Events

Francisco Madero, a wealthy landowner with democratic convictions and a slight build that belied enormous political courage, issued the Plan de San Luis Potosi from exile in San Antonio, Texas, calling for armed revolution against Porfirio Diaz, the dictator who had ruled Mexico for 34 years. The plan named November 20, 1910, as the date for the uprising to begin, launching a decade-long revolution that would kill between one and two million people and fundamentally reshape Mexican society. Diaz had come to power in 1876 promising democratic reform, then created one of Latin America's most durable authoritarian regimes. His "Porfiriato" modernized Mexico's infrastructure, attracted foreign investment, and built railroads, but the benefits flowed almost entirely to a small elite. Vast haciendas controlled the countryside while peasant communities lost their communal lands. Workers in mines and factories labored under conditions that amounted to debt slavery. When Diaz told an American journalist in 1908 that Mexico was ready for democracy, Madero took him at his word and ran for president. Madero's campaign attracted massive popular support, alarming Diaz enough to have his challenger arrested and jailed during the 1910 election. Released on bail, Madero fled to Texas and drafted his revolutionary plan. The document declared the recent election void, named Madero provisional president, and called on Mexicans to take up arms on November 20. The initial uprising was ragged. Madero's planned insurrection in Puebla was discovered before it could begin. Only scattered fighting broke out on November 20 itself. But the call to revolt ignited far more than Madero had anticipated. In the northern state of Chihuahua, Pancho Villa assembled a guerrilla army. In the southern state of Morelos, Emiliano Zapata rallied peasants demanding land reform under the cry "Tierra y Libertad."

Twenty-one men took their seats in the dock at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, facing charges of crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy. The International Military Tribunal, convened by the victorious Allied powers, was attempting something unprecedented in the history of warfare: holding individual leaders criminally responsible for the actions of a state. The trial that began on November 20, 1945, would last nearly a year and establish principles of international law that endure to this day. The decision to hold trials rather than simply execute Nazi leaders was far from obvious. Winston Churchill initially favored summary execution. Stalin suggested shooting 50,000 to 100,000 German officers, a proposal he may or may not have made in jest. Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, wanted to dismantle German industry entirely. The insistence on a legal proceeding came primarily from American Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who argued that judicial process would create an indisputable historical record and establish the principle that aggressive war was a crime. The tribunal brought together judges and prosecutors from the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, four nations with radically different legal traditions forced to agree on rules of procedure, evidence, and jurisdiction. The chief American prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, delivered the opening statement, declaring that "the wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated."