Also Within This Year in History:
1941
After the surprise December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the U.S. entered World War II. Earlier in the year, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and, in one of many Nazi atrocities, executed 30,000 Jews in the Babi Yar massacre. In the U.S., Mount Rushmore was completed, Wonder Woman made her debut, “Citizen Kane” launched at the box office and General Mills introduced a new breakfast cereal called Cheerioats.
On January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses Congress in an effort to move the nation away from a foreign policy of neutrality. The president had watched with increasing…
One of Hollywood’s most famous clashes of the titans—an upstart “boy genius” filmmaker versus a furious 76‑year‑old newspaper tycoon—heats up on January 8, 1941, when William Randolph Hearst forbids any…
On this day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Lend‑Lease program is brought before the U.S. Congress for consideration. Roosevelt devised the Lend‑Lease program as a means of aiding Great Britain in…
On January 10, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt introduces the lend‑lease program to Congress. The plan was intended to help Britain beat back Hitler’s advance while keeping America only indirectly involved in…
James Joyce, widely regarded as Ireland’s greatest author, dies in Zurich, Switzerland, at the age of 58. One of the most brilliant and daring writers of the 20th century, Joyce’s…
On this day, British forces in East Africa, acting on information obtained by breaking the Italians’ coded messages, invade Italian‑occupied Eritrea‑a solid step towards victory in Africa. British Intelligence had…
On this day, British and Commonwealth forces enter the port at Tobruk, in Libya, and tens of thousands of Italian occupiers are taken prisoner. Italy declared war on Great Britain…
Charles A. Lindbergh, a national hero since his nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic, testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Lend‑Lease policy‑and suggests that the United States…
On February 5, 1941, Adolf Hitler scolds his Axis partner, Benito Mussolini, for his troops’ retreat in the face of British advances in Libya, demanding that the Duce command his…
German General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli, Libya, with the newly formed Afrika Korps, to reinforce the beleaguered Italians’ position. In January 1941, Adolf Hitler established the Afrika Korps for…
On this day, the southeastern European nation of Bulgaria joins the Axis powers by signing the Tripartite Pact. When the Second World War broke out, Bulgaria declared its neutrality. But…
The British navy raids a German position off the coast of Norway and inside the Arctic Circle—the Lofoten Islands. The raid, code name Operation Claymore, proved highly destructive of its…
On March 7, 1941, a British expeditionary force from North Africa lands in Greece. In October 1940, Mussolini’s army, already occupying Albania, invaded Greece in what proved to be a…
On this day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Lend‑Lease program, which provides money and materials for allies in the war, goes into effect. The Lend‑Lease program was devised by Roosevelt as…
A fast‑moving and severe blizzard hits North Dakota and Minnesota, killing 151 people, on this day in 1941. Weather forecasting and reporting made important advances following this disaster that would…
Italy attacks the British fleet at Souda Bay, Crete, using detachable warheads to sink a British cruiser. This was the first time manned torpedoes had been employed in naval warfare,…
Yugoslavia, despite an early declaration of neutrality, signs the Tripartite Pact, forming an alliance with Axis powers Germany, Italy and Japan. A unified nation of Yugoslavia, an uneasy federation of…
On this day, Andrew Browne Cunningham, Admiral of the British Fleet, commands the British Royal Navy’s destruction of three major Italian cruisers and two destroyers in the Battle of Cape…
On this day in 1941, workers start clearing trees from hundreds of acres of land near Ypsilanti, Michigan, some 30 miles west of Detroit, in preparation for the construction of…
On this day in 1941, German Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel, “the Desert Fox,” resumes his advance into Cyrenaica, modern‑day Libya, signaling the beginning of what nine days later will become…
