1940

Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s

Years: 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 - 1940 - 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945

Events

• January 5 - FM radio is demonstrated to the FCC for the first time.
• January 6 - World War II: Mass execution of Poles, commited by Germans in the Poznan, Warthegau.
• January 12 - World War II: Russia bombs cities in Finland.
• February 2 - Frank Sinatra debuts with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra
• February 2 - The Complex Number Calculator, a calculator for complex arithmetic based on relays, was completed. (see History of computing hardware).
• February 2 - The first transposons are discovered in maize (Zea mays, aka corn) by Barbara McClintock.
• February 23 - World War II: Soviet Union troops conquer Lasi Island.
• February 29 - For her role as as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award (Best Supporting Actress).
• March 12 - Soviet Union and Finland sign a peace treaty in Moscow ending the Winter War. Finns, and the World opinion, shocked by the harsh terms.
• March 18 - World War II: Axis powers - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom.
• April 7 - Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.
• April 9 - World War II: Germany invades Denmark and Norway in operation Weserübung. The British campaign in Norway is simultaneously commenced.
• May 10 - World War II: Germany invades Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
• May 13 - World War II: Nazi Germany's conquest of France begins as the German army crosses the Meuse River.
• May 14 - World War II: The Dutch city of Rotterdam is bombed by the German Luftwaffe.
• May 14 - World War II: The Netherlands surrender to Germany.
• May 15 - World War II: German troops occupy Amsterdam and invade Northern France.
• May 15 - Nylon stockings go on sale for the first time in the United States.
• May 17 - World War II: Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium
• May 20 - Holocaust: The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.
• May 24 - Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.
• May 25 - World War II: The Battle of Dunkirk begins.
• May 26 - World War II: Battle of Dunkirk - In France, Allied forces begin a massive evacuation from Dunkirk.
• May 28 - World War II: Belgium surrenders to Germany.
• June 9 - World War II: The British Commandos are created.
• July 5 - World War II: The United Kingdom and the Vichy France government break off diplomatic relations.
• July 10 - World War II: Vichy France government established.
• July 10 - World War II: Battle of Britain - The German Luftwaffe begin to hit British convoys in the English Channel thus starting the battle (this start date is contested, though).
• July 14 - World War II: Andrew George Latta McNaughton takes command 7th Army Corps consisting of British, Canadian and New Zealand troops.
• August 20 - Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded in Mexico City by an assassin's ice-ax. He will die the next day.
• September 4 - World War II: The USS Greer becomes the first United States ship fired upon by a German submarine in the war, even though the United States is a neutral power. Tension heightens between the two nations as a result.
• September 7 - Treaty of Craiova: Romania loses Southern Dobrudja to Bulgaria.
• September 7 - World War II: Battle of Britain - Nazi Germany begins to rain bombs on London. This will be the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing.
• September 12 - The Hercules Munitions Plant in Kenvil, New Jersey explodes, killing 55 people.
• October 9 - World War II: Battle of Britain - During a nighttime air raid by the German Luftwaffe, St. Paul's Cathedral is pierced by a bomb.
• October 28 - World War II: Italy invades Greece.
• October 31 - World War II: Battle of Britain ends - The United Kingdom prevents Germany from invading Great Britain.
• November 5 - U.S. presidential election, 1940: Democrat incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Republican challenger Wendell Willkie and becomes the United States' first third-term president.
• November 7 - In Washington, the middle section of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses in a windstorm, a mere four months after the bridge's completion (it opened to traffic on July 1, 1940 as the third-longest suspension bridge in the world).
• November 11 - World War II: Battle of Taranto - The Royal Navy launches the first aircraft carrier strike in history, on the Italian fleet at Taranto.
• November 11 - World War II: The German Hilfskreuzer (cruiser) Atlantis captures top secret British mail, and sends it to Japan
• November 11 - Armistice Day Blizzard: An unexpected blizzard kills 144 in U.S. Midwest.
• November 14 - World War II: In England, the city of Coventry is destroyed by 500 German Luftwaffe bombers (150,000 fire bombs, 503 tons of high explosives, 130 parachute mines leveled 60,000 of the city's 75,000 buildings; 568 people were killed).
• November 16 - World War II: In response to Germany leveling Coventry two days before, the Royal Air Force begins to bomb Hamburg (by war's end, 50,000 Hamburg residents died from Allied attacks).
• November 18 - World War II: German leader Adolf Hitler and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano meet to discuss Benito Mussolini's disastrous invasion of Greece.
• November 20 - World War II: Hungary, Romania and Slovakia join the Axis Powers.
• November 27 - In Romania, coup leader General Ion Antonescu's Iron Guard arrests and executes over 60 of exiled king Carol II of Romania's aides. Among the dead is former minister and acclaimed historian Nicolae Iorga.
• December 30 - California opens its first freeway the Arroyo Seco Parkway.

• Charlie Chaplin directs the film The Great Dictator in which he plays a fascist dictator, clearly modeled on Adolf Hitler.
• The first McDonald's restaurant is founded by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald, in San Bernardino, California.

• USSR annexes the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.
• Germany begins a bombing campaign against Britain in preparation for an invasion, in what becomes known as the Battle of Britain.
• Guilin, China, acquires current name.

Ongoing events

• Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)

Births

• January 14 - Julian Bond, civil rights activist (cofounder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, chairman of NAACP board of directors)
• January 20 - Carol Heiss, Olympic figure skating gold medalist
• January 22 - John Hurt, actor
• February 3 - Fran Tarkenton, Football Hall of Famer
• February 4 - George Romero, horror movie writer, producer, director
• February 5 - H.R. Giger, artist
• February 6 - Tom Brokaw, news anchorman
• February 8 - Ted Koppel, journalist
• February 8 - Joe South, American singer/songwriter
• February 19 - Smokey Robinson, musician
• February 25 - Ron Santo, baseball player
• February 28 - Mario Andretti, automobile driver
• February 29 - Edward Frederick Benson, American writer
• March 7 - Rudi Dutschke, student leader (d. 1979)
• March 7 - Daniel J. Travanti, actor
• March 9 - John Cale, composer, musician
• March 9 - Raúl Juliá, actor (d. 1994)
• March 10 - Dean Torrence, musician ("Jan and Dean")
• March 10 - Chuck Norris, actor, martial arts practitioner
• March 12 - Al Jarreau, singer
• March 15 - Phil Lesh of The Grateful Dead
• March 16 - Bernardo Bertolucci, Italian writer and film director
• March 22 - Haing S. Ngor, actor (d. 1996)
• March 24 - Bob Mackie, costume designer
• March 25 - Anita Bryant, entertainer
• March 30 - Astrud Gilberto, singer
• April 2 - Penelope Keith, actress
• April 16 - Queen Margaret II of Denmark
• April 25 - Al Pacino, actor
• April 26 - Giorgio Moroder, composer
• May 1 - Elsa Peretti, jewelry designer
• May 8 - Ricky Nelson, pop singer, (d. 1985)
• May 9 - James L. Brooks, producer, writer
• May 11 - Juan Downey, video artist (d. 1993)
• May 20 - Stan Mikita, Hockey Hall of Famer
• May 20 - Sadaharu Oh, baseball star
• May 29 - Farooq Leghari, former President of Pakistan
• June 16 - Neil Goldschmidt, governor of Oregon
• June 23 - Adam Faith, English singer and actor (d. 2003)
• June 23 - Lord Irvine of Lairg, British lawyer and Lord Chancellor
• June 23 - Wilma Rudolph, American runner
• July 7 - Ringo Starr, English drummer (Beatles)
• July 26 - Mary Jo Kopechne, congressional staffer for Edward Kennedy (d. 1969)
• July 27 - Bharati Mukherjee, Indian-American novelist
• August 3 - Martin Sheen, American actor
• August 7 - Jean-Luc Dehaene, Prime Minister of Belgium
• November 27 - Bruce Lee, martial arts actor (d. 1973)
• October 9 - John Lennon, English musician and singer (Beatles) (d. 1980)
• October 13 - Pharoah Sanders, jazz saxophonist
• October 14 - Cliff Richard, English pop singer
• October 23 - Pelé, Brazilian football legend
• December 21 - Frank Zappa, American rock musician, composer and satirist (d. 1993)

Deaths

• February 11 - John Buchan, Governor-General of Canada (1935-1940).
• March 10 - Mikhaïl Boulgakov, Russian writer
• March 16 - Selma Lagerlöf, writer
• May 25 - Joe De Grasse, pioneer Hollywood film director
• May 28 - Friedrich Karl von Hessen (b. 1868)
• June 10 - Marcus Mosiah Garvey, publisher, entrepreneur, black nationalist
• June 29 - Paul Klee, Swiss artist
• August 21 - Leon Trotsky, Russian revolutionary (b. 1879)
• October 10 - Berton Churchill, pioneer Hollywood actor
• October 11 - Lluís Companys, President of Catalan, assassinated
• November 9 - Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• December 5 - Jan Kubelík, violinist

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - not awarded
• Chemistry - not awarded
• Medicine - not awarded
• Literature - not awarded
• Peace - not awarded

Referenced By