Important Historical Events of the year 1940, Year 1940 in History

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List of 1940 Major News Events in History, Most Important Historical Events in 1940

What happened in the year 1940?

Date	Event
January 7, 1940	Winter War: Battle of Raate Road: The Finnish 9th Division finally defeat the numerically superior Soviet forces on the Raate-Suomussalmi road.
January 8, 1940	World War II: Britain introduces food rationing.
January 29, 1940	Three trains on the Nishinari Line; present Sakurajima Line, in Osaka, Japan, collide and explode while approaching Ajikawaguchi Station. One hundred and eighty-one people are killed.
February 7, 1940	The second full-length animated Walt Disney film, Pinocchio, premieres.
February 10, 1940	The Soviet Union begins mass deportations of Polish citizens from occupied eastern Poland to Siberia.
February 16, 1940	World War II: Altmark incident: The German tanker Altmark is boarded by sailors from the British destroyer HMS Cossack. A total of 299 British prisoners are freed.
February 27, 1940	Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14.
February 29, 1940	For her performance as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.
February 29, 1940	Finland initiates Winter War peace negotiations.
February 29, 1940	In a ceremony held in Berkeley, California, physicist Ernest Lawrence receives the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics from Sweden's consul general in San Francisco.
March 3, 1940	Five people are killed in an arson attack on the offices of the communist newspaper Flamman in Luleå, Sweden.
March 5, 1940	Six high-ranking members of the Soviet politburo, including Joseph Stalin, sign an order for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs, in what will become known as the Katyn massacre.
March 12, 1940	Winter War: Finland signs the Moscow Peace Treaty with the Soviet Union, ceding almost all of Finnish Karelia.
March 13, 1940	The Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union officially ends after the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty.
March 18, 1940	World War II: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at the Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom.
March 23, 1940	The Lahore Resolution (Qarardad-e-Pakistan or Qarardad-e-Lahore) is put forward at the Annual General Convention of the All-India Muslim League.
March 30, 1940	Second Sino-Japanese War: Japan declares Nanking capital of a new Chinese puppet government, nominally controlled by Wang Jingwei.
April 7, 1940	Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.
April 8, 1940	The Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party elects Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal as General Secretary, marking the beginning of his 44-year-long tenure as de facto leader of Mongolia.
April 9, 1940	World War II: Operation Weserübung: Germany invades Denmark and Norway.
April 9, 1940	Vidkun Quisling seizes power in Norway.
April 14, 1940	World War II: Royal Marines land in Namsos, Norway, preceding a larger force which will arrive two days later.
April 23, 1940	The Rhythm Club fire at a dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi, kills 198 people.
May 5, 1940	World War II: Norwegian Campaign: Norwegian squads in Hegra Fortress and Vinjesvingen capitulate to German forces after all other Norwegian forces in southern Norway had laid down their arms.
May 6, 1940	John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.
May 7, 1940	World War II: The Norway Debate in the British House of Commons begins, and leads to the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with Winston Churchill three days later.
May 10, 1940	World War II: German fighters accidentally bomb the German city of Freiburg.
May 10, 1940	World War II: Winston Churchill is appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain. On the same day, Germany invades France, The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.[34] Meanwhile, the United Kingdom occupies Iceland.
May 13, 1940	World War II: Germany's conquest of France begins, as the German army crosses the Meuse. Winston Churchill makes his "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech to the House of Commons.
May 14, 1940	World War II: Rotterdam, Netherlands is bombed by the Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany despite a ceasefire, killing about 900 people and destroying the historic city center.
May 15, 1940	USS Sailfish is recommissioned. It was originally the USS Squalus.
May 15, 1940	World War II: The Battle of the Netherlands: After fierce fighting, the poorly trained and equipped Dutch troops surrender to Germany, marking the beginning of five years of occupation.
May 15, 1940	Richard and Maurice McDonald open the first McDonald's restaurant.
May 17, 1940	World War II: Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium.
May 20, 1940	The Holocaust: The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.
May 24, 1940	Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.
May 24, 1940	Acting on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, NKVD agent Iosif Grigulevich orchestrates an unsuccessful assassination attempt on exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Coyoacán, Mexico.
May 25, 1940	World War II: The German 2nd Panzer Division captures the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer; the surrender of the last French and British troops marks the end of the Battle of Boulogne.
May 26, 1940	World War II: Operation Dynamo: In northern France, Allied forces begin a massive evacuation from Dunkirk, France.
May 26, 1940	World War II: The Siege of Calais ends with the surrender of the British and French garrison.
May 27, 1940	World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 99 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops; two survive.
May 28, 1940	World War II: Belgium surrenders to Nazi Germany to end the Battle of Belgium.
May 28, 1940	World War II: Norwegian, French, Polish and British forces recapture Narvik in Norway. This is the first Allied infantry victory of the War.
June 3, 1940	World War II: The Luftwaffe bombs Paris.
June 3, 1940	Franz Rademacher proposes plans to make Madagascar the "Jewish homeland", an idea that had first been considered by 19th century journalist Theodor Herzl.
June 4, 1940	World War II: The Dunkirk evacuation ends: the British Armed Forces completes evacuation of 338,000 troops from Dunkirk in France. To rally the morale of the country, Winston Churchill delivers, only to the House of Commons, his famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.
June 5, 1940	World War II: After a brief lull in the Battle of France, the Germans renew the offensive against the remaining French divisions south of the River Somme in Operation Fall Rot ("Case Red").
June 7, 1940	King Haakon VII, Crown Prince Olav and the Norwegian government leave Tromsø and go into exile in London. They return exactly five years later.
June 8, 1940	World War II: The completion of Operation Alphabet, the evacuation of Allied forces from Narvik at the end of the Norwegian Campaign.
June 10, 1940	World War II: Fascist Italy declares war on France and the United Kingdom, beginning an invasion of southern France.[4]
June 10, 1940	World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt denounces Italy's actions in his "Stab in the Back" speech at the graduation ceremonies of the University of Virginia.
June 10, 1940	World War II: Military resistance to the German occupation of Norway ends.
June 11, 1940	World War II: The Siege of Malta begins with a series of Italian air raids.
June 12, 1940	World War II: Thirteen thousand British and French troops surrender to Major General Erwin Rommel at Saint-Valery-en-Caux.
June 14, 1940	World War II: The German occupation of Paris begins.
June 14, 1940	The Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Lithuania resulting in Lithuanian loss of independence.
June 14, 1940	Seven hundred and twenty-eight Polish political prisoners from Tarnów become the first inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
June 15, 1940	World War II: Operation Aerial begins: Allied troops start to evacuate France, following Germany's takeover of Paris and most of the nation.
June 16, 1940	World War II: Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain becomes Chief of State of Vichy France (Chef de l'État Français).
June 16, 1940	A Communist government is installed in Lithuania.
June 17, 1940	World War II: RMS Lancastria is attacked and sunk by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France. At least 3,000 are killed in Britain's worst maritime disaster.
June 17, 1940	World War II: The British Army's 11th Hussars assault and take Fort Capuzzo in Libya, Africa from Italian forces.
June 17, 1940	The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union.
June 18, 1940	Appeal of 18 June by Charles de Gaulle.
June 18, 1940	The "Finest Hour" speech is delivered by Winston Churchill.
June 21, 1940	World War II: Italy begins an unsuccessful invasion of France.
June 22, 1940	World War II: France is forced to sign the Second Compiègne armistice with Germany, in the same railroad car in which the Germans signed the Armistice in 1918.
June 23, 1940	Adolf Hitler goes on a three-hour tour of the architecture of Paris with architect Albert Speer and sculptor Arno Breker in his only visit to the city.
June 23, 1940	Henry Larsen begins the first successful west-to-east navigation of Northwest Passage from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
June 24, 1940	World War II: Operation Collar, the first British Commando raid on occupied France, by No 11 Independent Company.
June 25, 1940	World War II: The French armistice with Nazi Germany comes into effect.
June 26, 1940	World War II: Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Romania requiring it to cede Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina.
June 28, 1940	Romania cedes Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union after facing an ultimatum.
July 2, 1940	Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose is arrested and detained in Calcutta.
July 2, 1940	The SS Arandora Star is sunk by U-47 in the North Atlantic with the loss of over 800 lives, mostly civilians.
July 3, 1940	World War II: The Royal Navy attacks the French naval squadron in Algeria, to ensure that it will not fall under German control. Of the four French battleships present, one is sunk, two are damaged, and one escapes back to France.
July 5, 1940	World War II: Foreign relations of Vichy France are severed with the United Kingdom.
July 6, 1940	Story Bridge, a major landmark in Brisbane, as well as Australia's longest cantilever bridge is formally opened.
July 10, 1940	World War II: The Vichy government is established in France.
July 10, 1940	World War II: Six days before Adolf Hitler issues his Directive 16 to the combined Wehrmacht armed forces for Operation Sea Lion, the Kanalkampf shipping attacks against British maritime convoys begin, in the leadup to initiating the Battle of Britain.
July 11, 1940	World War II: Vichy France regime is formally established. Philippe Pétain becomes Chief of the French State.
July 19, 1940	World War II: Battle of Cape Spada: The Royal Navy and the Regia Marina clash; the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni sinks, with 121 casualties.
July 19, 1940	Field Marshal Ceremony: First occasion in World War II that Adolf Hitler appoints field marshals due to military achievements.
July 19, 1940	World War II: Army order 112 forms the Intelligence Corps of the British Army.
July 20, 1940	Denmark leaves the League of Nations.
July 20, 1940	California opens its first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway.
July 23, 1940	The United States' Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles issues a declaration on the U.S. non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
July 25, 1940	General Henri Guisan orders the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and makes surrender illegal.
July 27, 1940	The animated short A Wild Hare is released, introducing the character of Bugs Bunny.
August 3, 1940	World War II: Italian forces begin the invasion of British Somaliland.
August 5, 1940	World War II: The Soviet Union formally annexes Latvia.
August 6, 1940	Estonia becomes part of the Soviet Union.
August 8, 1940	The "Aufbau Ost" directive is signed by Wilhelm Keitel.
August 15, 1940	An Italian submarine torpedoes and sinks the Greek cruiser Elli at Tinos harbor during peacetime, marking the most serious Italian provocation prior to the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War in October.
August 18, 1940	World War II: The Hardest Day air battle, part of the Battle of Britain, takes place. At that point, it is the largest aerial engagement in history with heavy losses sustained on both sides.
August 19, 1940	First flight of the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber.
August 20, 1940	In Mexico City, exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day.
August 20, 1940	World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line "Never was so much owed by so many to so few".
August 20, 1940	World War II: Hundred Regiments Offensive: Chinese general Peng Dehuai of the Communist Eighth Route Army launches the Hundred Regiments Offensive, a successful campaign to disrupt Japanese war infrastructure and logistics in occupied northern China.
August 25, 1940	World War II: The first Bombing of Berlin by the British Royal Air Force.
August 26, 1940	World War II: Chad becomes the first French colony to join the Allies under the administration of Félix Éboué, France's first black colonial governor.
August 30, 1940	The Second Vienna Award reassigns the territory of Northern Transylvania from Romania to Hungary.
August 31, 1940	Pennsylvania Central Airlines Trip 19 crashes near Lovettsville, Virginia. The CAB investigation of the accident is the first investigation to be conducted under the Bureau of Air Commerce act of 1938.
September 6, 1940	King Carol II of Romania abdicates and is succeeded by his son Michael. General Ion Antonescu becomes the Conducător of Romania.
September 7, 1940	Romania returns Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria under the Treaty of Craiova.
September 7, 1940	World War II: The German Luftwaffe begins the Blitz, bombing London and other British cities for over 50 consecutive nights.
September 9, 1940	George Stibitz pioneers the first remote operation of a computer.
September 9, 1940	Treznea Massacre in Transylvania.
September 12, 1940	Cave paintings are discovered in Lascaux, France.
September 12, 1940	The Hercules Powder Plant Disaster in the United States kills 51 people and injures over 200.
September 14, 1940	Ip massacre: The Hungarian Army, supported by local Hungarians, kill 158 Romanian civilians in Ip, Sălaj, a village in Northern Transylvania, an act of ethnic cleansing.
September 15, 1940	World War II: The climax of the Battle of Britain, when the Luftwaffe launches its largest and most concentrated attack of the entire campaign.
September 16, 1940	World War II: Italian troops conquer Sidi Barrani.
September 17, 1940	World War II: Due to setbacks in the Battle of Britain and approaching autumn weather, Hitler postpones Operation Sea Lion.
September 18, 1940	World War II: The British liner SS City of Benares is sunk by German submarine U-48; those killed include 77 child refugees.
September 19, 1940	World War II: Witold Pilecki is voluntarily captured and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp to gather and smuggle out information for the resistance movement.[9]
September 27, 1940	World War II: The Tripartite Pact is signed in Berlin by Germany, Japan and Italy.
September 29, 1940	Two Avro Ansons collide in mid-air over New South Wales, Australia, remain locked together, then land safely.
October 1, 1940	The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic.
October 7, 1940	World War II: The McCollum memo proposes bringing the United States into the war in Europe by provoking the Japanese to attack the United States.
October 14, 1940	World War II: The Balham underground station disaster kills sixty-six people during the London Blitz.
October 15, 1940	President Lluís Companys of Catalonia is executed by the Francoist government.
October 16, 1940	Holocaust in Poland: The Warsaw Ghetto is established.
October 17, 1940	The body of Communist propagandist Willi Münzenberg is found in South France, starting a never-resolved mystery.
October 21, 1940	The first edition of the Ernest Hemingway novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published.
October 23, 1940	Adolf Hitler and Francisco Franco meet at Hendaye to discuss the possibility of Spain entering the Second World War.
October 25, 1940	Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army.
October 28, 1940	World War II: Greece rejects Italy's ultimatum. Italy invades Greece through Albania a few hours later.
October 31, 1940	World War II: The Battle of Britain ends: The United Kingdom prevents a possible German invasion.
November 2, 1940	World War II: First day of Battle of Elaia–Kalamas between the Greeks and the Italians.
November 5, 1940	World War II: The British armed merchant cruiser HMS Jervis Bay is sunk by the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer.
November 5, 1940	Franklin D. Roosevelt is the first and only President of the United States to be elected to a third term.
November 7, 1940	In Tacoma, Washington, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses in a windstorm, a mere four months after the bridge's completion.
November 8, 1940	Greco-Italian War: The Italian invasion of Greece fails as outnumbered Greek units repulse the Italians in the Battle of Elaia–Kalamas.
November 9, 1940	Warsaw is awarded the Virtuti Militari by the Polish government-in-exile.
November 10, 1940	The 1940 Vrancea earthquake strikes Romania killing an estimated 1,000 and injuring approximately 4,000 more.
November 11, 1940	World War II: In the Battle of Taranto, the Royal Navy launches the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval attack in history.
November 11, 1940	World War II: The German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis captures top secret British mail from the Automedon, and sends it to Japan.
November 12, 1940	World War II: The Battle of Gabon ends as Free French Forces take Libreville, Gabon, and all of French Equatorial Africa from Vichy French forces.
November 12, 1940	World War II: Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov arrives in Berlin to discuss the possibility of the Soviet Union joining the Axis Powers.
November 13, 1940	Walt Disney's animated musical film Fantasia is first released at New York's Broadway Theatre, on the first night of a roadshow.
November 14, 1940	World War II: In England, Coventry is heavily bombed by German Luftwaffe bombers. Coventry Cathedral is almost completely destroyed.
November 16, 1940	World War II: In response to the leveling of Coventry by the German Luftwaffe two days before, the Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg.
November 16, 1940	The Holocaust: In occupied Poland, the Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.
November 16, 1940	New York City's "Mad Bomber" George Metesky places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.
November 17, 1940	The Tartu Art Museum was established in Tartu, Estonia.
November 18, 1940	World War II: German leader Adolf Hitler and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano meet to discuss Benito Mussolini's disastrous Italian invasion of Greece.
November 20, 1940	World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
November 22, 1940	World War II: Following the initial Italian invasion, Greek troops counterattack into Italian-occupied Albania and capture Korytsa.
November 23, 1940	World War II: Romania becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
November 24, 1940	World War II: The First Slovak Republic becomes a signatory to the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
November 27, 1940	In Romania, the ruling Iron Guard fascist party assassinates over 60 of arrested King Carol II of Romania's aides and other political dissidents.
November 27, 1940	World War II: At the Battle of Cape Spartivento, the Royal Navy engages the Regia Marina in the Mediterranean Sea.
November 30, 1940	World War II: Signing of the Sino-Japanese Treaty of 1940 between the Empire of Japan and the newly formed Wang Jingwei-led Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China. This treaty was considered so unfair to China that it was compared to the Twenty-One Demands.
December 9, 1940	World War II: Operation Compass: British and Indian troops under the command of Major-General Richard O'Connor attack Italian forces near Sidi Barrani in Egypt.
December 14, 1940	Plutonium (specifically Pu-238) is first isolated at Berkeley, California.
December 19, 1940	Risto Ryti, the Prime Minister of Finland, is elected President of the Republic of Finland in a presidential election, which is exceptionally held by the 1937 electoral college.[14]
December 22, 1940	World War II: Himara is captured by the Greek army.
December 29, 1940	In the Second Great Fire of London, the Luftwaffe fire-bombs London, England, killing almost 200 civilians during World War II.