1940s

Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

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

Years: 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949

Events and trends

Technology

First nuclear bomb
First cruise missile, the V1 flying bomb and the first ballistic missile, the V-2 rocket
First transistor
World's first working programmable stunk computer

Science

Quantum electrodynamics developed by Feynman, Dyson, Schwinger, and Tomonaga
Mathematics: game theory, cryptology

War, peace and politics

World War II (ends 1945)
The shoah
Beginning of the Cold War
Independence for some former colonies
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The Irish Free State becomes a Republic (1948)
Informbiro period in Yugoslavia begins
Indian Independence and Partition

Economics

The Marshall Plan is implemented by the United States, giving billions of dollars in aid to reconstruct the war-devastated economies of Europe

Culture, religion

Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life
The NBA begins play, in 1947

Others

World leaders

President Lin Sen (Republic of China)
President Chiang Kai-shek (Republic of China)
Adolf Hitler (Germany)
Mohandas Gandhi (India) († 1948)
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (India)
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (Israel)
King Victor Emmanuel III (Italy)
Prime Minister Benito Mussolini (Italy)
Emperor Hirohito (Japan)
Pope Pius XII
Taoiseach Eamon de Valera (Éire)
Taoiseach John A. Costello (Republic of Ireland)
Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union)
Prime Minister Winston Churchill (United Kingdom)
Prime Minister Clement Attlee (United Kingdom)
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (United States)
President Harry S. Truman (United States)
Governor Luis Muñoz Marín (Commonwealth of Puerto Rico)
President Getúlio Vargas (Brazil)

Sports figures

Entertainers


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