 26 tanks, 2 armored cars, 350 horses, 181 trucks, 11 tractors, 26 field kitchens, 800,000 rounds of 7.62mm rifle ammunition, 9,000 artillery shells, a field hospital, and a bakery. Elsewhere, Finnish scouts found troops of the Soviet 44th Division stationary along a 30-kilometer stretch of the Raate Road, including a large concentration of dug-in tanks and artillery. Finnish Army Colonel Siilasvuo received the intelligence and decided to prepare a strike at this concentration. 
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31 Dec 1939 WW2 Boris Shaposhnikov was awarded his first Order of Lenin. 
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31 Dec 1940 WW2 Allied merchant shipping sunk by German submarines world-wide in the year of 1940 was 567 ships, totaling 2,771,483 gross tons. 24 German submarines were lost in the same time period. 
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31 Dec 1940 WW2 Captain Lindemann returned to Bismarck from his Christmas leave and assumed command of the battleship. 
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31 Dec 1940 WW2 Greek submarine Katsonis sank Italian tanker Quinto with the deck gun off Vlorë, Albania. 
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31 Dec 1940 WW2 RAF bombers attacked Vlorë, Albania. 
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31 Dec 1940 WW2 RAF bombers attacked Rotterdam and Ijmuiden, the Netherlands. 
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31 Dec 1940 WW2 RAF bombers attacked the bridge over the Rhine River at Emmerich, Germany and Köln, Germany. 
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31 Dec 1940 WW2 British destroyer HMS Dainty stopped Italian schooners Tiberio and Maria Giovanni between Bardia and Tobruk, Libya and forced them to sail to Sollum, Egypt for capture. 
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31 Dec 1940 WW2 German submarine U-38 sank Swedish ship Valparaiso 200 miles south of Iceland at 2312 hours; 35 survivors drown in the freezing water. 
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31 Dec 1940 WW2 German submarine U-65 damaged British tanker British Zeal with two torpedoes 200 miles off Dakar, French West Africa. The crew abandoned the ship, but after U-65 departed the scene, the crew reboarded and successfully maneuvered the damaged ship to Freetown, British West Africa. 
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31 Dec 1940 WW2 HMS Hermes set sail for Simon's Town, South Africa. 
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31 Dec 1940 WW2 HMS Edinburgh arrived at Scapa Flow, Scotland, United Kingdom. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru arrived at Roi, Marshall Islands. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 At 0947 hours, German submarine U-32 sank neutral Norwegian transport SS Luna, which was returning from London, England, United Kingdom with rubber hoses and zinc plates, with a torpedo. Survivors were rescued by Norwegian steamer Colombia and taken to Kopervik, Norway. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 I-68 departed Kwajalein, Marshall Islands. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 HMS Indomitable arrived at Cape Town, South Africa en route to the Far East. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 Admiral Chester Nimitz assumed command of the US Navy Pacific Fleet; the ceremony was performed on board submarine Grayling at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 Japanese submarines shell Hawaiian Islands of Kauai, Maui, and Hawaii. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 American passenger ship Ruth Alexander, en route from Manila, Philippine Islands to Balikpapan, Borneo was bombed and damaged by Japanese flying boat in the Makassar Strait. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 American carrier USS Yorktown became the flagship of Rear Admiral Frank Fletcher's newly-formed Task Force 17. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 USS Pollack fired two torpedoes at a Japanese destroyer off Honshu, Japan; both torpedoes missed. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 British 155th Field Regiment of the Lanarkshire Yeomanry stopped a Japanese attack at Kampar, British Malaya; further south on the western coast, the Japanese landed behind the Allied lines. On the east coast, the Indian 9th Division fell back to the south side of the Kuantan River. Far to the south, at Singapore, British and Dutch transports took on civilians for evacuation to South Africa. Finally, off the Chinese coast, 56 Japanese troop transports departed the island of Taiwan, escorted by 3 cruisers and 16 destroyers, for an amphibious operations in British Malaya. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 Japanese troops reached the outskirts of Changsha, Hunan Province, China. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 US Navy Task Force 11 with USS Saratoga departed Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii for patrol. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 USS Astoria departed Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 Allied convoy PQ-7b departed Hvalfjörður, Iceland. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 Japanese Lingayen Force captured Sibul Springs, Luzon, Philippine Islands, breaching part of the final defensive line north of Manila. South of the city, Japanese tanks of Sonoda Force reached Baliuag. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 Nachi arrived in Davao Gulf, Philippine Islands. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 Germans halted their attacks on Sevastopol, Russia for the winter. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 Franklin Roosevelt notified Chiang Kaishek that he had obtained agreement from the governments of Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands for the establishment of a China Theatre of War with the Chiang as the Supreme Allied Commander. 
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31 Dec 1941 WW2 At the Arcadia Conference in Washington DC, United States, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt agreed on a "Germany First" strategy. 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 Battle of the Barents Sea took place between the British Royal Navy and the German Kriegsmarine. The British lost destroyer HMS Achates and minesweeper HMS Bramble while the Germans lost destroyer Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt. 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 Japanese Emperor Showa allowed his troops to evacuate Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 A furious Hitler ordered the scrapping of the German Navy's battle fleet after Royal Navy destroyers drove off the mighty Lützow and Admiral Hipper from attacking a convoy in the Barents Sea. Hitler said his battleships were useless "like so much old iron". Admiral Raeder, commander of the Kreigsmarine, resigned and was replaced by Admiral Donitz, commander of the submarine force. 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 The Special Services vessel HMS Fidelity was torpedoed in the Atlantic, killing 280 crew, 51 commandos, and 50 survivors from a sunken cargo ship that they had picked up earlier. 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 The Red Cross was reported to be spending £375,000 each month on food parcels for Allied prisoners of war. 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 Captain Robert Sherbrooke aboard HMS Onslow fought off four attacks on a convoy he was protecting in the Barents Sea. Despite superior odds and heavy damage in which Sherbrooke was badly wounded and temporarily blinded, he got the convoy through to Ruissia. He was awarded the Victoria Cross. 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 Essex was commissioned into service. 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 Kalinin was commissioned into service. 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 Matome Ugaki's diary entry made on this date looked back on 1942. "How brilliant was the first-stage operation up to April! And what miserable setbaks since Midway in June! The invasions of Hawaii, Fiji, Samoa, and New Caledonia, liberation of India and destruction of the British Far Eastern Fleet have all scattered like dreams. Meanwhile, not to speak of capturing Port Moresby, but the recovery of Guadalcanal... turned out to be impossible." 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 USS Wahoo completed her scheduled overhaul at Brisbane, Australia. On the same day, Commander Dudley Morton replaced Lieutenant Commander Marvin Kennedy as the commanding officer. 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 6 B-17 bombers attacked Lakunai airfield near Rabaul, New Britain with wire-wrapped 500-pound bombs, causing very little damage. 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 Tatsuta Maru departed Balikpapan, Dutch Borneo. 
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31 Dec 1942 WW2 USS Pollack departed Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii for her fifth war patrol. 
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31 Dec 1943 WW2 Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru arrived at Palau. 
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31 Dec 1943 WW2 USS Cassin Young was commissioned into service under the command of Commander E. T. Schrieber. 
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31 Dec 1943 WW2 General Montgomery left his beloved British 8th Army in Italy to take up his role in the planning of the summer invasion of Europe in which he would command all land forces. 
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31 Dec 1943 WW2 Soviet troops again recaptured Zhytomyr, Ukraine. 
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31 Dec 1943 WW2 Arbiter was commissioned into service. 
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31 Dec 1943 WW2 Lieutenant General Oliver Leese assumed command of the British 8th Army. 
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31 Dec 1943 WW2 The Danish-Icelandic Act of Union of 1918 expired. 
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31 Dec 1943 WW2 Robert Johnson shot down two German Fw 190D aircraft over Savenay, France. 
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31 Dec 1943 WW2 Barbers Point Naval Air Station: Eight officers and 107 men of D-2, Unit 2, on board. 
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31 Dec 1943 WW2 As of this date, Auschwitz Concentration Camp had a population of 85,298 prisoners (55,785 men and 29,513 women). In the month of Dec 1943, 5,748 male and 8,931 female registered prisoners died at Auschwitz; these numbers did not include those killed in gas chambers immediately after arriving without being registered. 
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31 Dec 1943 WW2 Allied convoy RA-55B departed the Kola Inlet near Murmansk, Russia. 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 Cruiser Köln was damaged by Allied aerial attacks. 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 The British Home Guard was officially disbanded. 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 One B-17 Flying Fortress bomber of USAAF 8th Air Force attacked Helgoland, Germany. 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 German troops launched Operation Sylvester/Operation Nordwind, attacking south near Strasbourg, France. 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 Otto Skorzeny arrived at Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Germany. He received care for his wounded left eye from Hitler's personal doctor Stumpfecker. Later in the day, he reported to Hitler regarding his commando mission during the Ardennes Offensive. As he departed, Wilhelm Keitel invited him to remain to join the rest of the German leaders for the New Year's celebration, but Skorzeny declined, opting to re-join his men in Cologne, Germany instead. 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 Theodor Osterkamp retired from the German Luftwaffe with the rank of Generalleutnant (equivalent to Air Vice Marshal in the British RAF). 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 Light carrier Ryuho departed Moji, Japan with convoy HI-87 with 58 Ohka weapons on board. 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 Lieutenant-General Sir Richard McCreery took over command of the British Eighth Army in Italy from Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese.  
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 US troops re-captured Rochefort, Belgium, while the US Third Army began an offensive from Bastogne. 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 Japanese troops evacuated Akyab (now Sittwe), Burma. 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens was invested with the royal powers of Greece pending his regency and called upon General Nikolaos Plastiras to form a Government. 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 The Hungarian Provisional Government switched sides and declared war on Germany. 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 German V-2 rocket hit near the intersection of Stroud Green Road and Stapledon Hall Road in Crouch Hill, London, England, United Kingdom at 2340 hours, killing 15 and seriously injuring 34. 15 homes were destroyed by this attack. This rocket was the 382nd, and the last, rocket to hit England in 1944. 
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31 Dec 1944 WW2 Lockheed delivered 13 YP-80A jet aircraft to the USAAF. 
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31 Dec 1945 WW2 US Marine Corps end-of-year report noted that there were about 46,000 Marines stationed in Northern China at this time. 
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31 Dec 1945 WW2 Joseph Stalin ordered Aleksandr Nobikov to put his son Vasilii Stalin on the promotion list for general rank even though Nobikov thought the younger Stalin was not yet experienced enough for such high rank. 
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31 Dec 1946 WW2 US President Harry Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in WW2. 
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31 Dec 1946 WW2 Franz von Epp passed away. 
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