1941 - What happened in 1941 ?

January 1941

Thursday 02:

The U.S. government announces its Liberty ship program with a stated goal of building 200 freighters. Over 2,700 ships will eventually be constructed by the end of the war.

Monday 06:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address.

Friday 10:

Lend-Lease is introduced into the U.S. Congress.

Wednesday 22:

World War II: The United Kingdom captures Tobruk from Nazi forces.

Monday 27:

World War II: Fighting at Derna, Libya, begins Following the capture of Tobruk 2 brigades of the 6th Australian Division under Major General Iven Mackay pursued the Italians westwards and encountered an Italian rear guard at Derna.

February 1941

Monday 03:

World War II: The Nazis forcibly restore Pierre Laval to office in occupied Vichy, France.

Tuesday 04:

World War II: The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.

Tuesday 11:

First Gold record presented to Glenn Miller for "Chattanooga Choo Choo".

Wednesday 19:

World War II: The Deutsches Afrikakorps, the corps-level headquarters controlling the German Panzer divisions in North Africa, was formed.

March 1941

Saturday 01:

W47NV (now known as WSM-FM) begins operations in Nashville, Tennessee becoming the first FM radio station in the U.S..

Tuesday 04:

Britain launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands, during World War II.

Saturday 22:

Washington's Grand Coulee Dam begins to generate electricity.

Tuesday 25:

Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers.

Saturday 29:

World War II: British Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy forces intercept those of the Italian Regia Marina off the Peloponnesus coast of Greece in the Battle of Cape Matapan.

April 1941

Tuesday 01:

The Blockade Runner Badge for German navy is instituted.

Thursday 03:

Hungarian and German troops march into Yugoslavia.

Sunday 06:

Germany invades Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Greece.

Thursday 17:

World War II: The Kingdom of Yugoslavia surrenders to Germany.

Sunday 27:

World War II: German troops enter Athens.

May 1941

Monday 05:

Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; this date has been since commemorated as Liberation Day.

Tuesday 06:

At California's March Field Bob Hope performs his first USO show.

Saturday 10:

World War II: Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland in order to try and negotiate a peace deal between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany.

Thursday 15:

Baseball player Joe DiMaggio starts his record-breaking 56-game hitting streak.

Tuesday 20:

World War II: Battle of Crete – German paratroops invade Crete.

June 1941

Sunday 01:

World War II: Battle of Crete ends as Crete capitulates to Germany.

Sunday 08:

World War II: Allies invade Syria and Lebanon.

Saturday 14:

Soviet mass deportations and murder of Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians begun.

Sunday 22:

The Lithuanian 1941 independence begins

Monday 23:

Lithuanian Activist Front initiates Lithuanian 1941 independence from the Soviet Union; it lasted only briefly as the Nazis occupied Lithuania a few weeks later.

July 1941

Friday 04:

Mass murder of Polish scientists and writers, committed by Nazi Germans in captured Polish city of Lwów.

Sunday 20:

Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and names Lavrenti Beria its chief.

Saturday 26:

World War II: In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.

Sunday 27:

Japanese troops occupy French Indo-China.

Thursday 31:

Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."

August 1941

Friday 01:

The first Jeep is produced.

Thursday 14:

Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt sign the Atlantic Charter of war stating postwar aims

Monday 18:

Adolf Hitler orders a temporary halt to Nazi Germany's systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and handicapped due to protests.

Friday 22:

World War II: German troops reach Leningrad, leading to the siege of Leningrad

Saturday 30:

Siege of Leningrad begins.

September 1941

Saturday 06:

Holocaust: The requirement to wear the Star of David with the word Jew inscribed, is extended to all Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas.

Monday 08:

World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins. German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad. Stalin orders the Volga Deutsche deported to Siberia.

Thursday 11:

World War II: US Navy ordered to attack German U-boats.

Tuesday 23:

The first gas experiments are conducted at Auschwitz.

Saturday 27:

The SS Patrick Henry is launched becoming the first of more that 2,700 Liberty ships.

October 1941

Thursday 02:

World War II: In Operation Typhoon, Germany begins an all-out offensive against Moscow.

Tuesday 07:

German army occupies Viarma, U.S.S.R.

Tuesday 21:

World War II: Germans rampage in Yugoslavia, killing thousands of civilians.

Thursday 23:

World War II: Georgy Zhukov assumes command of Red Army efforts to stop the German advance into Russia.

Friday 31:

American photographer Ansel Adams takes a picture of a moonrise over the town of Hernandez, New Mexico that would become one of the most famous images in the history of photography.

November 1941

Thursday 06:

World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule. He states that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, that the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers (a wild exaggeration) and that Soviet victory was near.

Wednesday 12:

World War II: Temperatures around Moscow drop to -12 ° C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.

Thursday 13:

World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is torpedoed by U 81, she sinks on November 14.

Saturday 15:

SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the arrest and deportation to concentration camps of all homosexuals in Germany, with the exception of certain top Nazi officials.

Friday 21:

The radio program King Biscuit Time is broadcast for the first time (it would later become the longest running daily radio broadcast in history and the most famous live blues radio program).

December 1941

Monday 01:

World War II: Mayor of New York City, Fiorello LaGuardia, and the director of the Office of Civilian Defense, sign an order creating the Civil Air Patrol.

Friday 05:

The nonfiction book Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck is published (Steinbeck used knowledge gained writing this book to develop the marine biologist character Doc in Cannery Row).

Thursday 11:

Germany and Italy declare war on the United States

Wednesday 24:

Wake Island is conquered by Japanese forces.

Thursday 25:

Hong Kong surrenders to the Japanese.