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The 1940s

2,668 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 20th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

1940 CE274 entries

  • June 4 – The Dunkirk evacuation ends: The British and French navies, together with large numbers of civilian vessels from various nations, complete evacuating 300,000 troops from Dunkirk, France to England.
  • June 18 – Winston Churchill tells the House of Commons of the United Kingdom: "The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin... if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour."
  • June 22 – WWII: Second Armistice at Compiègne: The French Third Republic and Nazi Germany sign an armistice, ending the Battle of France in the Forest of Compiègne, in the same Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits railroad car used by Marshal Ferdinand Foch to conclude the Armistice with Germany in 1918. This divides France into a Zone occupée in the north and west, under the Military Administration in France (Nazi Germany), and a southern Zone libre, Vichy France.

1941 CE283 entries

  • June 22 – WWII: Operation Barbarossa: Nazi Germany (with allies) invades the Soviet Union and declares war on it. Winston Churchill promises all possible British assistance to the Soviet Union in a worldwide broadcast: "Any man or state who fights against Nazidom will have our aid. Any man or state who marches with Hitler is our foe." Italy and Romania declare war on the Soviet Union.
  • September 29–30 – The Holocaust: Babi Yar massacre – German troops, assisted by Ukrainian police and local collaborators, kill 33,771 Jews in Kyiv.
  • 11 December – World War II – Italy, in conjunction with Germany, declare war on the United States, following the United States declaration of war on Japan and the attack on Pearl Harbor.

1942 CE256 entries

  • March 18 – Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, signs Executive Order 9102, creating the War Relocation Authority (WRA), which becomes responsible for the internment of Americans of Japanese and, to a lesser extent, German and Italian descent, many of them legal citizens.
  • May 8 – The Battle of the Kerch Peninsula: The German 11th Army with Romanian forces launches Unternehmen Trappenjagd (Operation Bustard Hunt) and destroys the bridgehead of the three Soviet Armies (44th, 47th, and 51st) defending the Kerch Peninsula in the eastern part of the Crimean Front. The battle ends in an Axis victory.
  • October 11 – WWII: Battle of Cape Esperance: On the northwest coast of Guadalcanal, United States Navy ships intercept and defeat a Japanese fleet, on their way to reinforce troops on the island.

1943 CE258 entries

  • April 19 – The Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins when Nazi troops enter the Warsaw Ghetto to round up remaining Jews.
  • July 5 – Nazi Germany commences Operation Citadel. It will eventually lead to the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history.
  • July 10 – (0245 GMT (4:45 a.m. local time)) – WWII: Allied invasion of Sicily – The Allied invasion of Axis-controlled Europe begins, with landings on the island of Sicily off mainland Italy by the Seventh United States Army and the British Eighth Army, including the 1st Canadian Infantry Division.

1944 CE278 entries

  • June 6 – WWII: D-Day: Approximately 160,000 Allied troops shipped from England land on the beaches of Normandy in northern France, beginning Operation Overlord and the Invasion of Normandy. The Allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland, in the largest amphibious military operation in history. This operation helps liberate France from Germany, and also weakens the Nazi hold on Europe.
  • July 20 – WWII: Adolf Hitler survives the 20 July plot to assassinate him led by Claus von Stauffenberg; he and his fellow conspirators in this and Operation Valkyrie are executed the following day.
  • December 16 – Germany begins the Ardennes offensive, later known as the Battle of the Bulge.

1945 CE277 entries

  • February 23 – Battle of Iwo Jima: A group of United States Marines reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island, and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (taken by Joe Rosenthal), later wins a Pulitzer Prize.
  • April 30 – Death of Adolf Hitler: Adolf Hitler and his wife of one day, Eva Braun, commit suicide as the Red Army approaches the Führerbunker in Berlin. Großadmiral Karl Dönitz succeeds Hitler as Reichspräsident (President of Germany) and Joseph Goebbels succeeds as Reichskanzler (Chancellor of Germany), in accordance with Hitler's political testament the day earlier.
  • 15 August – Japan surrenders to the Allies, ending World War II. The day is known as V-P Day (Victory in the Pacific).

1946 CE243 entries

  • July 25 – Nuclear testing: In the first underwater test of the atomic bomb, the surplus USS Saratoga is sunk near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, when the United States detonates the Baker device during Operation Crossroads.
  • 6 August – on the first anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Captain Bob Lewis, the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the aircraft which dropped the bomb, arrives at Shannon Airport, completing his first flight as a civil aviation pilot.
  • October 15 – Nuremberg trials: Hermann Göring, founder of the Gestapo and recently convicted Nazi war criminal, poisons himself two hours before his scheduled execution.

1947 CE268 entries

  • June 24 – Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington. The Arnold sighting marks the start of the 1947 flying disc craze.
  • October 20 – A war begins in Kashmir, along the border between India and Pakistan, initiating the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948. Also, Pakistan establishes diplomatic relations with the United States of America.
  • November 29 – The United Nations General Assembly votes for the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine which will partition Mandatory Palestine between Arab and Jewish regions, resulting in the creation of the State of Israel.

1948 CE286 entries

  • January 12 – Mahatma Gandhi begins his fast-unto-death in Delhi, to stop communal violence during the Partition of India.
  • May 14 – The Israeli Declaration of Independence is made in Tel Aviv, a few hours before the British Mandate is due to expire. At midnight the British Mandate of Palestine is officially terminated and the State of Israel comes into being.
  • July 29 – The 1948 Summer Olympics begin in London, the first since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

1949 CE245 entries

  • April 4 – The North Atlantic Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C., creating the NATO defense alliance.
  • June 29 – South Africa introduces its apartheid policy.
  • the Communist Party organised a "Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference" (CPPCC) to prepare for the establishment of a "New Democracy" regime to replace the Kuomintang-dominated Republic of China government