Events Date 1940 June | History by KabAstro

Miracle of Dunkirk

Jun 2 Heavy German bombing on Dunkirk beach

British troops await evacuation at Dunkirk

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

We Shall Fight on the Seas and Oceans

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

De Gaulle Junior Defense Minister

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 72nd Belmont: Fred A Smith aboard Bimelech wins in 2:29.6
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

44th US Men's Open

Jun 9 US Open Men's Golf, Canterbury GC: Lawson Little defeats Gene Sarazen by 3 strokes in an 18-hole playoff to win his only professional major title

Jun 10 Canada declares war on Italy
Jun 10 French government moves to Bordeaux
Jun 10 German "Dutch" Q-ship Atlantis sinks Norwegian tanker
Jun 10 German 5th Armoured division occupies Rouen
Jun 10 Italy declares war on France and Great Britain as part of its Axis alliance with Nazi Germany
Jun 10 Norway surrenders to Nazi Germany after 62 days of fighting
Jun 11 British Premier Winston Churchill flies to Orleans
Jun 11 Italy declares war on Allies
Jun 11 World War II: British forces bomb Genoa and Turin in Italy
Jun 11 World War II: First attack of the Italian Air force on the island of Malta
Jun 13 Paris evacuates before German advance

Auschwitz Camp Opens

Jun 14 Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp opens in Nazi controlled Poland with Polish POWs, later expanded to include civilian Jews, Roman Catholics, Gypsies and Soviet POWs (at least 1.1 million would die within its walls)

Jun 14 German forces enter Paris during WWII
Jun 14 German U-47 sinks airship Balmoral
Jun 15 38 Italian Fiat bombers bomb Luc-en-Province
Jun 15 Bread & flour rationed in Holland
Jun 15 German troops occupy Paris as French resistance to the German invasion crumbles
Jun 15 Soviet Army occupies Lithuania
Jun 16 Communist government installed in Lithuania
Jun 16 General De Gaulle arrives in Bordeaux
Jun 17 France asks Germany for terms of surrender in WW II
Jun 17 General De Gaulle departs Bordeaux for London
Jun 17 Germany occupiers ration bread in Holland
Jun 17 USSR occupies Estonia
Jun 17 World War II: sinking of the RMS Lancastria by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France
Jun 18 General Charles de Gaulle makes his first speech on the BBC to the French people, since arriving in London, an appeal to defy Nazi occupiers - regarded as the beginning of French Resistance during WWII
Jun 18 German occupiers slaughter cattle, pigs and chickens
Jun 18 Winston Churchill gives his "this was their finest hour" speech to the House of Commons urging perseverance in the war after the Dunkirk evacuation and the fall of France

Rommel Occupies Cherbourg

Jun 19 German 7th Armoured division under command of Rommel occupies Cherbourg

Germans Seize Dutch Assets

Jun 19 Hermann Goering orders seizure of Dutch horses, car, buses and ships

Louis TKOs Godoy

Jun 20 Joe Louis TKOs Arturo Godoy in 8 for heavyweight boxing title

Boxer and World Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis

Jun 21 German occupiers disband Dutch States-General/Council of State
Jun 21 The first successful west-to-east navigation of Northwest Passage begins at Vancouver, British Columbia
Jun 22 1st Dairy Queen restaurant opens in Joliet, Illinois
Jun 22 About 10,000 Afrikaner women march to the union buildings in protest of South Africa's involvement in WWII
Jun 22 France surrenders to Nazi Germany, with the northern half of the country occupied and the south established as the Nazi client state Vichy France
Jun 22 SS rounds up 31 German, Polish and Dutch Jews in Roermond, Netherlands

Hitler in Paris

Jun 23 After conquering France, Adolf Hitler visits Paris and views the Eiffel Tower and the grave of Napoleon Bonaparte

Jun 23 Marcel Louette seeks opposition group "White Brigade" on Antwerp
Jun 23 RAF bombs Schiphol, Netherlands
Jun 24 France signs an armistice with Italy during WW II
Jun 26 End of USSR experimental calendar; Gregorian readopted 6/27
Jun 27 Soviet Army attacks Romania

Gregory Conquers Julius Caesar

Jun 27 USSR returns to the Gregorian calendar, using Sunday as a rest day, after 6 years using a Russian six-day calendar

Pope Gregory XIII with the calendar that was to make his name

Jun 28 "Quiz Kids?" premieres on radio
Jun 28 Romania cedes Bessarabia to Soviet Union
Jun 29 Anjer (Carnation) Day-anniversary of Prince Bernhard
Jun 29 Batman Comics, mobsters rub out a circus highwire team known as the Flying Graysons, leaving their son Dick (Robin) an orphan
Jun 29 US passes Alien Registration Act requiring Aliens to register
Jun 30 "Brenda Starr, Reporter", 1st cartoon strip by a woman, Dale [Dalia] Messick, begins as a comic-book supplement to Chicago's Sunday Tribune
Jun 30 German troops begin the invasion of the undefended Channel Islands
Jun 30 US Fish and Wildlife Service forms