Historical Events in 1940

Events 1 - 200 of 501

• Jan 3 WPG-AM in Atlantic City NJ consolidates with WBIL & WOV as "new" WOV
• Jan 5 FCC hears the 1st transmission of FM radio with clear, static-free signal
• Jan 5 Finnish offensive at Suomossalmi against Russia

• Jan 6 Mass execution of Poles, committed by Germans in the city of Poznań, Warthegau.
• Jan 7 Winter War: The Finish 9th Division defeats the Soviet forces on the Raate-Suomussalmi road despite being significantly outnumbered
• Jan 8 Britain's 1st WW II rationing (bacon, butter & sugar)
• Jan 9 2 German officers make emergency landing in Belgium

• Jan 12 World War II: Soviets bombs cities in Finland.

• Jan 15 German U-Boot torpedoes Dutch merchant ship Arendskerk (Eagle's Church)
• Jan 19 LPGA Titleholders Championship Women's Golf, Augusta CC: Helen Hicks wins by 1 stroke ahead of Helen Dettweiler

• Jan 21 Foreign correspondents in the Netherlands subjected to censorship
• Jan 22 1st radio broadcast of "Road to Happiness" on CBS

• Jan 25 Nazi decrees establishment of Jewish ghetto in Lodz Poland
• Jan 26 Nazis forbid Polish Jews to travel on trains
• Jan 27 -17°F (-27°C), CCC Camp F-16, Georgia (state record)
• Jan 28 Chicago's Les Cunningham scores 5 points in one period to set an NHL record that stands until 1978; records 2 goals & 3 assists in a 10:04 span during the 3d period of an 8-1 win over Montreal

• Jan 30 Cor Jongert wins 6th Dutch 11 Cities Skating Race
• Jan 30 Hassett's second 122 of the game for Vic can't stop a NSW win
• Jan 31 C Turney & J Horwin's "My Dear Children" premieres in NYC
• Feb 1 NBC performs the first inter-city television broadcast from its station in New York City to another in Schenectady, New York by General Electric relay antennas.
• Feb 1 Soviet Union begins new offensive against Finland

• Feb 5 General Winckelman replaces Gen Reijnders as Dutch supreme commander

• Feb 8 Lewis & Hamilton's musical "Two for the Show" premieres in NYC
• Feb 8 Lodtz, 1st large ghetto established by Nazis in Poland

• Feb 10 "In The Mood" by Glenn Miller hits #1

• Feb 14 British merchant vessel fleet is armed
• Feb 16 British search plane finds German supply ship Altmark, used to accommodate allied sailors from vessels sunk by the Graf Spee off Norway
• Feb 17 Altmark Incident: Crew of the British destroyer "Cossack" board German "Altmark" in Jøssingfjord, Norway, releasing 299 British prisoners after hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets and the last recorded Royal Naval action with cutlass
• Feb 20 Larry Clinton & his Orchestra record "Limehouse Blues"
• Feb 22 Finnish troops vacate Koivisto island
• Feb 22 German air force sinks 2 German destroyers, killing 578
• Feb 23 Russian troops conquer Lasi Island
• Feb 23 Walt Disney's animated movie "Pinocchio" released
• Feb 24 Frances Langford records "When You Wish Upon a Star"
• Feb 25 1st televised hockey game in US - New York Rangers defeat visiting Montreal Canadians 6-2 at Maison Square Garden; W2XBS broadcasts to up to 300 receivers in NYC
• Feb 26 US Air Defense Command forms at Mitchel Field, LI, NY
• Feb 27 Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14 (radiocarbon dating) at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California
• Feb 28 1st televised basketball game (U of Pitts beats Fordham U, 50-37)
• Feb 28 Richard Wright's "Native Son" published
• Feb 28 US population at 131,669,275 with 12,865,518 African American (9.8%)

• Feb 29 Detroit's Cecil "Tiny" Thompson becomes first goaltender in NHL history to play 40 (or more) games for 12 straight seasons; milestone comes in a 3-1 Red Wings loss at Toronto
• Feb 29 Finland initiates Winter War peace negotiations
• Feb 29 Frederic from G & S "Pirates of Penzance" finally released by pirate

• Mar 1 Richard Wright's novel "Native Son" is published
• Mar 2 Beaten by a nose in both the 1937 and 1938 Santa Anita Handicaps, Seabiscuit finally wins the Big 'Cap in his final race; retires the leading money-winning horse in the world
• Mar 2 Soviet armies conquer Tuppura Island, Finland
• Mar 2 The first televised intercollegiate track meet is seen in NYC on W2XBS; NYU wins the meet presented live from Madison Square Garden
• Mar 3 American bandleader Artie Shaw records "Frenesi" on RCA Victor label
• Mar 6 1st US telecast from an airplane, NYC
• Mar 7 Montreal Canadiens lose record tying NHL 15th straight game at home

• Mar 10 1st US opera telecast, W2XBS, NYC: Ruggero Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci"
• Mar 12 Finland signs the Moscow Peace Treaty in Moscow, surrendering to Russia and ceding 11% of their pre-WWII territory, ending the "Winter War"
• Mar 13 Finland-Russian cease fire signed, the Winter War ends. Finland gives up Karelische

• Mar 14 27 killed, 15 injured when truck full of migrant workers collides with a train outside McAllen, Texas

• Mar 16 German air raid on British fleet base Scapa Flow

• Mar 19 Failed British air raid on German base at Sylt

• Mar 20 Paul Reynoud becomes French premier

• Mar 23 1st radio broadcast of "Truth or Consequences" on CBS
• Mar 23 The Lahore Resolution (Qarardad-e-Lahore), calling for independent Muslim state(s), is adopted by the All-India Muslim League

• Mar 28 Construction begins of the exhibition center to host the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair
• Mar 28 WWII: Two Dutch Fokker fighter plane crews shoot down British RAF bomber near Rotterdam
• Mar 29 American boxer Joe Louis KOs Johnny Paycheck in 2 rounds to retain heavyweight boxing title
• Mar 31 Karelo-Finnish SSR becomes 12th Soviet republic (until 1956)

• Apr 8 German battle cruisers sink British aircraft carrier Glorious
• Apr 9 German cruiser Blucher torpedoed and capsizes in Oslofjord, 1,000 die
• Apr 9 Nazi Germany invades Denmark and Norway, and Denmark surrenders after a six-hour battle

• Apr 12 Italy annexes Albania
• Apr 12 NFL cuts clipping penalty from 25 yards to 15 yards
• Apr 13 American athlete Cornelius "Dutch" Warmerdam, using a bamboo pole, becomes 1st man to pole vault 15 ft, at University of California, Berkeley
• Apr 13 Second battle of Narvik; 3 German destroyers and one U-boat sunk by the Royal Navy, 5 more German destroyers scuttled
• Apr 13 Stanley Cup Final, Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Ontario: New York Rangers beat Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-2 for 4-2 series victory; Rangers last Cup win for 54 years
• Apr 14 Allied troops land in Norway
• Apr 14 RCA demonstrated its new electron microscope in Philadelphia
• Apr 15 British troops land at Narvik, Norway

• Apr 16 Heitor Villa-Lobos' opera "Izaht" premieres in Rio de Janeiro
• Apr 19 "Lake Shore Ltd" derails speed killing 34 near Little Falls, New York
• Apr 19 Dutch prime minister De Geer declares state of siege
• Apr 20 1st electron microscope demonstrated (RCA), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania [1]
• Apr 21 1st $64 Question, "Take It or Leave It," on CBS Radio
• Apr 22 Rear Admiral Joseph Taussig testifies before US Senate Naval Affairs Committee that war with Japan is inevitable
• Apr 23 Dance hall fires kills 198 in Natchez, Mississippi
• Apr 23 NY Yankees dedicate a plaque to Jacob Rupert

• Apr 28 Glenn Miller records "Pennsylvania 6-5000"
• Apr 28 SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) Rudolf Höss (not Hess, different Nazi) becomes commandant of concentration camp Auschwitz
• Apr 29 1st radio broadcast of "Young Dr Malone" on CBS
• Apr 29 Norwegian King Haakon & government flee to Britain
• Apr 29 Robert Sherwood's play "There Shall be No Night" premieres in NYC
• Apr 30 Air New Zealand then known as TEAL makes its inaugural flight with a flight from Auckland to Sydney. Later becomes 1st airline in the world to boil hot water in-flight to offer customers hot tea and coffee.
• Apr 30 Brooklyn Dodger Tex Carleton no-hits Cincinnati Reds, 3-0
• May 1 140 Palestinian Jews die as German planes bomb their ship
• May 1 Summer Olympics (scheduled for Helsinki) are cancelled by the Finnish OC because of WWII
• May 4 21 "not neutral" Nazis & communists arrested in Netherlands
• May 5 Norwegian government-in-exile forms in London

• May 7 British House of Commons begins its Norway Debate on the conduct of the war after Germany invaded Norway - will lead to Winston Churchill becoming Prime Minister
• May 10 Dutch-Indies Governor Van Starkenborch proclaims end to state of siege

• May 10 World War II: The first German bombs of the war fall on England at Chilham and Petham, in Kent
• May 10 WWII: Battle of France - Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), Germany invades Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) and northern France, with Panzer tanks crossing through the Ardennes Forest
• May 11 NY World's Fair reopens
• May 12 French marines occupy St Maarten
• May 12 German tanks conquer Moerdijk bridges, Netherlands
• May 12 Nazi blitzkrieg and conquest of France begins with German forces crossing the Muese River
• May 13 British bomb factory at Breda, Netherlands

• May 13 German breakthrough at Grebbelinie
• May 13 Winston Churchill says "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" in his first speech as Prime Minister to British House of Commons
• May 14 Admiral Johannes Furstner, Royal Dutch Navy, departs to England

• May 14 British Local Defence Volunteers forms, an armed citizen militia designed to support the British Army during the Second World War. It is later renamed the Home Guard.
• May 14 German breakthrough at Sedan
• May 14 Lord Beaverbrook appointed British minister of aircraft production
• May 14 Nazis bomb Rotterdam (600-900 dead), Netherlands surrenders to Germany
• May 15 German armoured division moves into Northern France
• May 15 German troops occupy Amsterdam, General Winkelman surrenders
• May 15 Nazis capture General Dutch Persbureau (ANP)
• May 15 Richard and Maurice McDonald open the 1st McDonald's restaurant in San Bernardino, California
• May 15 USS Sailfish (SS-192) recommissioned, originally the Squalus
• May 16 British Premier Winston Churchill returns to London from Paris
• May 16 Nazis forbid non-professional auto workers
• May 17 Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium and begins invasion of France
• May 17 Nazis bombs Middelburg/B IJzerdrat begins illegal defiance
• May 18 WWII: German troops conquer Antwerp, Belgium
• May 19 Amsterdam time becomes MET (Middle European Time)

• May 20 German General Guderian's tanks reach the English Channel (British expeditionary army)
• May 20 Soccer team HZVV forms in Hoogeveen
• May 20 Trailing 7-1 in 9th to Pitts, Phils win 8-7
• May 21 AVRO chairman Willem Vogt fires all Jewish employees
• May 21 Battle of Arras: British and French Allied forces counterattack south of Arras, France, winning time to reinforce and foritfy the Channel Ports
• May 21 Paul Reynaud forms French government
• May 22 Dutch Premier De Geer begins working with Nazis
• May 22 UK Premier Winston Churchill flies to Paris to decide with General Maxime Weygand a strategy to save the city
• May 23 1st great dogfight between Spitfires and Luftwaffe
• May 24 1st night game at St Louis Sportsman Park (Indians 3, Browns 2)

• May 24 Dutch army demobilizes
• May 24 Dutch Queen Wilhelmina speaks on BBC radio
• May 24 German tanks reach Arras, France
• May 24 NY Giants swat Boston Bees, 8-1, in 1st night game at Polo Grounds, NYC
• May 25 German troops conquer Boulogne
• May 25 Golden Gate International Exposition reopens

• May 27 World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 97 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops
• May 28 Belgium surrenders to Germany, King Leopold III gives himself up
• May 28 British-French troops capture Narvik, Norway
• May 29 Adolf Kiefer swims world record 100 yards backstroke (58.8 sec)
• May 29 Arthur Seyss-Inquart installed as Reich commissar of The Hague, Netherlands
• May 29 In WWII, Germans capture Ostend & Ypres in Belgium and Lille in France
• May 31 British Major General Bernard Montgomery leaves Dunkirk
• May 31 Winston Churchill flies to Paris to meet with French Marshal Philippe Pétain who announces he is willing to make a separate peace with Germany
• Jun 1 Coffee & tea rationed in Holland
• Jun 1 Major General Bernard Montgomery returns to London
• Jun 1 Nazi occupiers kick Jews out of Dutch air guard
• Jun 2 Heavy German bombing on Dunkirk beach
• Jun 3 Last British and French troops evacuated from Dunkirk
• Jun 4 1st night game at Forbes Field (Pirates 14, Braves 2)
• Jun 4 1st NL night game at Sportsman's Park (Dodgers 10, Cardinals 1)
• Jun 4 British complete the "Miracle of Dunkirk" by evacuating 338,226 allied troops from France via a flotilla of over 800 vessels including Royal Navy destroyers, merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft and even lifeboats
• Jun 4 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivers his famous "We shall fight on the seas and oceans" speech to the UK House of Commons [1]
• Jun 5 A synthetic rubber tire exhibited in Akron, Ohio by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
• Jun 5 American Negro Theater organizes
• Jun 5 General Charles De Gaulle becomes French junior minister of Defense
• Jun 5 General Von Bock starts a German offensive in the Somme
• Jun 5 Governor of Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles refuse entry to Jewish refugees
• Jun 5 Netherlands rations petroleum
• Jun 5 WWII: Battle of France - Fall Rot (Case Red), Germany invaded northern France, crossing the River Somme
• Jun 7 British/French troops evacuate Narvik
• Jun 8 Discovery of element 93, neptunium, announced
• Jun 8 Last British troops leave Narvik, Norway
• Jun 9 General Charles de Gaulle's 1st meeting with Winston Churchill

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