date: August 31

text: August 31 – WWII: Texel Disaster: Two British Royal Navy destroyers are sunk by running into a minefield off the coast of the occupied Netherlands with the loss of around 400 men, 300 of them dead.


date: September 12

section: Disasters & Accidents

text: September 12 – The Hercules Munitions Plant in Succasunna-Kenvil, New Jersey explodes, killing 55 people.

source_section: Events › September


date: September 20

text: September 20–22 – WWII: Convoy HX 72, a North Atlantic convoy of 43 ships, is attacked by a German U-boat group (wolfpack), eleven ships of 73 tons are sunk, seven during the second night of the attack by the U-100 under the command of Joachim Schepke.


date: September 30

text: September 30 (night to October 1) – Arsonists from the Hitler Youth destroy the Great Synagogue of Strasbourg.


date: October 14

text: October 14 – WWII: At least 66 people are killed when a Luftwaffe bomb penetrates Balham station on the London Underground which is in use as an air-raid shelter during The Blitz on England.

source_section: Events › October


date: October 18

text: October 18–19 – WWII: Thirty-two ships are sunk from Convoy SC 7 and Convoy HX 79 by the most effective "wolfpack" of the war, including Otto Kretschmer, Günther Prien and Joachim Schepke.


date: November 25

text: November 25 – Patria disaster: As British authorities attempt to deport Jewish refugees (originating from German-occupied Europe) from Mandatory Palestine to Mauritius, aboard the requisitioned emigrant liner at Haifa, the Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah sinks the ship with a bomb, killing around 250 refugees and crew.

source_section: Events › November


date: December 6

text: December 6 – British submarine is sunk near Taranto.

source_section: Events › December


date: December 25

text: December 25 – The German cruiser Admiral Hipper attacks a British shipping convoy (WS 5A) en route to Sierra Leone 700 miles (1,100 km) west of Cape Finisterre in Spain. Admiral Hipper sinks one ship but has to withdraw with engine trouble.


date: December 29

text: December 29 – WWII: "Second Great Fire of London" – The Luftwaffe carries out a massive incendiary bombing raid, starting 1,500 fires. Many famous buildings, including the Guildhall and Trinity House, are either damaged or destroyed.


date: December

text: British destroyers and sink an Italian submarine off Bardia.


text: Ansul Fire School is founded in Marinette, Wisconsin.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: June 30

section: Climate & Environment

text: June 30 – The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is placed under the Department of the Interior.

source_section: Events › June


date: November 10

text: November 10 – 1940 Vrancea earthquake: An earthquake in Romania kills 1,000.


date: February 2

section: Culture & Society

text: February 2–11 – Scheduled dates for the 1940 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, cancelled in November 1939 due to WWII (originally allocated to Sapporo, Japan).

source_section: Events › February


date: February 7

text: February 7 – Walt Disney animated feature film Pinocchio premiere.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – Paul Creston's Saxophone Sonata is officially premiered at the Carnegie Chamber Hall by saxophonist Cecil Leeson, who had commissioned it from the composer.


date: March 23

text: March 23 – Pakistan Movement: The Lahore Resolution, calling for greater autonomy for what will become Pakistan in British India, is drawn up by the All-India Muslim League during a three-day general session at Iqbal Park, Lahore.

source_section: Events › March


date: April 7

text: April 7 – Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.

source_section: Events › April


date: April 13

text: April 13 – The New York Rangers win the 1940 Stanley Cup Final in ice hockey. It will be another 54 years before their next win in 1994.


date: June 24

text: June 24 – United States politics: The Republican Party begins its national convention in Philadelphia, and nominates Wendell Willkie as its candidate for president.


date: June 26

text: June 26 – Soviet calendar: The Soviet Union reverts to a seven-day week for all purposes.


date: June 28

text: June 28 – The Smith Act (Alien Registration Act) is signed into United States law, setting criminal penalties for advocating overthrow of the government by force or violence, and requiring all aliens in the U.S. to register with the federal government.


date: July 20

text: July 20–August 4 – Scheduled dates for the 1940 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, cancelled in November 1939 due to WWII (originally allocated to Tokyo, Japan).

source_section: Events › July


date: July 27

text: July 27 – Bugs Bunny makes his debut in the Oscar-nominated cartoon short, A Wild Hare. However, it is not until 1941 that his name is adopted.


date: August 31

text: August 31 – British film stars Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh are married at the San Ysidro Ranch in California.

source_section: Events › August


date: October 11

text: October 11 – Portuguese-born performer Carmen Miranda makes her American film debut in Down Argentine Way, one of the first films produced to promote the Good Neighbor policy.


date: October 15

text: October 15 – Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, a satirical anti-fascist comedy film, premieres in New York City. Written, directed, produced by and starring Chaplin as his first true sound film, it is a critical and commercial success and goes on to become Chaplin's most financially successful work. Filming began in September 1939.


date: October 29

text: October 29 – The Selective Service System lottery is held in Washington, D.C..


date: November 6

text: November 6 – Agatha Christie's mystery novel And Then There Were None is published in book form, in the United States.


date: November 9

text: November 9 – Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez for classical guitar and orchestra premieres in Barcelona, Spain.


date: November 10

text: November 10 – The 2600th Anniversary Celebrations of the Japanese Empire


date: November 13

text: November 13 – The Walt Disney animated film Fantasia, the first commercial film shown in stereophonic sound, has its world premiere at the Broadway Theatre in New York City. It is the first box office failure for Disney, though it recoups its cost years later and becomes one of the most highly regarded of Disney's films.


date: November 15

text: November 15 – Abbott and Costello make their film debut, in One Night in the Tropics.


date: November 16

text: November 16 – The Jamaica Association of Local Government Officers is founded.


date: November 17

text: November 17 – The Tartu Art Museum is established in Tartu, Estonia.


date: November 25

text: November 25 – Woody Woodpecker makes his debut in the animated short, Knock Knock. It is not until 1941 that his current name is adopted.


date: December 8

text: December 8 – The Chicago Bears, in what will become the most one-sided victory in National Football League history, defeat the Washington Redskins 73–0 in the 1940 NFL Championship Game.


date: January 24

section: Births

text: January 24 – Joachim Gauck, German politician, 11th President of Germany

source_section: Births › January


date: February 9

text: February 9 – J. M. Coetzee, South African writer, Nobel Prize laureate

source_section: Births › February


date: February 21

text: February 21 – John Lewis, African-American politician, civil rights activist (d. 2020)


date: April 1

text: April 1 – Wangari Maathai, Kenyan environmentalist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 2011)

source_section: Births › April


date: May 24

text: May 24 – Joseph Brodsky, Russian-born poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1996)

source_section: Births › May


date: June 1

text: June 1 – Kip Thorne, American gravitational physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

source_section: Births › June


date: June 28

text: June 28 – Muhammad Yunus, Bangladeshi founder of Grameen Bank, Nobel Prize laureate


date: July 7

text: July 7 – Sir Ringo Starr, English musician, singer, songwriter and actor (The Beatles)

source_section: Births › July


date: July 13

text: July 13 – Sir Patrick Stewart, English actor (Star Trek: The Next Generation)


date: September 23

text: September 23 – Michel Temer, Brazilian politician, President of Brazil between 2016 and 2018.

source_section: Births › September


date: October 14

text: October 14 – Cliff Richard, British pop musician, actor and philanthropist

source_section: Births › October


date: October 25

text: October 25 – Bob Knight, American basketball player and coach (d. 2023)


date: November 27

text: November 27 – Bruce Lee, Chinese-American martial artist, actor (d. 1973)

source_section: Births › November


date: December 21

text: December 21 – Frank Zappa, American musician, composer and satirist (d. 1993)

source_section: Births › December


date: February 11

section: Deaths

text: February 11 – John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, Scottish-born novelist, 15th Governor General of Canada (b. 1875)

source_section: Deaths › February


date: March 16

text: March 16 – Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1858)

source_section: Deaths › March


date: March 27

text: March 27 – Michael Joseph Savage, 23rd Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1872)


date: June 10

text: June 10 – Marcus Garvey, Jamaican-born publisher, entrepreneur and black nationalist (b. 1887)

source_section: Deaths › June


date: June 21

text: June 21 – John T. Thompson, United States Army officer, inventor of the Thompson gun (b. 1860)


date: August 1

text: August 1 – Temulji Bhicaji Nariman, Indian physician and obstetrician (b. 1848)

source_section: Deaths › August


date: August 16

text: August 16 – Henri Desgrange, French racing cyclist and founder of the Tour de France (b. 1865)


date: August 30

text: August 30 – J. J. Thomson, British physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1856)


date: September 26

text: September 26 – Walter Benjamin, German philosopher and cultural critic, suicide (b. 1892)

source_section: Deaths › September


date: November 3

text: November 3 – Manuel Azaña, 55th Prime Minister of Spain, 2nd President of Spain (b. 1880)

source_section: Deaths › November


date: November 17

text: November 17 – Eric Gill, English sculptor, lettering designer and writer (b. 1882)


date: November 18

text: November 18 – Ion Inculeț, Moldavian politician, 1st President of Moldova (b. 1884)


text: November 27 – Nicolae Iorga, Romanian historian and politician, 34th Prime Minister of Romania (assassinated) (b. 1871)


date: December 19

text: December 19 – Kyösti Kallio, Finnish farmerman, banker, 8th Prime Minister of Finland and 4th President of Finland (b. 1873)

source_section: Deaths › December


date: January 6

section: Geopolitics & Diplomacy

text: January 6 – During his State of the Union address, President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt presents his Four Freedoms, as fundamental global human rights.

source_section: Events › January


date: January 10

text: January 10 – The Lend-Lease Act is introduced into the United States Congress.


date: January 23

text: January 23 – Aviator Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress, and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.


date: February 8

text: February 8 – WWII: The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Lend-Lease Act.

source_section: Events › February


date: March 1

text: March 1 – WWII: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact, thus joining the Axis powers.

source_section: Events › March


date: April 13

text: April 13 – The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact is signed.

source_section: Events › April


date: April

text: The Independent State of Croatia, a puppet state of the Axis powers, is established with Ustashe leader Ante Pavelić as head (Poglavnik) of the government.


date: May 19

text: May 19 – The Viet Minh is formed at Pác Bó in Vietnam, to overthrow French rule of the nation, as an alliance between the Indochina Communist party, led by Ho Chi Minh, and the Nationalist party. It will become the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.

source_section: Events › May


date: June 18

text: June 18 – The German–Turkish Treaty of Friendship is signed between Nazi Germany and Turkey, in Ankara.

source_section: Events › June


date: June 29

text: June 29 – WWII: Hitler's second-in-command, Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring, is appointed as Hitler's successor in a written decree. The decree will come into effect, should Hitler die in the middle of the war. (The decree becomes void in April 1945, after Göring tries to assume power while Hitler is still alive, leading to Göring's expulsion from the Nazi Party.)


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Germany and Italy recognize the Japanese-sponsored Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China under Wang Jingwei as the legitimate government of China.

source_section: Events › July


date: July 29

text: July 29 – The Vichy Regime signs the Protocol Concerning Joint Defense and Joint Military Cooperation with the Empire of Japan, giving the Japanese a total of 8 airfields, allowing them greater troop presence, and the use of the Indochinese financial system, in return for continued French autonomy.


date: August 9

text: August 9 – Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet on board ship at Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter (released August 14), setting goals for postwar international cooperation, is created as a result.

source_section: Events › August


date: August 29

text: August 29 – Robert Menzies resigns as Prime Minister of Australia, after losing the support of his party. He will not return to the Prime Ministership until 1949. Arthur Fadden, leader of the Country Party, consequently becomes Prime Minister, while former Prime Minister Billy Hughes replaces Menzies as UAP leader.


date: August 30

text: August 30 – Germany and Romania sign another treaty, the Tighina Agreement.


date: September 29

text: September 29 – WWII: The Moscow Conference begins: neutral U.S. representative Averell Harriman and British representative Lord Beaverbrook meet with Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov to arrange urgent assistance for Russia.

source_section: Events › September


date: October 1

text: October 1 – The New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy becomes the Royal New Zealand Navy.

source_section: Events › October


date: October 7

text: October 7 – John Curtin becomes the 14th Prime Minister of Australia, following the defeat of Arthur Fadden's Country/UAP Coalition government, on the floor of the House of Representatives.


date: October 18

text: October 18 – General Hideki Tōjō becomes the 40th Prime Minister of Japan.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – A group of young men stop traffic on U.S. Highway 99 south of Yreka, California, handing out fliers proclaiming the establishment of the State of Jefferson.

source_section: Events › November


date: November

text: The Hull note (Outline of Proposed Basis for Agreement Between the United States and Japan), named for Secretary of State Cordell Hull, is delivered to the Empire of Japan by the United States.


date: December 4

text: December 4 – The State of Jefferson is declared in Yreka, California, with a judge, John Childs, as governor.

source_section: Events › December


date: December 21

text: December 21 – The Holocaust: The Stanisławów Ghetto is established in German-occupied Poland, initially with 20,000 Jews crowded inside; by Spring 1943 it will be pronounced Judenfrei (free of Jews).


date: December 26

text: December 26 – WWII: Winston Churchill becomes the first British Prime Minister to address a joint session of the United States Congress.


date: January 5

section: Conflict & Security

text: January 5 – WWII: Battle of Bardia in Libya: Australian and British troops defeat Italian forces, the first battle of the war in which an Australian Army formation takes part.


date: February 3

text: February 3 – WWII: The Nazis forcibly restore Pierre Laval to the office of Prime Minister in occupied Vichy France.


date: February

text: The occupied Netherlands starts the first popular uprising in Europe against the Axis powers, the "February strike" against German deportation of Jews in Amsterdam and surroundings.


date: April 28

text: April 28 – World War II persecution of Serbs: Gudovac massacre – Members of the Croatian nationalist Ustashe movement kill around 190 Bjelovar Serbs in the village of Gudovac, in the Independent State of Croatia.


date: May 9

text: May 9 – WWII: is captured by the British Royal Navy in the North Atlantic. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine, which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.


date: May 13

text: May 13 – WWII: Yugoslav General Draža Mihailović and a group of 80 soldiers and officers cross the Drina river in Bosnia and Herzegovina, arrive at Ravna Gora, in western Nazi-occupied Serbia and start fighting with German occupation troops.


date: May 20

text: May 20 – WWII: The Battle of Crete begins, as Germany launches an airborne invasion of Crete, the first mainly airborne invasion in military history.


date: May 30

text: May 30 – WWII: Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas tear down the Nazi swastika on the Acropolis in Athens and replace it with the Greek flag.


date: June 8

text: June 8 – WWII: British and Free French forces invade Syria.


date: June 22

text: June 22 – WWII: The First Sisak Partisan Brigade, the first anti-fascist armed unit in occupied Europe, is founded by Yugoslav partisans near Sisak, Croatia.


text: 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.


date: June 25

text: June 25 – WWII: Finland (as a co-belligerent with Germany) attacks the Soviet Union, starting the Continuation War.


date: July 30

text: July 30 – WWII: Glina massacre of July–August 1941 – The Ustaše brutally kill 200 Serbs inside a Serbian Orthodox church in Glina, Croatia, with a total of 700–1,200 being killed in the area of the next few days.


date: July

text: A German SS unit arrives in Vilnius, Lithuania, and begins the Ponary massacre, the systematic execution of up to 100,000 people over the next three years.


date: August 16

text: August 16 – The Holocaust: Units of the Wehrmacht and the Einsatzgruppen (as part of Operation Barbarossa) start killing Jewish children, signalling the start of the Jewish Genocide.


date: August 29

text: August 29 – WWII: The Government of National Salvation, a Serb puppet state of the Axis powers, is established by General Milan Nedić in Nazi-occupied Serbia in Belgrade, under military commander Heinrich Danckelmann; the regime includes 15 Ministers.


date: August 31

text: August 31 – WWII (Uprising in Serbia): Battle of Loznica: Chetniks capture the town of Loznica in Nazi-occupied Serbia.


date: September 8

text: September 8 – WWII: Siege of Leningrad – German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad. Stalin orders the Volga Germans deported to Siberia.


date: October 8

text: October 8 – WWII: In their invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov, with the capture of Mariupol (Ukraine).


date: October 30

text: October 30 – WWII: Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.


date: November 30

text: November 30 and December 8 – Rumbula massacre: Nazi forces kill approximately 24,000 Latvian Jews and 1,000 German Jews outside of Riga.


date: November

text: As the Battle of Moscow begins, temperatures around Moscow drop to −12 °C, and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time, against the freezing German forces near the city.


date: December 23

text: December 23 – WWII: A second Japanese landing attempt on Wake Island is successful, and the American garrison surrenders, after a full night and morning of fighting.


date: December

text: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. The U.S. responds in kind.


date: March

section: Exploration & Expansion

text: Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa arrives in Honolulu to study the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, in preparation for a future attack.


date: April

text: April – The Valley of Geysers is discovered on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia, by Tatyana Ustinova.


date: October 31

text: October 31 – The last day of carving on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.


text: British submarine is mined off Cephalonia.


text: Admiral Émile Muselier seizes the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon off Newfoundland, the first part of France to be liberated by the Free French Forces.


date: January 3

section: Religion & Belief

text: January 3 – A decree (Normalschrifterlass) promulgated in Germany by Martin Bormann, on behalf of Adolf Hitler, requires replacement of blackletter typefaces by Antiqua.


date: June 6

text: June 6 – WWII: The Commissar Order is issued by Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, requiring all Soviet political commissars identified in Operation Barbarossa among captured forces to receive summary execution.


date: July 13

text: July 13 – Clemens August Graf von Galen, Catholic Bishop of Münster in Germany, preaches the first of 3 sermons against Nazi brutality.


date: January 22

section: Economy & Finance

text: January 22 – In Sweden, Victor Hasselblad registers the Hasselblad Camera Company.


date: May 1

text: May 1 – The breakfast cereal Cheerios is introduced as CheeriOats by General Mills in the United States.


date: May 27

text: May 27 – The Swiss Socialist Federation is banned.


date: June 14

text: June 14 – All German and Italian assets in the United States are frozen.


date: July 17

text: July 17 – Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak ends.


text: Factory Canteen, predecessor of multinational foodservice company Compass Group, is founded in England by Jack Bateman.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


text: Chosun Tire and Rubber Manufacture, predecessor of South Korean tire brand Hankook, is founded in Seoul (at this time part of the Empire of Japan).


date: January 6

section: Technology & Infrastructure

text: January 6 – The keel of battleship is laid at the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn.


date: January 14

text: January 14 – In a BBC radio broadcast from London, Victor de Laveleye asks all Belgians to use the letter "V" as a rallying sign, being the first letter of victoire (victory) in French and of vrijheid (freedom) in Dutch. This is the beginning of the "V campaign" which sees "V" graffities on the walls of Belgium and later all of Europe and introduces the use of the "V sign" for victory and freedom. Winston Churchill adopts the sign soon afterwards, though he sometimes gets it the wrong way around and uses the common insult gesture.


date: January 15

text: January 15 – John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry describe the workings of the Atanasoff–Berry computer in print.


date: February 5

text: February 5 – The Air Training Corps is formed in the United Kingdom.


date: March 22

text: March 22 – Washington state's Grand Coulee Dam begins to generate electricity.


text: A German Lorenz cipher machine operator sends a 4,000-character message twice, allowing British mathematician Bill Tutte to decipher the machine's coding mechanism.


text: May 1 – The first Defense Bonds and Defense Savings Stamps go on sale in the United States, to help fund the greatly increased production of military equipment.


date: May 12

text: May 12 – Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.


date: May 15

text: May 15 – The first British jet aircraft, the Gloster E.28/39, is flown.


date: June 13

text: June 13 – TASS, the official Soviet news agency, denies reports of tension between Germany and the Soviet Union.


date: June 24

text: June 24 – The Soviet Information Bureau, predecessor of RIA Novosti, is founded.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Commercial television is authorized by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States.


text: July 1 – CBS Television begins commercial operation on New York station WCBW (modern-day WCBS-TV), on Channel 2.


date: July

text: July – The British Army's Special Air Service is formed.


date: August 1

text: August 1 – The Willys MB U.S. Army Jeep is first produced.


date: August 16

text: August 16 – Royal Navy Signals School and Combined Signals School opens at Leydene, near Petersfield, Hampshire, England.


date: September 11

text: September 11 – Construction on the Pentagon begins in Washington, D.C.


date: September 27

text: September 27 – The first liberty ship, the , is launched at Baltimore.


date: October

text: Mid-October – The first P-38E Lightning fighter is produced by Lockheed in the United States.


date: November 21

text: November 21 – The live blues radio program King Biscuit Time is broadcast for the first time on KFFA in Helena, Arkansas; it will attain its 17,000th broadcast in 2014 making it the longest-running daily American radio broadcast.


date: December 8

text: December 8 – WWII: President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his "Infamy Speech" to a Joint session of the United States Congress at 12:30 p.m. EST (17.30 GMT). Transmitted live over all four major national networks, it attracts the largest audience ever for an American radio broadcast, over 81% of homes. Within an hour, Congress agrees to the President's request for a United States declaration of war upon Japan, and he signs it at 4:10 p.m.


date: December

text: Mildred Gillars ("Axis Sally") delivers her first propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.


text: Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol under the authority of the United States Army Air Forces.


date: January 1

section: Science & Discovery

text: January 1 – Thailand's Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram decrees January 1 as the official start of the Thai solar calendar new year (thus the previous year that began April 1 had only 9 months).


date: January 4

text: January 4 – The short subject Elmer's Pet Rabbit is released, marking the second appearance of Bugs Bunny, and also the first to have his name on a title card.


date: February 23

text: February 23 – Glenn T. Seaborg and associates isolate and discover plutonium, at the University of California, Berkeley.


date: May 10

text: May 10 – Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland, claiming to be on a peace mission.


date: May 15

text: May 15 – Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak begins, as the New York Yankees' center fielder goes 1 for 4 against Chicago White Sox pitcher Eddie Smith in baseball.


date: June 20

text: June 20 – Walt Disney's live-action/animated feature The Reluctant Dragon is released.


date: July 19

text: July 19 – The Tom and Jerry cartoon short The Midnight Snack is released; it is the second appearance for the duo, and the first in which they are officially named.


date: September

text: The word "Teenager" is first recorded in print as a singular conjoined noun, in Popular Science magazine (U.S.)


date: October 21

text: October 21 – Comic book superheroine Wonder Woman, created by William Moulton Marston and H. G. Peter, makes her first appearance in All Star Comics #8, "Introducing Wonder Woman", in the US (cover date December 1941).


date: October 23

text: October 23 – Walt Disney's fourth animated film Dumbo is released in the United States.


date: November

text: A task force of 6 aircraft carriers, commanded by Japanese Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo, leaves Hitokapu Bay for Pearl Harbor, under strict radio silence.


date: January

section: Health & Medicine

text: January–August – 10,072 men, women and children with mental and physical disabilities are asphyxiated with carbon monoxide in a gas chamber, at Hadamar Euthanasia Centre in Germany, in the first phase of mass killings under the Aktion T4 program here.


date: February 12

text: February 12 – Reserve Constable Albert Alexander, a patient at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, England, becomes the first person treated with penicillin intravenously, by Howard Florey's team. He reacts positively, but there is insufficient supply of the drug to reverse his terminal infection. A successful treatment is achieved during May.


date: June 22

text: June 22 – Rapid escalation of the Holocaust in Lithuania: Between now and the end of the year, an estimated 190,000-195,000 out of 210,000 Lithuanian Jews will be massacred, killing an estimated 95% of the nation's Jewish population.


date: August 6

text: August 6 – Six-year-old Elaine Esposito goes to have an appendix operation in Florida and lapses into a coma, dying 37 years later, still comatose.


date: September 3

text: September 3 – The Holocaust: SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch first uses the pesticide Zyklon B to execute Soviet prisoners of war en masse at Auschwitz concentration camp; eventually it will be used to kill about 1.2 million people.


date: November 7

text: November 7 – WWII: The Soviet hospital ship Armenia is sunk by German aircraft while evacuating refugees, wounded military and the staff of several Crimean hospitals. It is estimated that more than 5,000 die in the sinking.


date: March 15

section: Crime & Justice

text: March 15 – Berlin-based American journalist Richard C. Hottelet is arrested by the Gestapo on "suspicion of espionage", but eventually released in July as part of a prisoner exchange with the U.S.


date: June 28

text: June 28–30 – The Holocaust: Iași pogrom – "At least 13,266" Romanian Jews are massacred by local governmental forces.


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Massacre of Lviv professors: Polish scientists and writers are murdered by Nazi German troops in the occupied Polish city of Lwów.


date: October 5

text: October 5 – The Holocaust: In Berdychiv (Ukraine), 20–30,000 Jews are shot dead.


date: October 18

text: October 18 – Film The Maltese Falcon is released in the United States, starring Humphrey Bogart and directed by John Huston.


date: November 14

text: November 14 – The Holocaust: In Slonim (Byelorussian SSR), German forces engaged in Operation Barbarossa murder 9,000 Jews.


date: December 8

text: December 8 – The Holocaust: The Nazi German Chełmno extermination camp opens in occupied Poland, near the village of Chełmno nad Nerem (Kulmhof) and the first mass gassing of Jews begins here when the SS use gas vans to murder people from the Łódź Ghetto. Between December 1941–April 1943 and June 1944–January 1945, at least 153,000 Jews will be killed in the camp.


date: December

text: Adolf Hitler makes his Nacht und Nebel decree, declaring that all political prisoners and those involved in both German resistance to Nazism and resistance to Nazism throughout German-occupied Europe are to be apprehended by the Gestapo, Sicherheitsdienst and other security forces under Heinrich Himmler's control.


text: Raid on Alexandria: Italian Regia Marina divers on human torpedoes place limpet mines on ships of the British Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet in port at Alexandria, Egypt, disabling battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant.


text: The Classic Comics series is launched in the United States, with a version of The Three Musketeers.


date: January 11

text: January 11 – WWII: The British Royal Navy light cruiser is bombed, catches fire and has to be sunk off Malta, with the loss of 81 crew.


date: February 27

text: February 27 – WWII: The New Zealand Division cruiser HMS Leander (1931) sinks Italian armed merchant raider Ramb I off the Maldives.


date: February

text: British submarine attacks an Italian convoy, sinking the cruiser Armando Diaz off Tunisia.


date: May 8

text: May 8 – WWII: The German auxiliary cruiser Pinguin is sunk by British cruiser in the Indian Ocean; 555 are killed.


date: May 21

text: May 21 – sinks the U.S.-flagged off the west African coast, having allowed the passengers and crew to disembark.


date: May 27

text: May 27 – WWII: German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic, killing 2,300. It is eventually found in 1989.


date: May

text: In the Mediterranean, British submarine torpedoes and sinks Italian ocean liner , in use as a troopship.


text: In the North Atlantic, sinks British battlecruiser , killing all but 3 crewmen, from a total of 1,418 aboard the pride of the Royal Navy.


date: June 5

text: June 5 – Smederevo Fortress explosion: A Serbian ammunition depot explodes at Smederevo on the outskirts of Belgrade, Serbia, killing 2,500 and injuring over 4,500.


date: June 14

text: June 14 – June deportation: Soviet officials deport about 65,000 people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to Siberia.


date: June 16

text: June 16 – WWII: British Fleet Air Arm aircraft sink the Vichy French destroyer Chevalier Paul off Syria.


text: June 16 – All German and Italian consulates in the United States are ordered closed, and their staffs to leave the country by July 10.


date: July 23

text: July 23 – WWII: Italian aircraft damage the British destroyer which has to be sunk in the Mediterranean.


date: August 7

text: August 7 – WWII: British submarine sinks an Italian Marconi-class submarine.


date: August 30

text: August 30 – German troopship Bahia Laura is sunk by British submarine in the North Sea; 450 are killed.


date: October 11

text: October 11–12 – Fire destroys a Firestone Tire and Rubber Company plant in Fall River, Massachusetts, consuming 15,850 tons of rubber, and causing a setback to the United States military effort.


date: October 31

text: October 31 – WWII: Destroyer , on convoy escort, is accidentally torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors.


date: November 14

text: November 14 – WWII: British aircraft carrier sinks under tow off Gibraltar, after being torpedoed the previous day by .


date: November 19

text: November 19 – WWII: Battle between HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran – Both commerce raiding German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran and Australian cruiser sink following a battle off the coast of Western Australia. There are no survivors from the 645 Australian sailors aboard Sydney.


date: December

text: Dutch submarine HNLMS K XVI is the first Allied ship to sink a Japanese warship, sinking the destroyer Sagiri near Sarawak; K XVI is herself torpedoed the following day by Japanese submarine I-66.


date: September 12

text: September 12 – WWII: The first snowfall is reported on the Russian front.


date: September 23

text: September 23 – The 1941 Texas hurricane makes landfall near Bay City, Texas, causing extensive damage and flooding in Galveston and Houston.


date: October 2

text: October 2 – WWII: Operation Typhoon begins, as Germany launches an all-out offensive against Moscow.


date: December 8

text: December 8 – WWII: The German advance on Moscow (Operation Typhoon) is suspended for the winter.


date: December 13

text: December 13 – Sweden's low temperature record of −53 °C is set in a village within the Vilhelmina Municipality.


date: March 17

text: March 17 – In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.


text: March 17 – British Minister of Labour Ernest Bevin calls for women to fill vital jobs.


date: April 23

text: April 23 – The America First Committee holds its first mass rally in New York City, with Charles Lindbergh as keynote speaker.


date: May 1

text: May 1 – Orson Welles' first film Citizen Kane premieres in New York City; it will be frequently cited as the best film ever made.


date: May 6

text: May 6 – At California's March Field, entertainer Bob Hope performs his first USO Show.


date: August 31

text: August 31 – The Great Gildersleeve debuts on NBC Radio in the United States.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – Martin Evans, British biologist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate

source_section: Births › January


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Graham Chapman, British comedian (Monty Python's Flying Circus) (d. 1989)


date: January 30

text: January 30 – Dick Cheney, 46th Vice President of the United States (d. 2025)


date: February 9

text: February 9 – Kermit Gosnell, American abortionist and serial killer (d. 2026)

source_section: Births › February


date: April 13

text: April 13 – Michael Stuart Brown, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

source_section: Births › April


date: May 24

text: May 24 – Bob Dylan, American poet, musician and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature

source_section: Births › May


date: June 22

text: June 22 – Ed Bradley, African-American journalist (60 Minutes) (d. 2006)

source_section: Births › June


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Alfred G. Gilman, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2015)

source_section: Births › July


date: July 23

text: July 23 – Sergio Mattarella, Italian lawyer, judge and politician, 12th President of Italy


date: August 14

text: August 14 – David Crosby, American musician (Crosby, Stills and Nash) (d. 2023)

source_section: Births › August


date: September 8

text: September 8 – Bernie Sanders, American politician, U.S. Senator (D-Vt.) and 2016 presidential candidate

source_section: Births › September


date: October 8

text: October 8 – Jesse Jackson, African-American clergyman, civil rights activist and presidential candidate (d. 2026)

source_section: Births › October


date: October 13

text: October 13 – Paul Simon, American singer-songwriter (Simon and Garfunkel)


date: December 31

text: December 31 – Sir Alex Ferguson, Scottish football manager (Manchester United)

source_section: Births › December


date: January 4

text: January 4 – Henri Bergson, French philosopher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (b. 1859)

source_section: Deaths › January


text: January 8 – Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, English soldier; founder of the Scouts (b. 1857)


date: January 9

text: January 9 – Paul Brandon Barringer, American physician and the sixth president of Virginia Tech (b. 1857)


date: March 8

text: March 8 – Ken "Snakehips" Johnson, British band-leader and dancer (b. 1914)

source_section: Deaths › March


date: May 29

text: May 29 – Charles Alderton, American pharmacist and the inventor of Dr Pepper (b. 1857)

source_section: Deaths › May


date: June 1

text: June 1 – Sir Hugh Walpole, New Zealand-born British novelist (b. 1884)

source_section: Deaths › June


date: June 2

text: June 2 – Lou Gehrig, American baseball player (New York Yankees), MLB Hall of Famer (b. 1903)


date: July 3

text: July 3 – Mijo Babić, deputy of Ante Pavelić and the first commander of all concentration camps in the Independent State of Croatia(b. 1903)

source_section: Deaths › July


date: July 26

text: July 26 – Kazimierz Bartel, Polish mathematician, freemason, scholar, diplomat, and former Prime Minister of Poland (b. 1882)


date: August 7

text: August 7 – Rabindranath Tagore, Indian author, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1861)

source_section: Deaths › August


date: August 12

text: August 12 – Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon, British politician and colonial administrator, 22nd Viceroy of India, 13th Governor General of Canada (b. 1866)


date: September 11

text: September 11 – Maria Spiridonova, Russian revolutionary, former leader of the Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries (executed) (b. 1884)

source_section: Deaths › September


text: September 11 – Christian Rakovsky, Bulgarian revolutionary, Russian Bolshevik and Soviet diplomat, journalist, physician and essayist (executed) (b. 1873)


date: November 18

text: November 18 – Walther Nernst, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1864)

source_section: Deaths › November


date: January 1

text: January 1 – WWII: The Declaration by United Nations is signed by China, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and 22 other nations, in which they agree "not to make any separate peace with the Axis powers".

source_section: Events › January


date: February 8

text: February 8 – António Óscar Carmona is reelected as president of Portugal for a third term.

source_section: Events › February


date: April 26

text: April 26 – WWII: The Reichstag meets for the last time, dissolving itself and proclaiming Adolf Hitler the "Supreme Judge of the German People", granting him the power of life and death over every German citizen.

source_section: Events › April


date: May

text: The Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942, to help establish a military and political alliance between the USSR and the British Empire, is signed in London by foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov.

source_section: Events › May


date: July 9

text: July 9 – Şükrü Saracoğlu forms the new (13th) government in Turkey.

source_section: Events › July


date: July 29

text: July 29 – The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union institutes the Order of Suvorov and Order of Kutuzov and reinstates the Order of Alexander Nevsky.


date: October 9

text: October 9 – The Statute of Westminster Adoption Act, passed by the Parliament of Australia, formalizes Australian autonomy from the United Kingdom.

source_section: Events › October


date: November 11

text: November 11 – The Turkish parliament passes the Varlık Vergisi, a capital tax mostly levied on non-Muslim citizens with the unofficial aim to inflict financial ruin on them and end their prominence in the country's economy.

source_section: Events › November


date: December 10

text: December 10 – The Holocaust: The Polish government-in-exile sends copies of The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland, including Raczyński's Note, the first official report on The Holocaust, to 26 governments who signed the Declaration by United Nations.

source_section: Events › December


date: December 17

text: December 17 – The Allies issue the Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations (as the answer to Raczyński's Note), the first time they publicly acknowledge the Holocaust.


date: January

text: Dutch East Indies campaign: Japan declares war on the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. Japanese forces invade Borneo and Celebes.


date: February

text: The USS Langley, first aircraft carrier of the United States Navy, is attacked by 9 Japanese bombers while ferrying a cargo of USAAF P-40 fighters to Java. Langley is so badly damaged that she has to be scuttled to avoid falling into Japanese hands.


text: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, allowing the United States military to define areas as exclusionary zones. These zones affect the Japanese on the West Coast, and Germans and Italians primarily on the East Coast.


date: March 6

text: March 6 – WWII: Yugoslav Partisans, operating in Nazi-occupied Serbia, assassinate Đorđe Kosmajac in Belgrade.

source_section: Events › March


date: April 3

text: April 3 – WWII: Japanese forces begin the last phase of the Battle of Bataan, an all-out assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.


date: April 5

text: April 5 – WWII: Easter Sunday Raid – Aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy attack Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Royal Navy cruisers and are sunk southwest of the island.


date: May 5

text: May 5 – WWII: Battle of Madagascar (Operation Ironclad) begins when British forces land on the Vichy French colony of Madagascar. On May 7 the northern city of Diego Suarez surrenders.


text: Second Battle of Kharkov: In the eastern Ukraine, the Soviet Army initiates a major offensive to capture the city of Kharkov from the German Army, only to be encircled and destroyed.


date: June 5

text: June 5 – WWII: The United States declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.

source_section: Events › June


date: June 12

text: June 12 – The Holocaust: On her 13th birthday, Anne Frank receives the book that she will use to keep her diary in occupied Amsterdam.


date: July 19

text: July 19 – WWII: Battle of the Atlantic: German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from there the United States Atlantic coast positions, in response to an effective American convoy system.


date: July 21

text: July 21 – WWII: The Japanese establish a beachhead on the north coast of New Guinea in the Buna-Gona area; a small Australian force begins a rearguard action on the Kokoda Track campaign.


date: August 7

text: August 7 – WWII: Guadalcanal campaign – The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps start the first American offensive of the war, with an amphibious landing on the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

source_section: Events › August


date: August 21

text: August 21 – WWII: Operation Edelweiss: German forces (Gebirgsjäger) of the 1st Mountain Division place the Nazi swastika flag on the summit of Mount Elbrus, a prominent peak of the Caucasus at 5.629 meters.


date: August 23

text: August 23 – WWII: Battle of Stalingrad: German forces of the 16th Panzer Division reach the suburbs of Stalingrad. The German 6th Army under General Friedrich Paulus stabilishes the frontier and takes up positions at the Volga River.


date: August 27

text: August 27–28 – Sarny Massacre: Nazi troops and the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police systematically execute more than 14,000 people, mostly Jews, in and around Sarny in German-occupied Poland.


date: November 2

text: November 2 – A USAAF squadron, including B-24 Liberators, intercepts many Luftwaffe patrols off the coast of Oran, Algeria.


date: November 6

text: November 6 – WWII: Battle of Madagascar ends when Vichy French forces on Madagascar sign an armistice with the Allies.


date: November 19

text: November 19 – WWII: Battle of Stalingrad: Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counter-attacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.


date: November 22

text: November 22 – WWII: Battle of Stalingrad: The situation for the German attackers of Stalingrad seems desperate during the Soviet counter-attack Operation Uranus, and General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram, saying that the German Sixth Army is surrounded.


date: November 30

text: November 30 – WWII: Battle of Tassafaronga – In a nighttime naval battle as part of the Guadalcanal campaign, ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy defeat those of the United States Navy.


date: November

text: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal ends: Although the United States Navy suffers heavy losses, it retains control of Guadalcanal.


text: Operation Torch: Elements of the Allied expeditionary force (some 105,000 men) under Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower lands simultaneously along the coastline of Morocco and Algeria in French North Africa.


date: December 12

text: December 12 – WWII: German troops began Operation Winter Storm, an attempt to relieve encircled Axis forces during the Battle of Stalingrad.


text: June 12–15 – WWII: Operation Harpoon – An Allied convoy under Admiral Alban Curteis leaves from Gibraltar with 6 merchant ships escorted by the British battleship HMS Malaya, aircraft carriers HMS Argus and HMS Eagle, 4 cruisers and 17 destroyers to Malta. Two of the six merchant ships completes the journey, at the cost of several Allied warships.


date: June 27

text: June 27 – WWII: Allied Convoy PQ 17 sails from Iceland, with 35 merchant ships and 3 passenger ships that have been refitted for rescuing the crews of torpedoed ships. There are also one tanker, 6 destroyers and 13 smaller ships for close escort. The convoy is destined for the Soviet port of Archangelsk.


date: August 17

text: August 17 – WWII: Raid on Makin Island: US Marines of the 2nd Raider Battalion (211 men) under Lt. Col. Evans Carlson embark aboard the submarines Argonaut and Nautilus at Pearl Harbor. The aim is to destroy the Japanese installations and gather intelligence. Only the first of these objectives is achieved, but the raid does boost morale and provide a test for Raider tactics.


date: November 21

text: November 21 – The completion of the Alaska Highway (also known as the Alcan Highway) is celebrated (however, the "highway" is not usable by general vehicles until 1943).


date: November 29

text: November 29 – The Blue Star Line cargo liner runs aground on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia. Crew and passengers survive, following a 26-day overland trek to Windhoek.


date: January 20

text: January 20 – The Holocaust: Nazis at the Wannsee Conference convened by Reinhard Heydrich in Berlin decide that the "Final Solution (Endlösung) to the Jewish problem" is deportations to extermination camps.


date: April 23

text: April 23 – Exeter-born William Temple is enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.


date: September 3

text: September 3 – WWII: Erwin Rommel orders a general retreat and carries the German forces of Panzer Army Africa back to the line running from Tel el Eisa – Deir el Shein - west of Deir el Munassib down to the Qattara Depression. Allied forces of the 2nd New Zealand Division and the British 7th Armoured Division ("Desert Rats") begin an assault, but they are repelled in a fierce rearguard action by the German 90th Light Division. During the attack, Rommel loses some 2,900 men, 50 tanks, a similar number of guns, and 400 vehicles.

source_section: Events › September


date: January 13

text: January 13 – Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile that would be 30% lighter than a conventional car.


date: January 14

text: January 14 – The Sikorsky R-4 first flies in the United States; it will become the first mass-produced helicopter.


date: February 1

text: February 1 – WWII: The Kriegsmarine introduces the M4 (German Navy 4-rotor) Enigma machine for U-boat traffic, blinding Allied cryptanalysts to their radio signals for most of the year.


date: February 20

text: February 20 – Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first U.S. Navy flying ace of the war.


date: February 24

text: February 24 – Propaganda: The Voice of America begins broadcasting.


date: March 8

text: March 8 – NIROM, the Dutch East Indies' privately funded broadcaster, closes.


date: March 17

text: March 17 – The Holocaust: Operation Reinhard – The Nazi German Bełżec extermination camp opens in occupied Poland, about 1 km south of the railroad station at Bełżec in the Lublin district of the General Government. At least 434,508 people are killed here up to December 1942.


date: April 13

text: April 13 – The United States Federal Communications Commission's minimum programming time required of television stations is cut from 15 hours to 4 hours a week during the war.


date: May 20

text: May 20 – The first African-American seamen are taken into the United States Navy.


date: May

text: May – Operation Pluto: The plan to construct oil pipelines under the English Channel, between England and France, is tested in the River Medway.


date: June 1

text: June 1 – The Grand Coulee Dam is finished on the Columbia River in the United States.


date: June

text: The United States opens its Office of War Information, a propaganda center.


date: July 18

text: July 18 – WWII: The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me 262 (using only its jet engines) for the first time.


date: August 11

text: August 11 – Hedy Lamarr's and her friend George Antheil's frequency-hopping system for radio-controlled torpedoes is granted a patent under . In 1962 (at the time of the Cuban missile crisis), an updated version of their design will at last appear on Navy ships.


date: October 2

text: October 2 – The first American-built turbojet aircraft, the Bell P-59 Airacomet fighter prototype, makes its first official flight.


date: December 1

text: December 1 – Gasoline rationing begins in the United States.


text: DDT is first used as a pesticide.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: March 4

text: March 4 – WWII: Operation K – The Japanese launch an unsuccessful attack carried out by two Kawanishi H8K ("Emily") flying boats at Pearl Harbor. This is the longest distance ever undertaken by a two-plane bombing mission, and one of the longest bombing sorties ever planned without fighter escort.


text: German scientists under Ernst Steinhoff at Peenemünde Army Research Center test a 12-ton rocket (known later as the V-2 rocket) with a one-ton warhead.


date: July

text: The United States Eighth Air Force inauspiciously flies its first mission in Europe, using borrowed British planes, and bombs targets in the Netherlands, such as De Kooy Airfield, attached to the Den Helder Naval Base. Three of six aircraft return; For this mission, Captain Charles C. Kegelman is the first member of the Force to be awarded the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross.


date: August 20

text: August 20 – Plutonium is isolated for the first time, at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago.


date: October 3

text: October 3 – The first A-4 rocket is successfully launched from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. The rocket flies 147 kilometers and reaches an altitude of 84.5 kilometers, becoming the first man-made object to reach space.


date: December 2

text: December 2 – Manhattan Project: Below the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (a coded message, "The Italian navigator has landed in the new world" is then sent to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt).


date: December

text: The battleship is launched at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.


date: February 24

text: February 24 – Internment of Japanese Canadians is ordered.


date: April 27

text: April 27 – WWII: Conscription crisis in Canada: A national plebiscite is held on the issue of conscription.


text: July – The Holocaust: Inmates of Westerbork transit camp in the occupied Netherlands begin to be shipped to Nazi extermination camps. From now until 1944 around 107,000, mostly Jewish, from here will be killed.


date: August 16

text: August 16 – Polish-Jewish teacher Janusz Korczak follows a group of Jewish children into the Treblinka extermination camp.


date: November 26

text: November 26 – The movie Casablanca premières at the Hollywood Theater in New York City.


date: March 15

text: March 15 – The Holocaust: Dünamünde Action – 1,900 central European Jews are shot dead north east of Riga, 1,840 are killed on the 26th.


date: April

text: The Holocaust: the Nazi German extermination camp Sobibór opens in occupied Poland, on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór. Between April 1942 and October 1943, at least 160,000 people are killed here.


text: Bataan Death March: American and Filipino prisoners of war are forced to march from San Fernando to Capas (some 65 miles). During the march some 15,000 soldiers are killed by severe physical abuse and wanton killings.


date: July 16

text: July 16 – The Holocaust: By order of the Vichy France government headed by Pierre Laval, French police officers round-up 13,000–20,000 Jews and imprison them in the Winter Velodrome.


text: Bastille Day Gaullist demonstrations in Vichy France; 2 women are shot dead by members of the fascist French Popular Party (PPF) in Marseille.


text: The SS Robert E. Lee is sunk in the Gulf of Mexico by , which is itself sunk by the escorting patrol craft.


date: August 9

text: August 9 – Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi is arrested in Bombay, by British forces.


date: September 26

text: September 26 – The Holocaust: Nazi official August Frank issues the August Frank memorandum, setting out how the belongings of "evacuated" (i.e. murdered) Jews are to be disposed of.


date: October 28

text: October 28 – Film actor Errol Flynn is accused of statutory rape by two teenage girls.


date: November

text: U.S. serviceman Edward Leonski is hanged at Melbourne's Pentridge Prison, for the "Brown-Out" murders of three women in May.


date: January 13

text: January 13 – Heinkel test pilot Helmut Schenk becomes the first person to escape from a stricken aircraft with an ejection seat.


date: January 16

text: January 16 – American film actress Carole Lombard and her mother are among all 22 killed aboard TWA Flight 3 when the Douglas DC-3 plane crashes into Potosi Mountain near Las Vegas while she is returning from a tour to promote the sale of war bonds.


date: February 11

text: February 11–13 – WWII: Operation Cerberus: A Kriegsmarine (German navy) squadron comprising the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and their escort, dash from Brest through the English Channel to German ports; the British fail to sink any of them.


text: February 24 – Struma disaster: , carrying Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to British-administered Palestine, is torpedoed and sunk by Soviet submarine Shch-213 in the Black Sea, killing about 791 men, women and children, with only 1 survivor.


date: February

text: More than 200 American sailors die in Newfoundland when runs aground near Chambers Cove and runs aground at Lawn Point.


text: Bombing of Darwin: The Japanese 1st Air Fleet under Admiral Chūichi Nagumo bombs Darwin, Australia. This force comprises the aircraft carriers Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū and Sōryū and a powerful force of escorting surface ships. During the attack, 188 planes led by Mitsuo Fuchida destroy 11 vessels and wreck a lot of the harbor infrastructure, killing some 240 people.


date: April 26

text: April 26 – A gas and coal dust explosion at Benxihu Colliery in Manchukuo kills as many as 1,549 workers, the world's all-time worst mining disaster.


text: The Japanese Navy launches an air raid on Trincomalee in Ceylon (Sri Lanka); the Royal Navy aircraft carrier and Royal Australian Navy destroyer are sunk off the country's east coast.


date: May 21

text: May 21 – WWII: Sinking of the Mexican tanker Faja de Oro by off Key West.


date: May 30

text: May 30–31 – WWII: Bombing of Cologne – British RAF Bomber Command's "Operation Millennium", its first "1,000 bomber raid", with associated fires make 13,000 families homeless and kills around 475 people, mostly civilians; 3,330 non-residential buildings are destroyed.


date: July 13

text: July 13 – WWII: U-boats sink three merchant ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.


date: July

text: Twenty-four ships are sunk by German bombers and submarines after Convoy PQ 17 to the Soviet Union is scattered in the Arctic Ocean to evade the German battleship Tirpitz.


date: August 16

text: August 16 – U.S. Navy blimp L-8 (Flight 101) comes ashore near San Francisco, eventually coming down in Daly City (the crew is missing).


date: September 27

text: September 27 – WWII: Both the commerce raiding German auxiliary cruiser Stier and American Liberty ship sink, following a gun battle in the South Atlantic. Hilfskreuzer Stier is the only commerce raider to be sunk by a defensively equipped merchant ship.


date: October 2

text: October 2 – British cruiser collides with liner (carrying troops from the United States) off the coast of Donegal and sinks; 338 drown.


date: October 13

text: October 13 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy SC 104 is attacked by U-boats, sinking seven ships.


date: October 21

text: October 21 – A Royal New Zealand Air Force torpedo bomber sinks the German MS Palatia, with a loss of 946 lives.


date: October 23

text: October 23 – Award-winning composer and songwriter Ralph Rainger ("Thanks for the Memory") is among 12 people killed in a mid-air collision between an American Airlines DC-3 and a U.S. Army bomber near Palm Springs, California.


date: October

text: British sailors board as it sinks in the Mediterranean and retrieve its Enigma machine and codebooks.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy SC 107 is heavily attacked by U-boats, sinking 15 ships.


date: November 28

text: November 28 – Cocoanut Grove fire: A fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, Massachusetts, kills 491.


date: November

text: A U-boat sinks the off the coast of Brazil. One crewman, Chinese second steward Poon Lim, is separated from the others and spends 130 days adrift, until he is rescued on April 3, 1943.


text: Guadalcanal campaign: Aviators from the sink the Japanese battleship Hiei.


date: December 28

text: December 28 – North Atlantic Convoy ON 154 is heavily attacked by U-boats, sinking 13 ships.


date: January

text: Operation Typhoon, the German attempt to take Moscow, ends in failure.


date: July 31

text: July 31 – The Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (Oxfam) is founded in England.


date: September 9

text: September 9 – WWII: A Japanese floatplane drops incendiary devices at Mount Emily, near Brookings, Oregon, in the first of two "Lookout Air Raids", the first bombing of the continental United States.


date: October 16

text: October 16 – A cyclone and consequential floods in the Bay of Bengal kill 40,000 people, with particularly heavy damage around Contai.


date: December 22

text: December 22 – An avalanche in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, kills 26, including Vulcan Crucible Steel heir-apparent Samuel A. Stafford Sr., when two 100 ton boulders fall on a bus filled with wartime steelworkers on their way home.


date: February 1

text: February 1 – Mao Zedong makes a speech on "Reform in Learning, the Party and Literature", starting the Yan'an Rectification Movement in the Chinese Communist Party.


date: February 26

text: February 26 – The 14th Academy Awards ceremony is held in Los Angeles; How Green Was My Valley wins Best Picture.


date: April 27

text: April 27 – The Jewish Star of David is required wearing for all Jews in the Netherlands and Belgium; Jews in other Nazi-controlled countries have already been wearing it.


date: May 29

text: May 29 – Thai spelling reform of 1942 is initiated by the government of Prime Minister Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram with his office announcing a simplification of the Thai alphabet. The announcement is published in the Royal Gazette on June 1. The reform is canceled by the government of Khuang Aphaiwong on August 2, 1944.


date: July

text: Germany introduces the Ostvolk Medal for Soviet personnel in the Wehrmacht.


date: August 9

text: August 9 – Leningrad première of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7, with the city still under siege.


date: August 31

text: August 31 – The 1942 Luxembourgish general strike is launched, to protest against forced conscription in Luxembourg.


text: October 16 – Animated short film The Mouse of Tomorrow, featuring the debut of Mighty Mouse (as "Super Mouse"), is released in the United States.


date: October 29

text: October 29 – The Holocaust: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews.


date: December 27

text: December 27 – The Union of Pioneers of Yugoslavia, a communist youth movement, is founded.


date: December 31

text: December 31 – The Times Square Ball in Times Square, New York City is not dropped for the first time. Instead, there is a moment of silence at midnight, followed by the sound of bells playing from sound trucks at the base of One Times Square.


text: circa JuneThe 1942 FIFA World Cup competition in Association football, which Nazi Germany sought to host, is not held, due to World War II.


text: February 1 – Terry Jones, Welsh actor (Monty Python) and writer (d. 2020)

source_section: Births › February


date: February 20

text: February 20 – Mitch McConnell, American politician, U.S. senior senator from Kentucky


date: April 12

text: April 12 – Jacob Zuma, 4th President of South Africa

source_section: Births › April


date: April 24

text: April 24 – Barbra Streisand, American singer, actress, composer, and film director


date: May 22

text: May 22 – Ted Kaczynski, American domestic terrorist, mathematics professor, and anarchist author (d. 2023)

source_section: Births › May


date: May 24

text: May 24 – Fraser Stoddart, Scottish-born scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 2024)


date: June 17

text: June 17 – Mohamed El Baradei, Egyptian International Atomic Energy Agency director, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

source_section: Births › June


date: June 18

text: June 18 – Roger Ebert, American film critic and television personality (d. 2013)


text: June 18 – Thabo Mbeki, South African politician and 12th President of South Africa


date: June

text: Brian Wilson, American singer, composer and producer (The Beach Boys) (d. 2025)


date: October 11

text: October 11 – Amitabh Bachchan, Indian actor, film producer, and television host

source_section: Births › October


date: October 20

text: October 20 – Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, German biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine


date: October 21

text: October 21 – Judy Sheindlin, American retired judge turned television personality (Judge Judy)


date: December 17

text: December 17 – Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerian army general, 7th and 15th President of Nigeria (d. 2025)

source_section: Births › December


date: January 16

text: January 16 – Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, 2nd youngest son of Queen Victoria (b. 1850)

source_section: Deaths › January


date: March 3

text: March 3 – Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, Italian nobleman and military officer, Viceroy of Italian East Africa (b. 1898)

source_section: Deaths › March


date: March 12

text: March 12 – Sir William Henry Bragg, British physicist, chemist and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1862)


date: March 23

text: March 23 – Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, 20th President of Argentina (b. 1868)


date: June 5

text: June 5 – Ryusaku Yanagimoto, Japanese rear admiral, killed in action at the Battle of Midway (b. 1894)

source_section: Deaths › June


text: June 5 – Tamon Yamaguchi, Japanese admiral, killed in action at the Battle of Midway (b. 1892)


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Bolesław Wieniawa-Długoszowski, Polish general, diplomat and politician, Interim President of Poland (b. 1881)

source_section: Deaths › July


date: July 26

text: July 26 – Titus Brandsma, Dutch Discalced Carmelite friar, Roman Catholic priest and blessed (b. 1881)


date: July 30

text: July 30 – Leopold Mandić, Yugoslav Capuchin friar and Roman Catholic priest and saint (b. 1866)


date: August 9

text: August 9 – Terea Benedicta of the Cross, German philosopher, Roman Catholic nun, martyr and saint (assassinated) (b. 1891)

source_section: Deaths › August


date: August 25

text: August 25 – Prince George, Duke of Kent, 4th eldest son of George V (b. 1902)


date: September 30

text: September 30 – Hans-Joachim Marseille, German World War II fighter ace (b. 1919)

source_section: Deaths › September


date: October 5

text: October 5 – Dorothea Klumpke, American astronomer, Director of the Bureau of Measurements at the Paris Observatory (b. 1861)

source_section: Deaths › October


date: December 24

text: December 24 – François Darlan, French admiral and politician, 81st Prime Minister of France (assassinated) (b. 1881)

source_section: Deaths › December


date: January 11

text: January 11 – The United States and United Kingdom revise previously unequal treaty relationships with the Republic of China.

source_section: Events › January


date: March 9

text: March 9 – Şükrü Saracoğlu forms the new government of Turkey (14th government; Şükrü Saracoğlu had served twice as a prime minister).

source_section: Events › March


date: May 19

text: May 19 – Winston Churchill addresses a joint session of the United States Congress.

source_section: Events › May


date: August 14

text: August 14 – The Quadrant Conference begins in Quebec City; Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King meets with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

source_section: Events › August


text: August 14 – WWII: Rome is declared an open city by the Italian government, with Italy offering to demilitarize the capital, in return for an Allied agreement not to bomb the city further.


date: August 21

text: August 21 – 1943 Australian federal election: John Curtin's Labor government defeats the Country/UAP Coalition, led by former Prime Minister Arthur Fadden. Labor achieves its greatest ever electoral result, including winning every seat (except one) outside of the eastern states. Notably, this election marked the first time that a woman has been elected to both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Fadden will step down from the Opposition leadership, handing it over to Robert Menzies, who will go on to dissolve the UAP and form the Liberal Party shortly after.


date: August 24

text: August 24 – Heinrich Himmler is named Reichsminister of the Interior in Germany.


date: September 23

text: September 23 – WWII: The Italian Social Republic ("Republic of Salò") is founded in northern Italy as a puppet state of Nazi Germany.

source_section: Events › September


date: October 14

text: October 14 – José P. Laurel takes the oath of office as President of the Philippines (Second Philippine Republic).

source_section: Events › October


date: October 30

text: October 30 – WWII: Signing of Moscow Declarations: the Declaration of the Four Nations on general security, by the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and Republic of China; and the Declarations on Italy, Austria and Atrocities by the first three governments.


date: October

text: Third Moscow Conference: A meeting takes place at the Kremlin between the British, American, and Soviet foreign ministers Anthony Eden, Cordell Hull and Vyacheslav Molotov. The USSR agrees to the full creation of a world peace organization with its Allies.


text: Chiang Kai-shek takes the oath of office as Chairman of the National Government of China.


date: November 9

text: November 9 – An agreement founding the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration is signed by 44 countries in the White House, Washington, D.C.

source_section: Events › November


date: November 22

text: November 22–26 – WWII: Cairo Conference ("Sextant") – President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill and Chairman of the National Government of China Chiang Kai-shek meet at Cairo, Egypt, to discuss ways to defeat Japan in the Pacific War.


text: November 22 – Lebanon gains independence, upon the ending of the French Mandate.


date: December 16

text: December 16 - WWII: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is returned to the United States by the USS Iowa after completing his trip to the Cairo and Tehran Conferences.

source_section: Events › December


date: December 30

text: December 30 – Subhas Chandra Bose sets up a pro-Japanese Indian government at Port Blair, India.


date: January 18

text: January 18 – WWII: Soviet officials announce that the Red Army has broken the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad as part of Operation Iskra, opening a narrow land corridor to the city. Georgy Zhukov is promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union.


date: January 22

text: January 22 – WWII: Battle of Buna–Gona: American and Australian forces secure control of the territory of Papua.


date: January 29

text: January 29–30 – WWII: Battle of Rennell Island – The Imperial Japanese Navy resists the United States Navy's attempt to interrupt the withdrawal of Japanese forces from Guadalcanal, in the last major naval battle of the Guadalcanal campaign.


date: February 2

text: February 2 – WWII: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end, with the surrender of the German 6th Army.

source_section: Events › February


date: February 9

text: February 9 – WWII: The Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands ends with United States forces in command of Guadalcanal, the evacuation of Japanese forces in Operation Ke having been completed two days earlier.


date: February 10

text: February 10–March 3 – Mohandas Gandhi (under arrest by forces of the British Raj in Pune as a member of the Quit India Movement) keeps a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment.


date: February 13

text: February 13 – WWII: Operation Longcloth: Chindit forces (some 3,000 men) of the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade under Brigadier General Orde Wingate cross the Chindwin River and proceed into Burma.


date: February 16

text: February 16 – WWII: The Soviet Union reconquers Kharkiv, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkiv.


date: March

text: German forces recapture Kharkiv after four days of house-to-house fighting against Soviet troops, ending the month-long Third Battle of Kharkiv.


date: May

text: The Holocaust: Josef Mengele begins his position as a medical officer in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.


date: June

text: June (late) – The Holocaust: The last trainload of Jewish prisoners is moved from Bełżec extermination camp in occupied Poland (for gassing at Sobibór), and for the remainder of the year the Nazis make efforts to obliterate the site.

source_section: Events › June


date: July 10

text: 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.

source_section: Events › July


date: July 12

text: July 12 – WWII: Main engagement of the Battle of Prokhorovka – The Wehrmacht and the Red Army fight to a draw in one of the largest tank battles in military history.


date: July

text: Nazi Germany commences Operation Citadel. It will eventually lead to the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history.


text: Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army within the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Volhynia) peak.


date: August 1

text: August 1 – Operation Tidal Wave: 177 B-24 Liberator bombers from the U.S. Army Air Force bomb oil refineries at Ploiești, Romania.


date: August 23

text: August 23 – WWII: The Battle of Kursk ends, with a strategic defeat for the German forces.


date: August 26

text: August 26 – WWII: Louis Mountbatten is named Supreme Allied Commander for Southeast Asia.


date: August

text: United States Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) are formed, consolidating the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WFTD).


text: The Seventh U.S. Army, under General George S. Patton, meets the Eighth British Army under Field Marshal B. L. Montgomery in Messina, Sicily, completing the Allied invasion of Sicily.


date: September 22

text: September 22–October 2 – WWII: Landing at Scarlet Beach on the Huon Peninsula of New Guinea by Allied forces, the first time Australian troops have made an opposed amphibious landing since the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915.


date: September

text: Operation Baytown: Mainland Italy is invaded by Allied forces under General Bernard Montgomery, for the first time in the war.


date: October 14

text: October 14 – The Holocaust: Uprising in Sobibór extermination camp; about half the inmates escape. Three days later, the camp is closed.


date: November 19

text: November 19 – The Holocaust: Inmates of Janowska concentration camp, near Lwów (at this time in German-occupied Poland), stage a failed uprising, after which the SS liquidates the camp, resulting in at least 6,000 deaths.


text: A fleet sets sail for the Allied invasion of Sicily.


text: John F. Kennedy and crew are found by Solomon Islands coastwatchers Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, with their dugout canoe.


date: July 25

text: July 25 – Benito Mussolini, Fascist Prime Minister of Italy since 1922, is arrested after the Grand Council of Fascism withdraws its support. "Il Duce" is replaced by General Pietro Badoglio.


date: September 30

text: September 30 – Pope Pius XII issues the encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu calling for Catholic scholars to produce new Bible translations based on the source languages.


date: October 16

text: October 16 – The Holocaust: Raid of the Ghetto of Rome – Over a thousand Jews are rounded up in Rome by the Gestapo; only 16 will survive their deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp. The public silence of Pope Pius XII on the raid becomes a matter of historical controversy.


date: November 15

text: November 15 – Porajmos: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in Nazi concentration camps".


date: November 29

text: November 29 – The second session of AVNOJ, the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia, is held in Jajce, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to determine the post-war ordering of the country.


date: March 10

text: March 10 – Banco Bradesco is founded in Marília, São Paulo, Brazil.


date: April

text: Aberdeen, Scotland, experiences its worst bombing, with 125 people killed.

source_section: Events › April


date: December 4

text: December 4 – With unemployment figures falling fast due to WWII-related employment, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt closes the Works Progress Administration.


text: History of the cooperative movement: Father José María Arizmendiarrieta sets up a polytechnic school at Mondragón in the Spanish Basque Country (predecessor of the University of Mondragón), which inspires creation of the Mondragon Corporation.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: January 29

text: January 29 – The United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve (MCWR) is created.


date: March 5

text: March 5 – The Gloster Meteor, the first Allied jet fighter, makes its first flight, in England.


date: March

text: March–December – History of computing hardware: British prototype Mark I Colossus computer is constructed (the world's first totally electronic programmable computing device) to assist in cryptanalysis of German signals at Bletchley Park.


text: The first German Tiger I tank is captured in North Africa by British forces.


date: May 16

text: May 16–17 – WWII: Operation Chastise (the 'Dambuster Raid') takes place: No. 617 Squadron RAF use bouncing bombs to breach German dams in the Ruhr Valley.


date: May 23

text: May 23 – WWII: The battleship is commissioned at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.


date: May

text: The 358th Bombardment Squadron, 303d Bombardment Group B-17F Hell's Angels is the first USAAF bomber to complete 25 missions.


text: The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the computer ENIAC.


text: The Memphis Belle's crew becomes the first aircrew in the 8th Air Force to complete its 25-mission tour of duty. The aircraft and crew are the first to return to the U.S. intact for a War Bond drive.


date: October

text: The Burma Railway is completed between Bangkok, Thailand and Rangoon, Burma (modern-day Myanmar) (415 km mi) by the Empire of Japan, to support its forces in the Burma campaign, using the forced labour of Asian civilians and Allied Prisoners of war.


date: November 14

text: November 14 – Leonard Bernstein, substituting at the last minute for ailing principal conductor Bruno Walter, directs the New York Philharmonic in its regular Sunday afternoon broadcast concert, over CBS Radio. The event receives front-page coverage in The New York Times the following day.


date: November

text: After flying from Britain, 160 American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.


text: First Bombing of the Vatican – Four bombs are dropped on the neutral Vatican City; the aircraft responsible is never certainly identified.


text: Jacques-Yves Cousteau co-invents, with Émile Gagnan, the first commercially successful open circuit type of scuba diving equipment, the Aqua-lung.


text: The accident of two steam locomotives in the south of Elo river bridge Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. They came from Mertoyudan train station and Yogyakarta.


date: August 4

text: August 4 – WWII: The aircraft carrier is launched at Newport News, Virginia.


date: January 23

text: January 23 – American critic and commentator Alexander Woollcott suffers an eventually fatal heart attack, during a regular broadcast of the CBS Radio round-table program People's Platform.


date: March 23

text: March 23 – The drugs Vicodin and Lortab are first produced in Germany.


date: April 19

text: April 19 – History of lysergic acid diethylamide: Albert Hofmann self-administers the psychedelic drug LSD (which he first synthesized in 1938) for the first time in history and records the details of his experience.


text: Australian Hospital Ship Centaur is sunk off the coast of Queensland by , killing 268 of the 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard.


date: August 3

text: August 3 – Patton slapping incident: U.S. General George S. Patton Jr. slaps a soldier suffering from battle fatigue, at a field hospital in Sicily. On August 10, he slaps another soldier suffering from the same condition.


date: January 4

text: January 4 – WWII: Greek-Polish athlete and saboteur Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz is executed by the Germans at Kaisariani.


date: January 22

text: January 22 – The Holocaust: Round up of Marseille begins – Over 4,000 Jews are arrested in Nazi-occupied Marseille as part of "Action Tiger", before being transported to extermination camps in Poland.


text: January 29 – Nazi German police arrest alleged necrophiliac and serial killer Bruno Lüdke.


date: February 22

text: February 22 – Members of the White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.


date: May 29

text: May 29 – Norman Rockwell's illustration of 'Rosie the Riveter' first appears, on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.


date: July 10

text: July 10 – The Holocaust: Jedwabne pogrom – At least 340 Polish Jews are marched to a local barn, locked inside and subsequently burned to death.


date: July

text: Krasowo-Częstki massacre: The village of Krasowo-Częstki in Nazi-occupied Poland is completely burned and 257 of its inhabitants, mostly women and children, murdered by the Ordnungspolizei and SS in retaliation for German deaths in a skirmish with Polish partisans nearby.


date: October 30

text: October 30 – The Merrie Melodies animated cartoon Falling Hare, one of the only shorts with Bugs Bunny getting out-smarted, is released in the United States.


date: January 21

text: January 21 – WWII: Pan Am Flight 1104 – Pan American Airways Martin M-130 flying boat crashes about 7 smi km southwest of Ukiah, California. All 10 passengers and 9 crew aboard are killed, including Admiral Robert H. English (at this time COMSUBPAC ).


date: February 6

text: February 6 – WWII: Royal Canadian Navy corvette HMCS Louisburg is bombed and sunk off Oran, Algeria by Italian aircraft.


date: February 7

text: February 7 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy SC 118 is attacked by U-boats, who sink 8 ships.


date: February 21

text: February 21 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy ON 166 is attacked by U-boats, which sink eleven ships.


text: February 22 – WWII: Royal Canadian Navy corvette HMCS Weyburn sinks east of Gibraltar, after being mined.


date: February 23

text: February 23–24 – Cavan Orphanage Fire: 35 girls and a cook from St Joseph's Orphanage, an industrial school at Cavan, Ireland, are killed in a fire in their dormitories. A subsequent inquiry absolves the Poor Clares of blame.


date: March 2

text: March 2 – WWII: Battle of the Bismarck Sea – United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships, then strafe survivors in the water.


date: March 9

text: March 9–10 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy SC 121 is attacked by U-boats sinking seven ships.


date: March 14

text: March 14 – WWII: British submarine HMS Thunderbolt is sunk off Sicily by an Italian corvette, the second time this vessel has been lost with all hands.


date: March 27

text: March 27 – WWII: British Royal Navy escort carrier is destroyed by an accidental explosion in the Firth of Clyde, killing 379 of the crew of 528.


date: March

text: Italian submarine Leonardo da Vinci sinks Canadian Pacific liner RMS Empress of Canada off Sierra Leone. Nearly half of the 392 fatalities are Italian prisoners of war.


date: April 3

text: April 3 – Shipwrecked steward Poon Lim, BEM, is rescued by Brazilian fishermen after being adrift for 133 days.


date: May 6

text: May 6 – WWII: Six U-boats are sunk, after sinking 12 ships from Convoy ONS 5, in the last major North Atlantic U-boat "wolfpack" attack of the war.


date: June 1

text: June 1 – BOAC Flight 777, a scheduled passenger flight, is shot down over the Bay of Biscay by German Junkers Ju 88s; all 17 persons aboard perish, including actor Leslie Howard.


date: July 4

text: July 4 – 1943 Gibraltar B-24 crash: The aircraft carrying General Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, crashes, killing him and 15 others, leading to a lasting controversy over the circumstances.


date: August 2

text: August 2 – WWII: John F. Kennedy's PT boat PT-109 is run down by Japanese destroyer Amagiri.


date: September 7

text: September 7 – Gulf Hotel fire: A fire at the Gulf Hotel in Houston, Texas kills 55.


date: October 19

text: October 19 – WWII: Allied aircraft sink the German-controlled cargo ship in the Mediterranean, killing over 2,000 people, mostly Italian military internees.


date: October 24

text: October 24 – WWII: British Royal Navy destroyer is sunk by a mine in the Aegean Sea, with the loss of 119 of the ship's company and 134 troops.


date: October

text: The last commerce raider, German auxiliary cruiser Michel, is sunk off Japan by United States submarine Tarpon.


date: November 23

text: November 23 – The Deutsches Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße, in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg, is destroyed in an air raid (it is reopened in 1961, as the Deutsche Oper Berlin).


date: November 26

text: November 26 – WWII: British troopship HMT Rohna is sunk off the north African coast by a Luftwaffe Henschel Hs 293 radio controlled glide bomb, killing 1,015.


date: November

text: A Japanese submarine sinks the surfaced U.S. submarine , near Chuuk Lagoon (Truk).


date: December 2

text: December 2 – WWII: Bari chemical warfare disaster: A surprise Luftwaffe air raid on Bari, Italy sinks 28 Allied ships in the harbor, including the American Liberty ship , releasing its secret cargo of mustard gas bombs, inflating the number of casualties.


date: February 20

text: February 20 – The Parícutin volcano begins to appear in a cornfield in Mexico.


date: June 30

text: June 30 – The United States Civilian Conservation Corps is abolished.


date: September 9

text: September 9 – WWII: Operation Avalanche: 170,000 British and American troops land near Salerno.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – The 1943 Tosya–Ladik earthquake in Turkey kills thousands.


date: March 4

text: March 4 – The 15th Academy Awards ceremony is held in Los Angeles. Mrs. Miniver wins the Best Picture Award.


date: March 12

text: March 12 – Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man is premiered by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.


date: March 17

text: March 17 (Saint Patrick's Day) – Éamon de Valera, Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, makes the speech "The Ireland That We Dreamed Of", commonly called the "comely maidens" speech, in Dublin Castle.


date: March

text: March – Exiled French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's self-illustrated children's novella, The Little Prince, is published in New York City, the all-time best-selling book originating in French.


date: April 25

text: April 25 – Easter occurs on the latest possible date (last time 1886; next time 2038) in the Western Christian Church.


date: May 27

text: May 27 – The port city of Maizuru is founded in Japan.


date: July

text: The National Bands Agreement is concluded in Greece.


date: September 8

text: September 8 – The first classes commence at Grace University in Omaha, Nebraska.


date: October 10

text: October 10 – The Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky is instituted in the Soviet Union.


date: December 7

text: December 7 – Chiara Lubich starts the humanitarian Focolare Movement in Trento, Italy.


date: December 31

text: December 31 – The Times Square Ball in Times Square, New York City, is not dropped a second time. Instead, there is a moment of silence at midnight, followed by the sound of bells playing from sound trucks at the base of One Times Square.


text: Martin Noth's groundbreaking work of Old Testament scholarship, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament, is published.


text: Arana Hall, a residential college of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, is founded.


date: January 5

text: January 5 – James Goldstein, LA businessman, NBA basketball aficionado

source_section: Births › January


date: February 9

text: February 9 – Joseph E. Stiglitz, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate

source_section: Births › February


date: February 25

text: February 25 – George Harrison, English singer, guitarist (The Beatles) (d. 2001)


date: March 19

text: March 19 – Mario J. Molina, Mexican chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2020)

source_section: Births › March


date: April 22

text: April 22 – Louise Glück, American poet, 12th US Poet Laureate, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 2023)

source_section: Births › April


date: August 6

text: August 6 – Jim Hardin, American baseball pitcher (Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves) (d. 1991)

source_section: Births › August


date: August 11

text: August 11 – Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani general, leader and 10th President of Pakistan (d. 2023)


date: August 28

text: August 28 – Surayud Chulanont, Thai politician, 24th Prime Minister of Thailand


date: September 11

text: September 11 – Mickey Hart, American percussionist and musicologist (Grateful Dead)

source_section: Births › September


date: October 12

text: October 12 – Jeffrey R. MacDonald, American physician and United States Army Officer

source_section: Births › October


date: December 8

text: December 8 – Jim Morrison, American rock musician (The Doors) (d. 1971)

source_section: Births › December


date: December 11

text: December 11 – John Kerry, American politician, 68th U.S. Secretary of State


date: December 18

text: December 18 – Keith Richards, English rock guitarist, songwriter (The Rolling Stones)


text: December 31 – Pete Quaife, English musician, artist and author (The Kinks) (d. 2010)


text: January 5 – George Washington Carver, African-American botanist (b. c. 1864)

source_section: Deaths › January


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Richard Hillary, Australian-born British Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot, author (killed on active service in aviation accident) (b. 1919)


date: March 12

text: March 12 – Czesława Kwoka, Polish Roman Catholic religious sister and blessed (killed in Auschwitz concentration camp) (b. 1928)

source_section: Deaths › March


date: April 9

text: April 9 – Philip Slier, Dutch Jewish typesetter (in Sobibór extermination camp) (b. 1923)

source_section: Deaths › April


date: April 30

text: April 30 – Otto Jespersen, Danish linguist, creator of Ido and Novial languages (b.1860)


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Władysław Sikorski, Polish prime minister in exile (aviation accident) (b. 1881)

source_section: Deaths › July


date: July 13

text: July 13 – Kurt Huber, German university professor, member of the White Rose resistance group in Nazi Germany (executed) (b. 1893)


date: August 14

text: August 14 – Joe Kelley, American baseball player, MLB Hall of Famer (b. 1871)

source_section: Deaths › August


text: August 28 – WWII: King Boris III of Bulgaria dies under suspicious circumstances; his 6-year-old son, Simeon II, ascends to the throne.

source_section: Events › August


date: September 6

text: September 6 – Reginald McKenna, British Chancellor of the Exchequer 1915–1916 (b. 1863)

source_section: Deaths › September


date: October 9

text: October 9 – Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)

source_section: Deaths › October


date: October 18

text: October 18 – Margaret Bartholomew, American Civil Air Patrol officer (aviation accident on mission) (b. 1903)


date: December 14

text: December 14 – John Harvey Kellogg, American physician, nutritionist (b. 1852)

source_section: Deaths › December


date: December 22

text: December 22 – Beatrix Potter, British children's author, illustrator (b. 1866)


date: January 11

text: January 11 – United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a Second Bill of Rights for social and economic security, in his State of the Union address.

source_section: Events › January


date: January 26

text: January 26 – WWII: Argentina gave in to the Allies' pressure, severing diplomatic relations with the Axis.


date: February

text: The United States takes Eniwetok Atoll.

source_section: Events › February


text: March 12 – WWII: The Political Committee of National Liberation is created in Greece.

source_section: Events › March


date: March 15

text: March 15 – The Soviet Union introduces a new anthem, replacing The Internationale.


date: May

text: Crimean Tatars are deported by the Soviet Union.

source_section: Events › May


date: June 2

text: June 2 – WWII: The Provisional Government of the French Republic is established.

source_section: Events › June


date: July 22

text: July 22 – The new Polish Committee of National Liberation publishes the PKWN Manifesto in Chełm, calling for a continuation of fighting against Nazi Germany, radical reforms including nationalisation of industry, and a "decent border in the West" (the Oder–Neisse line).

source_section: Events › July


date: July

text: July–October – WWII: Germans are driven out of Lithuania leading to reimposition of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic.


text: The Soviet-sponsored Polish Committee of National Liberation is created, in opposition to the Polish government-in-exile.


date: August 21

text: August 21 – The Dumbarton Oaks Conference (Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization) opens in Washington, D.C.: U.S., British, Chinese, French and Soviet representatives meet to plan the foundation of the United Nations.


date: August

text: The Finnish Parliament, by derogation, elects Marshal C. G. E. Mannerheim as President of Finland to replace Risto Ryti, who has resigned.


text: The Holocaust: Polish insurgents liberate a German labor camp in Warsaw, freeing 348 Jewish prisoners.


date: September 5

text: September 5 – Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg constitute Benelux as representatives of the exiled governments sign the London Customs Convention.

source_section: Events › September


date: September

text: After German forces declare the evacuation of Estonia the day before, the Estonian national government briefly resumes control of Tallinn before the Soviet advance.


text: The Belgian government in exile returns to Brussels from London.


text: Members of Vichy France's collaborationist government are relocated to Germany where an enclave is established for them in Sigmaringen Castle.


text: October 9 – WWII: Fourth Moscow Conference: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin begin a 9-day conference in Moscow, to discuss the future of Europe.

source_section: Events › October


date: October 11

text: October 11 – The Tuvan People's Republic is annexed into the Soviet Union.


date: November 7

text: November 7 – 1944 United States presidential election: Franklin D. Roosevelt wins reelection over Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey, becoming the only U.S. president elected to a fourth term.

source_section: Events › November


date: December 1

text: December 1 – Edward Stettinius, Jr. becomes the last United States Secretary of State of the Roosevelt administration, filling the seat left by Cordell Hull.

source_section: Events › December


date: December 7

text: December 7 – The Convention on International Civil Aviation is signed in Chicago, creating the International Civil Aviation Organization.


date: December 20

text: December 20 – General Dwight D. Eisenhower is promoted to the rank of U.S. Five-Star General.


date: December

text: Dekemvriana: Fighting breaks out between Communists and royalists in newly liberated Greece, eventually leading to a full-scale Greek Civil War.


date: January 14

text: January 14 – WWII: Soviet troops start the offensive at Leningrad and Novgorod.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – WWII: Battle of Monte Cassino – The monastery atop Monte Cassino is destroyed by Allied bombing.


date: March 15

text: March 15 – WWII: Battle of Monte Cassino: Allied aircraft bomb the monastery, and an assault is staged.


date: March 23

text: March 23 – WWII: Members of the Italian Resistance attack Nazis marching in Via Rasella, killing 33.


date: April 10

text: April 10 – The Holocaust: Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler escape from Auschwitz concentration camp; on April 25–27 they prepare the Vrba–Wetzler report, one of the earliest and most detailed descriptions of the extermination of Jews in the camp.

source_section: Events › April


date: May 14

text: May 14 – The Holocaust: Predominantly Muslim Albanian troops of the 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg (1st Albanian) round up 281 Jews in Priština, and hand them over to the Germans for transportation to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.


date: May 15

text: May 15 – WWII: Allied military and political leaders, including Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, Bernard Montgomery and more, meet for the final D-Day joint briefing at St. Paul's School in London.


text: May 15–July 8 – The Holocaust: Hungarian Jews are deported to Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.


date: May

text: May – Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist drama No Exit (Huis Clos) premières in Nazi-occupied Paris.


text: Battle of Monte Cassino: The Germans evacuate Monte Cassino and Allied forces, led by Władysław Anders from Polish II Corps, take the stronghold after a struggle that has claimed 20,000 lives.


date: June

text: Operation Bagration: A general attack by Soviet forces clears the German forces from Belarus, resulting in the destruction of German Army Group Centre, possibly the greatest defeat of the Wehrmacht during WWII.


text: More than 1,000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast, in preparation for D-Day.


date: July 20

text: 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.