Irish author Samuel Beckett publishes his first novel, Murphy

Lord Nuffield donates to Commonwealth hospitals 'iron lungs', built at his Morris Oxford factory,

Lavrenty Beria is appointed head of Stalin's state security organization, the NKVD

The first of many ballets to Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet score is premiered in Czechoslovakia

Adolf Hitler appoints Joachim von Ribbentrop as Germany's foreign minister

Adolf Hitler uses threats of force to browbeat the Austrian chancellor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, into granting special favours to Austrian Nazis

The Austrian chancellor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, defies Hitler by announcing a referendum on his country's independence

The Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg resigns in the face of threats from Hitler, and broadcasts that he is doing so under duress

German tanks cross the border into Austria, on the official invitation of Austrian Nazis

Adolf Hitler, following his troops into Austria, announces the Anschluss (union of Germany and Austria)

The Sudeten German National Socialist Party demands secession from Czechoslovakia, in keeping with Hitler's plans for the Sudetenland

Left-wingers and Jews suffer immediate persecution in Nazi Austria, now part of Germany

Voters in both Germany and Austria give massive approval for Hitler's annexation of Austria

Neville Chamberlain makes the first of three flights to Germany, this time to negotiate with Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden

Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier fly to Munich to discuss Hitler's designs on the Czech Sudetenland

Chamberlain and Daladier agree at Munich that Hitler may annexe the Czech Sudetenland, with its largely German population

Neville Chamberlain returns to Britain from Munich claiming to have achieved 'peace for our time... peace with honour'

Poland insists that the industrial area of Teschen Silesia, largely inhabited by Poles, be ceded by Czechoslovakia

The Sudetenland is transferred from Czechoslovakia to Germany, in accordance with the Munich agreement

Adolf Hitler makes unacceptable demands upon Poland, including the transfer of the free port of Danzig to Germany

Adolf Hitler demands a strip of territory through the Polish corridor to reunite Germany with East Prussia

Nazi gangs smash the premises of Jews throughout Germany and Austria in a night that becomes known as Kristallnacht, the night of cut glass

The new German technique of blitzkrieg ('lightning war') is demonstrated with devastating effect against Poland

On the very first day of the war a U-boat sinks a British liner, the Athenia, with the loss of 112 civilian lives

Two million Anderson air-raid shelters are distributed to British homes, to be constructed in the garden from corrugated steel panels