A history of Los Angeles and the man who fought the Japanese occupation of Malaya: October 30th: today's top history news

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s views on the Holocaust in October 1942
An article from the archive of The Guardian dating back to 30 October 1942 is published on the newspaper’s website. It quotes the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Temple’s speech to protest against Nazi persecution of Jews, which he gave the previous day at the Royal Albert Hall.

‘The road to success’: A History of Los Angeles in Pictures
Although palm trees have become a symbol of Los Angeles, they were never grown locally. One the photographs in the slideshow charting the history of the city, published on the website of the Spanish newspaper El Pais, thus shows a palm tree being transported and planted on the Central Avenue of Los Angeles.

Recollections of life in Czechoslovakia in 1989
Edward Lucas moved to Czechoslovakia in 1989 as a freelance journalist. In an article on the MailOnline, he recalls his experience of the year of the collapse of the Berlin Wall as the only western journalist in the country.

Memoirs of the last SS adjutant to Hitler
Fritz Darges died last Saturday, aged 96. He requested that his recollections of working alongside Hitler during the Second World War only be published after his death. It is hoped that his memoirs will finally prove Hitler’s personal involvement in the Holocaust and refute the claims made by revisionist historians that Heinrich Himmler, rather than Hitler, gave orders for the extermination of Jews during the Second World War.
Darges’ death and the publication of his memoirs are reported by both The Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

Resistance in Japanese occupied Malaya
Captain Freddy Spencer Chapman was a British Special Forces officer who led a small resistance war against Japanese troops during their occupation of Malaya. The disruption which his war inflicted on Japanese supply lines was allegedly such that the Japanese sent out 4,000 troops to defeat what they believed to be a 200-strong force of Australian guerrillas. Brian Moynahan recalls the heroism of a man who has been largely forgotten in his latest biography Jungle Soldier published on October 15th. Annabel Venning reports on the MailOnline.