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Skip to main content * Live TV * Shows * This Day In History * Schedule * Topics * Stories * Videos * HISTORY Podcasts * History Vault * Shop * * * * * Ad Choices * Advertise * Closed Captioning * Copyright Policy * Corporate Information * Employment Opportunities * FAQ/Contact Us * Privacy Notice * Terms of Use * TV Parental Guidelines * RSS Feeds * Accessibility Support * Privacy Settings April 30, 2022 * Shows * This Day In History * Schedule * Topics * Stories MAVEN RECOMMENDS Natasha Frost HITLER’S TEETH REVEAL NAZI DICTATOR’S CAUSE OF DEATH History.com Editors KING GEORGE VI DIES; ELIZABETH BECOMES QUEEN History.com Editors AL GORE CONCEDES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION History.com Editors PAN AM FLIGHT 103 EXPLODES OVER SCOTLAND History.com Editors FIRST AIRPLANE FLIES * * * * SIGN UP FOR THE INSIDE HISTORY NEWSLETTER * Shows * This Day In History * Schedule * Topics * Stories THIS DAY IN HISTORY December 11 December December1 December2 December3 December4 December5 December6 December7 December8 December9 December10 December11 December12 December13 December14 December15 December16 December17 December18 December19 December20 December21 December22 December23 December24 December25 December26 December27 December28 December29 December30 December31 Year 1936 Month Day December 11 EDWARD VIII ABDICATES * * * * After ruling for less than one year, Edward VIII becomes the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne. He chose to abdicate after the British government, public, and the Church of England condemned his decision to marry the American divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson. On the evening of December 11, he gave a radio address in which he explained, “I have found it impossible to carry on the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge the duties of king, as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.” On December 12, his younger brother, the duke of York, was proclaimed King George VI. READ MORE: Why Edward VIII Abdicated the Throne to Marry Wallis Simpson Edward, born in 1894, was the eldest son of King George V, who became the British sovereign in 1910. Still unmarried as he approached his 40th birthday, he socialized with the fashionable London society of the day. By 1934, he had fallen deeply in love with American socialite Wallis Warfield Simpson, who was married to Ernest Simpson, an English-American businessman who lived with Mrs. Simpson near London. Wallis, who was born in Pennsylvania, had previously married and divorced a U.S. Navy pilot. The royal family disapproved of Edward’s married mistress, but by 1936 the prince was intent on marrying Mrs. Simpson. Before he could discuss this intention with his father, George V died, in January 1936, and Edward was proclaimed king. The new king proved popular with his subjects, and his coronation was scheduled for May 1937. His affair with Mrs. Simpson was reported in American and continental European newspapers, but due to a gentlemen’s agreement between the British press and the government, the affair was kept out of British newspapers. On October 27, 1936, Mrs. Simpson obtained a preliminary decree of divorce, presumably with the intent of marrying the king, which precipitated a major scandal. To the Church of England and most British politicians, an American woman twice divorced was unacceptable as a prospective British queen. Winston Churchill, then a Conservative backbencher, was the only notable politician to support Edward. Listen to HISTORY This Week: The Crown Steps Down Despite the seemingly united front against him, Edward could not be dissuaded. He proposed a morganatic marriage, in which Wallis would be granted no rights of rank or property, but on December 2, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin rejected the suggestion as impractical. The next day, the scandal broke on the front pages of British newspapers and was discussed openly in Parliament. With no resolution possible, the king renounced the throne on December 10. The next day, Parliament approved the abdication instrument, and Edward VIII’s reign came to an end. The new king, George VI, made his older brother the duke of Windsor. On June 3, 1937, the duke of Windsor and Wallis Warfield married at the Château de Cande in France’s Loire Valley. For the next two years, the duke and duchess lived primarily in France but visited other European countries, including Germany, where the duke was honored by Nazi officials in October 1937 and met with Adolf Hitler. After the outbreak of World War II, the duke accepted a position as liaison officer with the French. In June 1940, France fell to the Nazis, and Edward and Wallis went to Spain. During this period, the Nazis concocted a scheme to kidnap Edward with the intention of returning him to the British throne as a puppet king. George VI, like his prime minister, Winston Churchill, was adamantly opposed to any peace with Nazi Germany. Unaware of the Nazi kidnapping plot but conscious of Edward’s pre-war Nazi sympathies, Churchill hastily offered Edward the governorship of the Bahamas in the West Indies. The duke and duchess set sail from Lisbon on August 1, 1940, narrowly escaping a Nazi SS team sent to seize them. In 1945, the duke resigned his post, and the couple moved back to France. They lived mainly in Paris, and Edward made a few visits to England, such as to attend the funerals of King George VI in 1952 and his mother, Queen Mary, in 1953. It was not until 1967 that the duke and duchess were invited by the royal family to attend an official public ceremony, the unveiling of a plaque dedicated to Queen Mary. Edward died in Paris in 1972 but was buried at Frogmore, on the grounds of Windsor Castle. In 1986, Wallis died and was buried at his side. CITATION INFORMATION ARTICLE TITLE Edward VIII abdicates AUTHOR HISTORY.COM EDITORS WEBSITE NAME HISTORY URL https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/edward-viii-abdicates ACCESS DATE April 30, 2022 PUBLISHER A&E Television Networks LAST UPDATED December 10, 2020 ORIGINAL PUBLISHED DATE November 24, 2009 Tags terms: British HistoryRoyalty By History.com Editors * * * * FACT CHECK: WE STRIVE FOR ACCURACY AND FAIRNESS. BUT IF YOU SEE SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T LOOK RIGHT, CLICK HERE TO CONTACT US! HISTORY REVIEWS AND UPDATES ITS CONTENT REGULARLY TO ENSURE IT IS COMPLETE AND ACCURATE. ALSO ON THIS DAY 1990s 1997 KYOTO PROTOCOL FIRST ADOPTED IN JAPAN On December 11, 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, the United Nations adopts a new treaty for the purpose of limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was a revolutionary attempt to forestall climate change, an admirable ...read more Crime 1978 MILLIONS STOLEN FROM JFK AIRPORT IN INFAMOUS 'LUFTHANSA HEIST' On December 11, 1978 half a dozen masked robbers raided the Lufthansa Airlines cargo building at JFK Airport in New York, making off with more than $5 million in cash ($21 million in today's dollars) and almost $1 million in jewelry. To this day, the Lufthansa heist, as it is ...read more World War II 1941 GERMANY DECLARES WAR ON THE UNITED STATES Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States, bringing America, which had been neutral, into the European conflict. The bombing of Pearl Harbor surprised even Germany. Although Hitler had made an oral agreement with his Axis partner Japan that Germany would join a war against ...read more 1990s 1994 RUSSIAN FORCES ENTER CHECHNYA In the largest Russian military offensive since the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks pour into the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya. Encountering only light resistance, Russian forces had by evening pushed to the outskirts of the ...read more Crime 2008 BILLIONAIRE CONMAN BERNARD MADOFF ARRESTED On December 11, 2008, financier Bernard Madoff is arrested at his New York City apartment and charged with masterminding a long-running Ponzi scheme later estimated to involve around $65 billion, making it one of the biggest investment frauds in Wall Street history. Madoff, who ...read more World War II 1946 UNICEF FOUNDED In the aftermath of World War II, the General Assembly of the United Nations votes to establish the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), an organization to help provide relief and support to children living in countries devastated by the war. After the ...read more Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Sign Up Vietnam War 1961 FIRST U.S. HELICOPTERS ARRIVE IN SOUTH VIETNAM The ferry carrier, USNS Core, arrives in Saigon with the first U.S. helicopter unit. This contingent included 33 Vertol H-21C Shawnee helicopters and 400 air and ground crewmen to operate and maintain them. Their assignment was to airlift South Vietnamese Army troops into combat. ...read more Westward Expansion 1872 BUFFALO BILL CODY MAKES HIS FIRST STAGE APPEARANCE Already appearing as a well-known figure of the Wild West in popular dime novels, Buffalo Bill Cody makes his first stage appearance on this day, in a Chicago-based production of The Scouts of the Prairie. Unlike many of his imitators in Wild West shows and movies, William ...read more Art, Literature, and Film History 1964 SAM COOKE DIES UNDER SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES IN LA On December 11, 1964, in response to a reported shooting, officers of the Los Angeles Police Department were dispatched to the Hacienda Motel, where they found musician Sam Cooke dead on the office floor, shot three times in the chest by the motel’s manager, Bertha Franklin. The ...read more Cold War 1969 SOVIETS DECLARE NUDITY A SIGN OF “WESTERN DECADENCE” The secretary of the Moscow writer’s union declares that nudity as displayed in the popular play Oh! Calcutta! is a sign of decadence in Western culture. More disturbing, he claimed, was the fact that this “bourgeois” thinking was infecting Russian youth. Sergei Mikhailkov, best ...read more American Revolution 1777 BRITISH DELAY WASHINGTON’S MARCH TO VALLEY FORGE On December 11, 1777, General George Washington begins marching 12,000 soldiers of his Continental Army from Whitemarsh to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, for the winter. As Washington’s men began crossing the Schuylkill River, they were surprised by a regiment of several thousand ...read more World War I 1915 YUAN SHIH-KAI ACCEPTS CHINESE THRONE With war raging in Europe, conflict also reigns in the Far East between two traditional enemies, Japan and an internally-divided China. On December 11, 1915, the first president of the new Chinese republic, Yuan Shih-kai, who had come to power in the wake of revolution in 1911 ...read more * Ad Choices * Advertise * Closed Captioning * Copyright Policy * Corporate Information * Employment Opportunities * FAQ/Contact Us * Privacy Notice * Terms of Use * TV Parental Guidelines * RSS Feeds * Accessibility Support © 2022 A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved. CLOSE CLOSE CLOSE CLOSE