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

Tuesday 04:

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

Tuesday 11:

World War II: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan.

Tuesday 25:

Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers.

Friday 28:

In the Mediterranean Sea, British Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham leads the Royal Navy in the destruction of three major Italian battleships and two destroyers.

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.

Wednesday 02:

The radio program Life of Riley aired for the first time.

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

Thursday 01:

Cheerios is introduced as CheeriOats by the General Mills cereal company.

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 27:

World War II: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing 2,300 men.

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

Sunday 13:

World War II: Montenegrins start the first popular uprising in Europe against the Axis Powers (Crnogorski ustanak).

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

Monday 15:

The U.S. Attorney General rules that the Neutrality Act is not violated when U.S. ships carry war materiel to British territories, opening the door for the Lend-Lease Act.

Tuesday 16:

Concerned that Reza Pahlavi the Shah of Persia was about to align his petroleum-rich country with Germany during World War II, the United Kingdom and the USSR occupy Iran and forced him to resign in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

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.

Monday 29:

The Babi Yar massacre begins.

October 1941

Thursday 02:

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

Wednesday 08:

World War II: In their invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol.

Friday 17:

For the first time in World War II, a German submarine attacks an American ship

Thursday 30:

World War II: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.

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.

Saturday 08:

Albanian Communist Party founded.

Friday 14:

World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sinks due to torpedo damage from U 81 sustained on November 13.

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.

Wednesday 19:

World War II: The Royal Australian Navy cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran sink each other off the coast of Western Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians and about 77 German seamen.

December 1941

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).

Monday 08:

Holocaust: First Nazi use of gas vans on Jews, at the Chelmno camp near Lodz.

Wednesday 10:

Japanese forces land in the Philippines, capture Guam and sink the British ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse

Wednesday 17:

German siege of Sevastopol begins

Wednesday 24:

Wake Island is conquered by Japanese forces.