The 1940s
The 1940s are a historical period in the 20th century, including the years from 1940 to 1949. It follows the 1930s and comes before the 1950s. It is considered to be part of modern times.
The decade is dominated by World War II and its aftermath. Important developments include the discovery of atomic weapons, the Chinese Revolution and the establishment of Israel.
Timeline[]
1940[]
April 9: Germany invades Denmark and Norway.
May 10: Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Britain, offers blood, sweat and tears.
May 26-June 3: Dunkirk
June 14: Nazis invade France; Ilsa Lund stands up Rick Blaine during the evacuation.
Marshall Petain becomes head of Vichy France, Charles DeGaulle becomes leader of the Free French.
July 10: The Battle of Britain begins.
August 3: The Soviet Union annexes the Baltic States.
August 20: Leon Trotsky assassinated with an icepick--Mexico City
September 7: Germany begins The Blitz--Britain
Pevensie children discover a doorway to Narnia, where they help overthrow the White Witch.
December 7: Steve Rogers injected with the Super Soldier Serum that transforms him into Captain America.
1941[]
January 12: Reichminister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels advances the Big Lie theory.
March 28: Virginia Woolf commits suicide--Lewes, England.
Kilroy was there.
April: Death of publisher Charles Foster Kane (b. 1863); his last word is "rosebud."
Ilsa Koch, She-Wolf of the S.S., becomes a camp guard at Buchenwald.
June 20: Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.
September: The Pevensie children are summoned back to Narnia to assist in the restoration of Prince Caspian--Britain.
October 31: Carving of Mount Rushmore completed.
November 27: Edmund and Lucy Pevensie
December 2: Ilsa Lund comes to Rick Blaine’s cafe--Casablanca, Morocco.
December 7: In a day that will live in infamy, the Empire of Japan attacks the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor.
1942[]
February 1: Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945) becomes the puppet President of Norway.
January 20: The Final Solution is ordered at the Wannsee Conference.
March: The Red Skull locates the Cosmic Cube--Tonsberg, Norway.
March 12: Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) retreats from the Philippines, vowing, "I will return."
Eichmann begins carrying out the Final Solution
April 9: Beginning of the Bataan Death March.
June 4-7: Battle of Midway turns the tide in Pacific.
July 27: British troops defeat Germans and Italians, led by General Erwin Rommel, at the Battle of El Alamein.
August 6: Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, along with their cousin Eustace Scrubb, return to Narnia, where they join the voyage of the Dawn Treader.
August 7: The Battle of Guadalcanal, which halts the Japanese island-hopping toward Australia.
August 23: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad, which turns the tide in Europe.
December 2: Enrico Fermi produces the first nuclear chain reaction--University of Chicago.
1943[]
March: POWs begin work on a bridge over the River Kwai--Kanchanaburi, Thailand.
April 14: Founding of SMERSH, the Soviet counter-intelligence agency whose name translates as “Death to Spies.”
April 16: Albert Hoffman accidentally absorbs LSD and has the first acid trip while riding home on his bicycle--Basel, Switzerland.
Josef Mengele becomes the Angel of Death at Auschwitz
Albert Camus joins the French Resistance
May 12: The Bridge on the River Kwai is completed.
July 10: U.S. and British troops land in Sicily, beginning the invasion of Europe.
August 2: Lt. John F. Kennedy saves his surviving crew members after his command, the PT 109, is sunk by a Japanese destroyer.
November: Tokyo Rose begins propaganda broadcasts from Japan.
December: The Colossus computer created to help break Germany's Enigma code.
1944[]
B.F. Skinner raises his second daughter in a Skinner box.
March 24: The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III.
June 6: D-Day
June 6: Forrest Gump born.
June 13: Private James Francis Ryan is saved--Ramelle, France.
July 20: Operation Valkyrie, a plot to assassinate Hitler, fails.
August 1: Warsaw Uprising
August 4: Anne Frank (1929-45) is arrested along with her family after living in hiding for two years.
August 25: The liberation of Paris
September 8: Wernher Von Braun invents the V-2.
September 17: Operation Market-Garden attempts to take a bridge too far.
October 14: General Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, forced to commit suicide after plotting against Hitler.
September 25: Gordon Gecko born--New Brunswick, New Jersey.
December 16: The German offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge begins--the bloodiest battle of the war for the Americans. Bill Pilgrim (b. 1922) is captured and becomes unstuck in time.
December 23: Incarnation of the demon known as Hellboy.
1945[]
January 31: U.S. Private Eddie Slovik executed for desertion.
February 4-11: Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin divide up the postwar world--Yalta, Soviet Union
February 13: Firebombing of Dresden; Billy Pilgrim is there, unstuck in time.
April 12: Harry Truman becomes president upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt.
April 30: Hitler, Eva Braun commit suicide in bunker; they save Hitler's brain and hide it in South America.
June 26: The Charter of the United Nations is signed--San Francisco
May 7: Tommy Walker, future pinball wizard, born.
May 8: V-E Day.
July 16: First atomic explosion at Trinity test site--Alamagordo, New Mexico
August 6: Atomic bombing of Hiroshima
August 9: Atomic bombing of Nagasaki
1945[]
August 25: Death of John Birch--China.
September 20: Operation Paperclip relocates Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun to the United States to work on missile programs--Wilmington, Delaware
December 5: Flight 19, a squadron of Navy bombers, disappears in the Bermuda Triangle.
Mob boss Vito Corleone (1887-1955) survives an assassination attempt.
December 24: Clarence the Angel shows George Bailey what a terrible life it would be if he had never existed--Bedford Falls, New York.
1946[]
Formation of U.N.C.L.E. as a multinational secret service.
March: Greek Civil War breaks out.
December 19: Fighting breaks out in Hanoi between French forces and the Viet Minh, forcing Ho Chi Minh to flee to the countryside.
1947[]
Andy Dufresne begins serving two consecutive life sentences for the murder of his wife and her lover--Shawshank, Maine
January 15: The Black Dahlia killing--Los Angeles
April 15: Jackie Robinson becomes the first African-American player in the Major Leagues--Brooklyn
June 14: An extraterrestrial craft crashes and is recovered--Roswell, N.M.
June 20: Bugsy Malone rubbed out--Las Vegas.
June 22: First modern report of the Men in Black, mysterious figures who appear after a UFO sighting.
June 24: First sighting of flying saucers--Mount Ranier, Washington.
July 6: Birth of John Rambo--Phoenix, Arizona.
July 17: Jack Kerouac goes on the road for the first time, taking a bus from New York City to Denver.
October: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigating Communist infiltration of Hollywood.
October 14: Captain Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier--Muroc Army Air Field, California.
1948[]
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello meet Frankenstein's Monster--as well as Dracula and the Wolf Man--LaMirada, Florida.
January 3: Alfred Kinsey publishes his Report--Bloomington, Indiana.
January 30: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi--New Delhi.
May 14: Arab–Israeli War begins.
Sgt. Joe Friday begins work for the LAPD; he retires in 1970.
July: Admiral Miles Messervy--better known as M--becomes head of MI6.
October 28: The USS Eldridge disappears from Philadelphia and reappears in Norfolk, Virginia, in an incident known as the Philadelphia Experiment.
October: Batman first confronted by the psychotic puzzles of Edward Nigma, calling himself The Riddler--Gotham City.
October: Harry Lime is revealed to be the Third Man--Vienna.
1949[]
Peter, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, their cousin Eustace Scrubb and their friends Digory Kirke, Polly Plummer and Jill Pole are killed in a British Rail accident.
December 10: Holden Caulfield (b. 1933) begins a weekend in New York City after losing the Pencey Prep fencing swords.
December 13: Mossad, Israel's secret service, is formed--Tel Aviv.
External Link[]
Wikipedia: 1940s