On this day
Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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arrival; King and Lebrun pledge stand against aggression
M Castagne, French writer, expelled for pub false repts
Gandhi int on cong, independence, progress, and India's attitude toward Brit in case of war; Moslem-Hindu stand revd
WASHINGTON, March 21.--The Senate, by a margin of one vote on an amendment to the Reorganization Bill, overrode Administration adherents late today and then, as a movement for reconsideration was undertaken, involved itself in a parliamentary dispute which was interrupted by a recess until noon tomorrow.
1939Germany takes Memel from Lithuania.[†]
On 20 March 1939, Nazi Germany's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop presented an oral ultimatum to Juozas Urbšys, foreign minister of Lithuania. Germany demanded that Lithuania give up the Klaipėda Region, which had been detached from Germany after World War I, or the Wehrmacht would invade Lithuania and the de facto Lithuanian capital Kaunas would be bombed. The Lithuanians had been expecting the demand after years of rising tension between Lithuania and Germany, increasing pro-Nazi propaganda in the region, and continued German expansion. It was issued just five days after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. The 1924 Klaipėda Convention had guaranteed the protection of the status quo in the region, but the four signatories to that convention did not offer any material assistance. The United Kingdom and France followed a policy of appeasement, while Italy and Japan openly supported Germany, and Lithuania accepted the ultimatum on 23 March 1939. It proved to be the last territorial acquisition for Germany before World War II, producing a major downturn in Lithuania's economy and escalating pre-war tensions for Europe as a whole.