Germany. 1939 Coventry bombing: An Irish Republican Army bomb explodes in the centre of Coventry, England, killing 5 people. August 26 The first televised Major League Baseball games are shown on experimental station W2XBS in the United States: a double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. The Kriegsmarine orders all German-flagged merchant ships to head to German ports immediately, in anticipation of the invasion of Poland. August 27 – A Heinkel He 178, the first turbojet-powered aircraft, flies for the first time, with Captain Erich Warsitz in command. August 28 – French ocean liner heads into New York Harbor, where she will be interned on September 3, and cut up for scrap, beginning in 1946. August 30 – Poland begins a mobilization against Nazi Germany. August 31 – Operation Himmler: Nazi German troops posing as Poles stage a series of false flag operations on the border (including the Gleiwitz incident), giving a pretext for the invasion of Poland. September September 1 – Beginning of WWII: Opening shots of World War II and invasion of Poland: At 4:45am Central European Time, under cover of darkness, the German WWI-era battleship Schleswig-Holstein quietly slips her moorings at her wharf in Danzig Harbor, drifts into the center of the channel, and commences firing on a Polish military installation on Westerplatte at the northeastern mouth of the port of the internationalized Free City of Danzig, beginning the Battle of Westerplatte and Battle of Danzig Bay. Five minutes previously, the bombing of Wieluń in the western part of Poland had commenced, beginning the Battle of the Border. Shock-troops of the German Wehrmacht begin crossing the border into Poland. The Reichstag passes a statement, stating that Adolf Hitler's second-in-command Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring should be appointed as Hitler's successor as Führer, should Hitler die during the war. Rudolf Hess is to be appointed in Göring's place, should anything befall Göring. Britain and France deliver ultimatums to Germany. Norway, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland declare their neutrality. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt states that "every effort" would be made by his administration to stay out of the war. Italy is advised that Germany does not expect to need its military support at present. General George C. Marshall becomes Chief of Staff of the United States Army. September 2 – WWII: Following the invasion of Poland, the Free City of Danzig (modern-day Gdańsk, Poland) is annexed