Explore 3967 historical events from 1940–1949.
Irene Tordoff Fritchie, Baroness Fritchie, DBE, known as Rennie Fritchie, was a British life peer who was a member of the House of Lords.
Rennie Fritchie, Baroness Fritchie, English civil servant and academic
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and air…
World War II: The Battle of Midway ends in American victory
The Aleutian Islands campaign was a military campaign fought between 3 June 1942 and 15 August 1943 on and around the Aleutian Islands, part of the US Territory of Alaska, in the A…
World War II: Aleutian Islands Campaign: Imperial Japanese soldiers begin occupying the American islands of Attu and Kis
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender in World War II. The Japan Maritime Self-D…
World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy submarines I-21 and I-24 shell the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle
The Lidice massacre was the complete destruction of the village of Lidice in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, which is now a part of the Czech Republic, in June 1942 on ord…
World War II: The Lidice massacre is perpetrated as a reprisal for the assassination of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydr
Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States, was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom…
World War II: The United States agrees to send Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union
Free France was a resistance government claiming to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic during World War II. Led by General Charl…
Free French Forces retreat from Bir Hakeim after having successfully delayed the Axis advance
Al-Aminul Karim Sultan Sallehuddin ibni Almarhum Sultan Badlishah is the 29th Sultan of Kedah since ascending to the throne in September 2017 upon the death of his elder half-broth…
Sallehuddin of Kedah, Sultan of Kedah
Jacques Jean Marie, Count Rogge was a Belgian sports administrator, former athlete, and physician, who served as the eighth president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) f…
Jacques Rogge, Belgian businessman (died 2021)
Clement Leroy "Butch" Otter is an American businessman and politician who served as the 32nd governor of Idaho from 2007 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was elected i…
Butch Otter, American soldier and politician, 32nd Governor of Idaho
The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered ar…
The Holocaust: Kazimierz Piechowski and three others, dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, steal an SS staff
The Axis capture of Tobruk, also known as the Fall of Tobruk and the Second Battle of Tobruk was part of the Western Desert campaign in Libya during the Second World War. The battl…
World War II: Tobruk falls to Italian and German forces; 33,000 Allied troops are taken prisoner
The Bombardment of Fort Stevens occurred in June 1942, in the American Theater and the Pacific Theater of World War II. The Imperial Japanese submarine I-25 fired on Fort Stevens, …
World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at Fort Stevens in one o
The U.S. Pledge of Allegiance is a patriotic recited verse that promises allegiance to the flag of the United States and the republic of the United States. The first version was wr…
The Pledge of Allegiance is formally adopted by U
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and air…
World War II: Germany's latest fighter aircraft, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF
Jean Ann Corston, Baroness Corston,, is a British politician and life peer who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bristol East from 1992 to 2005, during which time she served …
Jean Corston, Baroness Corston, English lawyer and politician
Vladimiro Ariel Dorfman is an Argentine-Chilean-American novelist, playwright, essayist, academic and human rights activist. A citizen of the United States since 2004, he has been …
Ariel Dorfman, Argentinian author, playwright, and academic
Norman Stewart Hughson Lamont, Baron Lamont of Lerwick, is a British politician and former Conservative MP for Kingston-upon-Thames. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1…
Norman Lamont, Scottish banker and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer
William John Terence Neill was a Northern Irish football player and manager. A centre-back, he captained and later managed Arsenal, guiding the club to a European final in 1980 and…
Terry Neill, Irish footballer and manager (died 2022)
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and air…
World War II: Nazi Germany starts its strategic summer offensive against the Soviet Union, codenamed Case Blue
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. World War II …
World War II: start of the First Battle of El Alamein.
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary…
The Australian Federal Government becomes the sole collector of income tax in Australia as State Income Tax is…
The siege of Sevastopol, also known as the defence of Sevastopol or the Battle for Sevastopol, was a military engagement that took place on the Eastern Front of the Second World Wa…
World War II: The 250-day Siege of Sevastopol in the Crimea ends when the city falls to Axis forces.
Annelies Marie Frank was a German-born Jewish diarist and Holocaust victim. She gained worldwide notability posthumously for keeping a diary documenting her life in hiding during t…
Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the "Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.