1941

Years: 1938 1939 1940 - 1941 - 1942 1943 1944
Decades: 1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century 1941 in art 1941 in aviation 1941 in film 1941 in literature 1941 in music 1941 in radio 1941 in science 1941 in sports 1941 in television 1941 state leaders 1941 in Canada

[Top]

Events

[Top]

January-February

January 6 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address.
January 10 - Lend-Lease is introduced into the United States Congress.
January 19 - British troops attack Italian-held Eritrea.
January 21 - World War II: Australian and British forces attack Tobruk, Libya.
January 22 - World War II: British troops capture Tobruk from the Italians.
January 23 - Charles Lindbergh testifies before the United States Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
February 3 - World War II: The Nazis forcibly restore Pierre Laval to office in occupied Vichy, France.
February 4 - World War II: The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.
February 11 - World War II: Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli.

[Top]

March

March 1 - World War II: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact thus joining the Axis powers.
March 1 - W47NV begins operations in Nashville, Tennessee becoming the first FM radio station.
March 1 - Arthur L. Bristol becomes Rear Admiral for the U.S. Navy's Support Force, Atlantic Fleet
March 11 - World War II: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan.
March 17 - In Washington, DC, the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
March 17 - British Minister of Labour, Ernest Bevin, calls for women to fill vital jobs
March 22 - Washington's Grand Coulee Dam begins to generate electricity.
March 25 - World War II: Kingdom of Yugoslavia in Vienna joins the Axis powers
March 27 - World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor - Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa arrives in Honolulu, Hawaii and begins to study the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor.
March 29 - World War II: Battle of Cape Matapan - Off the Peloponnesus coast in the Mediterranean, British naval forces defeat those of Italy sinking five warships. Battle started on March 27.

[Top]

April

April 6 - World War II: Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
April 9 - Slavomir Rawicz and six others escape from a Soviet prison camp in Yakutsk - they begin 6500 km long walk to India
April 17 - World War II: Yugoslav Royal Army capitulates.
April 21 - World War II: Greece capitulates. British troops retract to Crete.
April 27 - World War II: German troops enter Athens.
April - Russia and Japan sign a neutrality pact.

[Top]

May

May 1 - Breakfast cereal Cheerios is introduced as CheeriOats by General Mills
May 1 - Orson Welles' screenplay, Citizen Kane, premieres in New York City
May 6 - At California's March Field Bob Hope performs his first USO Show.
May 9 - World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the British Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.
May 10 - World War II: The United Kingdom's House of Commons is damaged by the Luftwaffe in an air raid.
May 10 - World War II: Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland claiming to be on a peace mission.
May 20 - World War II: Battle of Crete - German troops invade Crete.
May 21 - World War II: 950 miles off the coast of Brazil, the freighter SS Robin Moor becomes the first United States ship sunk by a German U-boat.
May 24 - World War II: In the North Atlantic, the German battleship Bismarck sinks the HMS Hood killing all but three crewman on what was the pride of the Royal Navy.
May 26 - World War II: In the North Atlantic, Swordfish planes from the carrier HMS Ark Royal fatally cripple the German battleship Bismarck in torpedo attack.
May 27 - World War II: President Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency."
May 27 - World War II: German battleship Bismarck is sunk in North Atlantic killing 2,300.

[Top]

June

June 1 - World War II: Crete capitulates to Germany.
June 8 - World War II: Allies invade Syria and Lebanon.
June 9 - World War II: Finland initiate mobilization and put some units under German command.
June 14 - Mass deportations by Soviet Union authorities take place in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
June 22 - World War II: Germany attacks the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa
June 25 - World War II: Finland attacked by the Soviet Union seeks the opportunity of revenge in the Continuation War.

[Top]

July-August

July 4 - Mass murder of Polish scientists and writers, committed by Nazi Germans in captured Polish city of Lvov.
July 5 - World War II: German troops reach the Dniepr River.
July 5-19 - War between Peru and Ecuador
July 7 - World War II: American forces land in Iceland to forestall an invasion by the Nazis.
July 26 - World War II: In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.
July 31 - Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."
August - Formation of the Political Warfare Executive in the United Kingdom
August 18 - Holocaust: Adolf Hitler orders an end to the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and handicapped due to protests within Germany.

[Top]

September-October

September 6 - Holocaust: The requirement to wear the Star of David with the word "Jew" inscribed, is extended to all Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas.
September 8 - World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins - German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad.
September 16 - Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran is forced to resign in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran under pressure from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.
October 2 - World War II: Operation Typhoon - Germany begins an all-out offensive against Moscow.
October 8 - World War II: In their invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol.
October 21 - World War II: Germans rampage in Yugoslavia, killing thousands of civilians
October 24 - Franz von Werra disappears during a flight over North Sea
October 30 - World War II: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.
October 31 - After 14 years of work, drilling is completed on Mount Rushmore.
October 31 - World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors.

[Top]

November

November 6 - World War II: Soviet leader Josef Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule (the first time was earlier that year on July 2). He states that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, that the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers (a gross exaggeration) and that Soviet victory was near.
November 12 - World War II: 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.
November 13 - World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is hit by German U-boat U-81
November 14 - World War II: HMS Ark Royal capsizes and sinks, having been torpedoed by U 81.
November 17 - World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor - Joseph Grew, the United States ambassador to Japan, cables the State Department that Japan had plans to launch an attack against Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (his cable was ignored).
November 19 - World War II: The Australian war cruiser HMAS Sydney sinks off the coast of Western Australia, killing 645 sailors.
November 21 - The radio program King Biscuit Time is broadcast for the first time (it would later become the longest running daily radio broadcast in history and the most famous live blues radio program).
November 24 - World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French.
November 26 - US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in the United States (this partly reversed a 1939 action by Roosevelt that changed the celebration of Thanksgiving to the third Thursday of November).
November 26 - World War II: The Hull note ultimatum is delivered to Japan by the United States.
November 26 - World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor - A fleet of six aircraft carriers commanded by Japanese Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo leaves Hitokapu Bay for Pearl Harbor under strict radio silence.
November 27 - A group of young men stop traffic on highway US 99 south of Yreka, California, handing out fliers proclaiming the establishment of the State of Jefferson.

[Top]

December

December 1 - World War II: Former mayor of New York City, Fiorello LaGuardia, and the director of the Office of Civilian Defense, sign an order creating the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) as the civilian auxiliary of the United States Air Force (in April 1943 the CAP was placed under the jurisdiction of the Army Air Forces).
December 7, December 6 (in Japan standard time) - Japanese navy launches a surprise attack on the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor, thus drawing the United States into World War II.
December 8 - World War II: The United States officially declares war on Japan.
December 11 - World War II: Germany declares war on the United States.
December 25 - World War II: British and Canadians are defeated by the Japanese at Hong Kong.
December 27 - World War II: British Commandos raid the Norwegian port of Vaagso, causing Hitler to reinforce the garrison.

[Top]

unknown dates

John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford E. Berry developed the Atanasoff Berry Computer.
Ives and Stilwell prove that ions radiate at frequencies affected by their motion.
In Sweden, Victor Hasselblad forms the Hasselblad camera company.
The Pinnacle Commune, a Rastafarian community, is destroyed by Jamaican authorities
Indochina Communist party, led by Ho Chi Minh, combines with Nationalist party to form the Vietminh.

[Top]

Ongoing events

Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
World War II (1939-1945)

[Top]

Year in topic

1941 in film
- May 1 - Citizen Kane, starring Orson Welles
- October 3 - The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart
- Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner
1941 in literature
- The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
- Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
- Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry
1941 in music
- February 11 - 1st Gold record presented to Glenn Miller for Chattanooga Choo Choo.
1941 in sports
- May 15 - Joe DiMaggio starts his record-breaking 56-game hitting streak.
- One of the greatest race horses of his time, Epinard, was taken during the German occupation of France and used as a delivery wagon horse.
1941 in television
- April 30 - The FCC approves the NTSC standards of 525 lines and 30 frames per second, and authorizes commercial TV to begin on July 1.
- May 2 - 10 television stations were granted commercial TV licenses (effective July 1). These stations were required to broadcast 15 hours per week. Bulova Watch Co., Sun Oil Co., Lever Bros. Co. and Procter & Gamble sign on as sponsors of the first commercial telecasts from WNBT in New York.
- July 1 - Commercial TV authorized by the FCC.
- July 1 - Ralph Edwards hosted the first game show broadcast on television, Truth Or Consequences, simulcast on radio and TV and sponsored by Ivory Soap. The first legal TV commercial in the United States for Bulova watches occurs at 2:29, superimposed over a test pattern.