The elaborate architecture and the city's status as cosmopolitan cultural center won Bucharest the nickname of "Paris of the East" (or "Micul Paris" – "Little Paris"). Development continued during the 1930s – one of the most prosperous times in Romanian history: after 1928, the population increased by 30,000 inhabitants per year, the area reached 78 km² in 1939, and many new peripheral boroughs were added (Apărătorii Patriei, Băneasa, Dămăroaia, Floreasca, Giuleşti, the Militari village, and the first streets in the Balta Albă area). In 1929, the old tram system was replaced by a trolley-based one. A workers' riot erupted during the Griviţa Strike of 1933, ending in a violent clampdown. Under King Carol II, the city skyline began changing, and numerous art deco- and Neo-Romanian-style buildings and monuments were added, including the new Royal Palace, the Military Academy, Arcul de Triumf, the University of Bucharest Faculty of Law, the new main wing of Gara de Nord, the ANEF Stadium, the Victoria Palace, Palatul Telefoanelor, Dimitrie Gusti's Village Museum, and the present-day Museum of the Romanian Peasant; deep pits were dug to provide Bucharest with safer water, alongside the deviation of the southern course of the Argeş River and the sanitation of the northern lakes (Colentina, Floreasca, Herăstrău, Tei), eventually leading to the creation of the present-day "necklace" of embanked ponds and surrounding parks. Bucharest witnessed the birth of three consecutive fascist regimes: after the one established by Carol II and his National Renaissance Front, the outbreak of World War II brought the National Legionary State and, after the bloody Iron Guard Rebellion of January 21–23 (which was accompanied by a major pogrom in the capital), the Ion Antonescu government. In the spring of 1944, it was the target of heavy RAF and USAF bombings ("see Bombing of Bucharest in World War II"). The city was also the center of King Mihai I's August 23 coup, which took the country out of the Axis and into the ranks of the Allies; consequently, it became the target of German reprisals – on August 23–24, a large-scale bombing by the Luftwaffe destroyed the National Theater and damaged other buildings, while the Wehrmacht engaged in street-fighting with the Romanian Army.