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December 1938

month of 1938

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ3042468
Source-derived summary

The following events occurred in December 1938:

December 1, 1938 (Thursday)

At 8:34 am, a freight train collided with a school bus in South Jordan, Utah, killing the bus driver and 23 students.

Britain introduced a "national register" for war service.

Two more "victims" of the Halifax Slasher confessed to faking the attacks on themselves. The panic soon wound down as doubts arose as to whether the slasher really existed.

December 2, 1938 (Friday)

The first 200 Jewish children of the Kindertransport program arrived in England.

Born: Luis Artime, Argentine footballer; in Parque Civit

December 3, 1938 (Saturday)

Nazi Germany had a nationwide "day of solidarity" collecting street donations for the Winterhilfswerk fund. Jews were ordered to stay off the streets between noon and 8 p.m. because, according to the order issued by Heinrich Himmler, they had "no share in the solidarity of the German nation."

Heinrich Himmler ordered all driver's licenses of Jews invalidated.

Died: Félix Córdova Dávila, 60, Puerto Rican political leader and judge

December 4, 1938 (Sunday)

Anti-Italian riots broke out in Tunis over Italy's recent demand that France hand over Tunisia. Windows of an Italian tourist office, newspaper and bookstore were smashed, but police reinforcements prevented any such attack on the Italian consulate.

Editorial summary

“December 1938” enters the record as month of 1938. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what December and month can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1938—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around December and month.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“December 1938” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, December and month provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3042468. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1938.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “December 1938”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow December 1938 primary sources, December 1938 archive and December research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “December 1938”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from December 1938” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.