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.

Sunday 19:

World War II: British troops attack Italian-held Eritrea.

Tuesday 21:

World War II: Australian and British forces attack Tobruk, Libya.

Thursday 23:

Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.

Saturday 25:

Pope Pius XII elevates the Apostolic Vicariate of the Hawaiian Islands to the dignity of a diocese. It becomes the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.

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.

Monday 17:

In Washington, DC, the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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.

April 1941

Wednesday 02:

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

Thursday 03:

Hungarian and German troops march into Yugoslavia.

Sunday 06:

Germany invades Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Greece.

Sunday 13:

Pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed

Sunday 27:

World War II: German troops enter Athens.

May 1941

Thursday 01:

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

Monday 05:

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

Friday 09:

World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.

Wednesday 21:

World War II: 950 miles off the coast of Brazil, the freighter SS Robin Moor becomes the first United States ship sunk by a German U-boat.

Tuesday 27:

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

June 1941

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.

Tuesday 24:

Government of briefly independent Lithuania conducts its first meeting under prime minister Juozas Ambrazevičius

July 1941

Friday 04:

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

Saturday 05:

World War II: German troops reach the Dniepr River.

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.

Sunday 27:

Japanese troops occupy French Indo-China.

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.

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.

October 1941

Tuesday 07:

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

Wednesday 08:

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

Thursday 23:

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

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 26:

1941 - World War II: The Hull note ultimatum is delivered to Japan by the United States.

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).

Wednesday 10:

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

Thursday 11:

Germany and Italy declare war on the United States

Friday 12:

United States seizes French ship Normandie.