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December 19 and 21, 1930: Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin dismisses Alexei Rykov (both on far left) from positions as Soviet Premier and Communist Party Politburo memberDecember 19, 1930: Stalin appoints Vyacheslav Molotov as new Soviet PremierDecember 26, 1930: Prince Louis II declares dictatorship in Principality of Monaco
Seventy-five thousand Scottish coal miners went on strike as winter approached. The action coincided with a new British coal mining act taking effect which provided for a flat seven-and-a-half-hour working day unless the owners and the miner's federation agreed to a spreadover of 94 hours per fortnight.
U.S. President Herbert Hoover gave his second State of the Union message to Congress. Like the previous year, it was delivered as a written message. "In the larger view", Hoover stated, "the major forces of the depression now lie outside the United States, and our recuperation has been retarded by the unwarranted degree of fear and apprehension created by these outside forces." Hoover reviewed what the government had done to cope with the economic crisis over the past year and asked Congress for up to $150 million to provide further employment through public works.
The Meuse Valley fog, complicated by industrial air pollution, began and caused hundreds of people in the Meuse Valley in Belgium to start experiencing severe respiratory problems. Over 60 people died in the next few days, most of them killed by fluorine gas that had drifted eastward from factories in the municipal village of Engis.
German police raided a Nazi-occupied castle near Breslau along the Polish border, arresting hundreds of Brownshirts and seizing large quantities of arms and ammunition. The Nazis were organizing a defense force to protect "oppressed" Germans in Upper Silesia.
Harvey Kuenn, American baseball player and manager, 1953 American League Rookie of the Year and 1959 AL batting champion; in West Allis, Wisconsin (d. 1988)
The film All Quiet on the Western Front had its German premiere at the Berlin Mozartsaal. Nazis led by Joseph Goebbels disrupted the premiere by throwing smoke bombs and sneezing powder, and attacking members of the audience who protested the disturbance.
Died:Raul Brandão, 63, Portuguese writer, journalist and military officer
The Industrial Party Trial ended in the Soviet Union, with five of the eight defendants sentenced to death and the other three given prison terms of three to ten years.
Noe Ramishvili, 49, Georgian independence activist who had briefly served as the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1918, and a Menshevik leader who had gone into exile after the Bolshevik triumph, was assassinated in Paris by a Georgian exile, Parmen Tchanoukvadzé.
The Soviet Union reduced the five death sentences handed down in the Industrial Party Trial to ten years' imprisonment. An official bulletin explained that the decision was made because the sentenced men had "repented their crimes" and "because soviet power cannot be guided by a mere desire for revenge".
Brooklyn and the Bronx were the scenes of massive bank runs as crowds of 20,000 to 25,000 people lined up for hours in desperation to withdraw their money before closing time. Armored cars drove extra cash to besieged branches to meet the demand.
Germany's board of film censors banned All Quiet on the Western Front from the country, explaining that the film dwelled too much on Germany's defeat and painted an inaccurate picture of its military. The Nazis, who had disrupted screenings of the film for all six days of its release, hailed the decision as a great victory and a "vindication of German honour."
The Bank of United States and its 59 branches were closed and its assets taken over by the New York State Superintendent of Banks.
U.S. mobster Bugs Moran was acquitted of vagrancy charges by a jury in an Illinois court.
The Jaca uprising, a military revolution attempting to overthrow the Spanish monarchy, broke out at military garrison in the town of Jaca in northeastern Spain.
Army defeated Navy, 6 to 0 in the Army–Navy Game at Yankee Stadium. It was the first time the two teams had met in three years; the game had not been played in 1928 or 1929 due to a controversy regarding player eligibility.
The glass-bottomed tour boat Eureka II had an engine room explosion and sank south of Miami. Three people died but the other 135 on board were rescued.
Two Spanish army officers were executed by firing squad following a drumhead court-martial for the Jaca uprising.
Died:F. Richard Jones, 37, American film director and producer, from tuberculosis
Ramón Franco, the younger brother of future Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, launched a revolt against King Alfonso XIII of Spain as leader of 500 other insurgents. The group started from Cuatro Vientos Airport, sending wireless messages and dropping leaflets from airplanes proclaiming a republic. Spanish troops responded by shelling the airport and the rebellion was broken up, with Ramón Franco escaping the country by plane to Portugal.
Al Capone's 18-year-old sister Mafalda married John J. Mariote, the younger brother of Legs Diamond. This marriage between relatives of the bosses of two rival gangs contributed to a temporary truce among members of organized crime in Chicago.
Died:Peter Warlock (stage name for Philip Arnold Heseltine), 36, British composer and music critic, from accidental or intentional carbon monoxide poisoning
The Soviet government forcibly closed the Japanese-Korean bank in Vladivostok and seized its assets, accusing the bank of violating the Soviet money trading rules.
The Finland Steamship Company (Finska Ångfartygs Aktiebolag or FAA) passenger ships Oberon and Arcturus collided in a fog off of the coast of Denmark near the port of Læsø. The Oberon sank with the loss of 42 of the 82 people on board. Coincidentally, the captain of the Oberon was the brother of the captain of the Arcturus.
Japan sent a note of protest to the Soviet Union, calling its closure of the Japanese-Korean bank an "unfriendly act".
Retired French General and World War I hero Joseph Joffre had his right foot amputated in an attempt to save his life as gangrene set in. The operation was kept a secret for eight days. General Joffre died 15 days later on January 3.
President Hoover signed a $110 million emergency construction bill and a $45 million drought relief bill as part of a program of federal aid made necessary by the Great Depression.
In his Christmas Eve message, Pope Pius XI warned against "blind nationalism" and encouraged increased cooperation between nations to secure world peace.
Thirty people were killed when a landslide crashed down on a house in Algiers where a wedding was being celebrated, following heavy rains in French Algeria.
An article by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the Italian Futurist, was published in the Gazzetta del Popolo, in which he called for the abolition of pasta in favour of Futurist meals. Marinetti explained that pasta was hard to digest and made Italians "skeptical, slow pessimistic", in addition to requiring heavy importation to Italy. Marinetti argued that rice, on the other hand, would create "lithe, agile peoples who will be victorious" in future wars and that the grain was already being homegrown in vast amounts. Marinetti's manifesto also called for the abolition of the knife and fork.
The Econometric Society, an international society for the advancement of economic theory in its relation to statistics and mathematics, was founded in the U.S. by 16 professional statisticians at the Stalton Hotel in Cleveland.
Died:Walter L. Cohen, 70, African-American politician who had served as the Registrar of the U.S. Land Office for President Theodore Roosevelt and later as U.S. Comptroller of Customs for President Harding.
Rozendaal, Neal (2012). Duke Slater: Pioneering Black NFL Player and Judge. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. p. 131. ISBN978-0-7864-6957-4.
McLaughlin, Kathleen (December 15, 1930). "Capone Sister Wed; Seize 5 Armed Guards". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 1.
"Landslide Hurls 30 to Death at Arab Wedding". Chicago Daily Tribune. December 28, 1930. p. 4.
Partsch-Bergsohn, Isa (1994). Modern Dance in Germany and the United States: Crosscurrents and Influences. Harwood Academic Publishers. p. 65. ISBN978-3-7186-5557-1.
Boisvert, Raymond D. (2014). I Eat, Therefore I Think: Food and Philosophy. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. p. 148. ISBN978-1-61147-687-3.
