Many important things happened in 1940, not the least of which was the birth of my father.
Leaders in the early 40's:
Leaders in the early 40's:
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill (United Kingdom)
- Prime Minister Clement Attlee (United Kingdom)
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt (United States)
- President Harry S. Truman (United States)
- General Secretary Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union)
- Governor Luis Muñoz Marín (Commonwealth of Puerto Rico)
- President Getúlio Vargas (Brazil)
- President Juan Perón (Argentina)
- Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (Canada)
- Chancellor Adolf Hitler (Germany)
- Prime Minister Benito Mussolini (Italy)
- Prime-Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (India)
The 1940s was a period between the radical 1930s and the conservative 1950s, which also leads the period to be divided in two halves:
The first half of the decade was dominated by World War II, the widest and most destructive armed conflict in human history. So consequential was this event and its brutal aftermath that it laid the foundation for other major world events and trends for decades to follow. This war was also the first modern civilian war.
The second half of the 1940s marked the beginning of the Cold War, the race between the US and the Soviet Union to invent better technology.
- Nazi Germany loses the Battle of Britain 1940
- Nazi Germany invades Denmark, Norway, Benelux, and France from 1940-1941
- The United States enter World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941
- Germany and Japan suffer defeats at Stalingrad, El Alamein, and Midway in 1942 and 1943
- D-Day (June 6, 1944)
- Germany surrenders May 7, 1945
- Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and August 9, 1945); Japan surrenders on August 15
- World War II officially ends on September 2, 1945
- The Holocaust (the shoah)
- March - Truth or Consequences debuts on NBC Radio.
- March 2 - Cartoon character Elmer Fudd makes his debut in the animated short Elmer's Candid Camera.
- March 3 - In Sweden, a time bomb destroys the office of Norrskenflamman (a Swedish communist newspaper), killing 5.
- March 5- Katyn massacre: Members of the Soviet Politburo (Stalin, Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Mikhail Kalinin, Kliment Voroshilov and Lavrenty Beria) sign an order, prepared by Beria, for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs.
- March 12 - The Soviet Union and Finland sign a peace treaty in Moscow ending the Winter War; Finns, along with the world at large, are shocked by the harsh terms.
- March 18 - WWII - 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.
- March 21 - Édouard Daladier resigns as prime minister of France; Paul Reynaud succeeds him.
- March 23 - The Pakistan Resolution is rallied around by the All-India Muslim League; Muslims from every corner of India meet up around Iqbal Park, Lahore (now in modern-day Pakistan).
Happy Birthday, Pop.
Check out the Almanac for 1940 here. It shows US population, average income, etc. Fascinating to think of the dollar amounts verses the dollar values.
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