Important Historical Events of the year 1941, Year 1941 in History
List of 1941 Major News Events in History, Most Important Historical Events in 1941
What happened in the year 1941?
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 2, 1941 | World War II: The Cardiff Blitz severely damages the cathedral in Cardiff, Wales. |
| January 5, 1941 | Amy Johnson, a 37-year-old pilot and the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia, disappears after bailing out of her plane over the River Thames, and is presumed dead. |
| January 6, 1941 | United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms speech in the State of the Union address. |
| January 9, 1941 | World War II: First flight of the Avro Lancaster. |
| January 10, 1941 | World War II: The Greek army captures Kleisoura. |
| January 17, 1941 | Franco-Thai War: Vichy French forces inflict a decisive defeat over the Royal Thai Navy. |
| January 18, 1941 | World War II: British troops launch a general counter-offensive against Italian East Africa. |
| January 19, 1941 | World War II: HMS Greyhound and other escorts of convoy AS-12 sink Italian submarine Neghelli with all hands 64 kilometres (40 mi) northeast of Falkonera. |
| January 20, 1941 | A German officer is killed in Bucharest, Romania, sparking a rebellion and pogrom by the Iron Guard, killing 125 Jews and 30 soldiers. |
| January 21, 1941 | Sparked by the murder of a German officer in Bucharest, Romania the day before, members of the Iron Guard engaged in a rebellion and pogrom killing 125 Jews. |
| January 22, 1941 | World War II: British and Commonwealth troops capture Tobruk from Italian forces during Operation Compass. |
| January 23, 1941 | Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler. |
| January 25, 1941 | 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. |
| January 28, 1941 | Franco-Thai War: Final air battle of the conflict. A Japanese-mediated armistice goes into effect later in the day. |
| February 4, 1941 | The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops. |
| February 5, 1941 | World War II: Allied forces begin the Battle of Keren to capture Keren, Eritrea. |
| February 9, 1941 | World War II: Bombing of Genoa: The Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa, Italy, is struck by a bomb which fails to detonate. |
| February 23, 1941 | Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg. |
| February 25, 1941 | The outlawed Communist Party of the Netherlands organises a general strike in German-occupied Amsterdam to protest against Nazi persecution of Dutch Jews. |
| March 1, 1941 | World War II: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact, allying itself with the Axis powers. |
| March 2, 1941 | World War II: First German military units enter Bulgaria after it joins the Axis Pact. |
| March 4, 1941 | World War II: The United Kingdom launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands; the first large scale British Commando raid. |
| March 7, 1941 | Günther Prien and the crew of German submarine U-47, one of the most successful U-boats of World War II, disappear without a trace. |
| March 11, 1941 | World War II: United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan. |
| March 16, 1941 | Operation Appearance takes place to re-establish British Somaliland |
| March 25, 1941 | The Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers with the signing of the Tripartite Pact. |
| March 27, 1941 | World War II: Yugoslav Air Force officers topple the pro-Axis government in a bloodless coup. |
| March 28, 1941 | World War II: First day of the Battle of Cape Matapan in Greece between the navies of the United Kingdom and Australia, and the Royal Italian navy. |
| March 29, 1941 | The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement goes into effect at 03:00 local time. |
| March 29, 1941 | World War II: British Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy forces defeat those of the Italian Regia Marina off the Peloponnesian coast of Greece in the Battle of Cape Matapan. |
| April 1, 1941 | Fântâna Albă massacre: Between 200 and 2,000 Romanian civilians are killed by Soviet Border Troops. |
| April 1, 1941 | A military coup in Iraq overthrows the regime of 'Abd al-Ilah and installs Rashid Ali al-Gaylani as Prime Minister. |
| April 6, 1941 | World War II: Nazi Germany launches Operation 25 (the invasion of Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and Operation Marita (the invasion of Greece). |
| April 10, 1941 | World War II: The Axis powers establish the Independent State of Croatia. |
| April 13, 1941 | A pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed. |
| April 14, 1941 | World War II: German and Italian forces attack Tobruk, Libya. |
| April 15, 1941 | In the Belfast Blitz, two hundred bombers of the German Luftwaffe attack Belfast, killing around one thousand people. |
| April 16, 1941 | World War II: The Italian-German Tarigo convoy is attacked and destroyed by British ships. |
| April 16, 1941 | World War II: The Nazi-affiliated Ustaše is put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis powers after Operation 25 is effected. |
| April 17, 1941 | World War II: The invasion of Yugoslavia is completed when it signs an armistice with Germany and Italy. |
| April 23, 1941 | World War II: The Greek government and King George II evacuate Athens before the invading Wehrmacht. |
| April 27, 1941 | World War II: German troops enter Athens. |
| April 28, 1941 | The Ustaše massacre nearly 200 Serbs in the village of Gudovac, the first massacre of their genocidal campaign against Serbs of the Independent State of Croatia. |
| May 2, 1941 | Following the coup d'état against Iraq Crown Prince 'Abd al-Ilah earlier that year, the United Kingdom launches the Anglo-Iraqi War to restore him to power. |
| May 5, 1941 | Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa; the country commemorates the date as Liberation Day or Patriots' Victory Day. |
| May 6, 1941 | At California's March Field, Bob Hope performs his first USO show. |
| May 6, 1941 | The first flight of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. |
| May 8, 1941 | World War II: The German Luftwaffe launches a bombing raid on Nottingham and Derby. |
| May 9, 1941 | World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages. |
| May 10, 1941 | World War II: The House of Commons in London is damaged by the Luftwaffe in an air raid. |
| May 10, 1941 | World War II: Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland to try to negotiate a peace deal between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany. |
| May 12, 1941 | Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin. |
| May 13, 1941 | World War II: Yugoslav royal colonel Dragoljub Mihailović starts fighting against German occupation troops, beginning the Serbian resistance. |
| May 15, 1941 | First flight of the Gloster E.28/39 the first British and Allied jet aircraft. |
| May 20, 1941 | World War II: Battle of Crete: German paratroops invade Crete. |
| May 22, 1941 | During the Anglo-Iraqi War, British troops take Fallujah. |
| May 24, 1941 | World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks then-pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen. |
| May 27, 1941 | World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency". |
| May 27, 1941 | World War II: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic, killing almost 2,100 men. |
| May 30, 1941 | World War II: Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas climb the Athenian Acropolis and tear down the German flag. |
| May 31, 1941 | Anglo-Iraqi War: The United Kingdom completes the re-occupation of Iraq and returns 'Abd al-Ilah to power as regent for Faisal II. |
| June 1, 1941 | World War II: The Battle of Crete ends as Crete capitulates to Germany. |
| June 1, 1941 | The Farhud, a massive pogrom in Iraq, starts and as a result, many Iraqi Jews are forced to leave their homes. |
| June 2, 1941 | World War II: German paratroopers murder Greek civilians in the villages of Kondomari and Alikianos. |
| June 3, 1941 | World War II: The Wehrmacht razes the Greek village of Kandanos to the ground and murders 180 of its inhabitants. |
| June 5, 1941 | World War II: Four thousand Chongqing residents are asphyxiated in a bomb shelter during the Bombing of Chongqing. |
| June 8, 1941 | World War II: The Allies commence the Syria |
| June 14, 1941 | June deportation: the first major wave of Soviet mass deportations and murder of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, begins. |
| June 22, 1941 | World War II: Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. |
| June 23, 1941 | The Lithuanian Activist Front declares independence from the Soviet Union and forms the Provisional Government of Lithuania; it lasts only briefly as the Nazis will occupy Lithuania a few weeks later. |
| June 25, 1941 | World War II: The Continuation War between the Soviet Union and Finland, supported by Nazi Germany, began. |
| June 26, 1941 | World War II: Soviet planes bomb Kassa, Hungary (now Košice, Slovakia), giving Hungary the impetus to declare war the next day. |
| June 27, 1941 | Romanian authorities launch one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history in the city of Iași, resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews. |
| June 27, 1941 | World War II: German troops capture the city of Białystok during Operation Barbarossa. |
| July 4, 1941 | Nazi crimes against the Polish nation: Nazi troops massacre Polish scientists and writers in the captured Ukrainian city of Lviv. |
| July 4, 1941 | World War II: The Burning of the Riga synagogues: The Great Choral Synagogue in German-occupied Riga is burnt with 300 Jews locked in the basement. |
| July 5, 1941 | World War II: Operation Barbarossa: German troops reach the Dnieper river. |
| July 6, 1941 | The German army launches its offensive to encircle several Soviet armies near Smolensk. |
| July 7, 1941 | The US occupation of Iceland replaces the UK's occupation. |
| July 10, 1941 | Jedwabne pogrom: Massacre of Polish Jews living in and near the village of Jedwabne. |
| July 11, 1941 | The Northern Rhodesian Labour Party holds its first congress in Nkana. |
| July 13, 1941 | World War II: Montenegrins begin the Trinaestojulski ustanak (Thirteenth Uprising), a popular revolt against the Axis powers. |
| July 15, 1941 | The Holocaust: Nazi Germany begins the deportation of 100,000 Jews from the occupied Netherlands to extermination camps. |
| July 16, 1941 | Joe DiMaggio hits safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as an MLB record. |
| July 20, 1941 | Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and names Lavrentiy Beria its chief. |
| July 26, 1941 | World War II: Battle of Grand Harbour, British forces on Malta destroy an attack by the Italian Decima Flottiglia MAS. Fort St Elmo Bridge covering the harbour is demolished in the process. |
| July 26, 1941 | World War II: In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, the United States, Britain and the Netherlands freeze all Japanese assets and cut off oil shipments. |
| July 31, 1941 | The 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." |
| July 31, 1941 | World War II: The Battle of Smolensk concludes with Germany capturing about 300,000 Soviet Red Army prisoners. |
| August 14, 1941 | World War II: Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt sign the Atlantic Charter of war stating postwar aims. |
| August 15, 1941 | Corporal Josef Jakobs is executed by firing squad at the Tower of London at 07:12, making him the last person to be executed at the Tower for espionage. |
| August 19, 1941 | Germany and Romania sign the Tiraspol Agreement, rendering the region of Transnistria under control of the latter. |
| August 22, 1941 | World War II: German troops begin the Siege of Leningrad. |
| August 24, 1941 | The Holocaust: Adolf Hitler orders the cessation of Nazi Germany's systematic T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and the handicapped due to protests, although killings continue for the remainder of the war. |
| August 25, 1941 | World War II: Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran: The United Kingdom and the Soviet Union jointly stage an invasion of the Imperial State of Iran. |
| August 29, 1941 | World War II: Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, is occupied by Nazi Germany following an occupation by the Soviet Union. |
| August 30, 1941 | The Tighina Agreement, a treaty regarding administration issues of the Transnistria Governorate, is signed between Germany and Romania. |
| August 31, 1941 | World War II: Serbian paramilitary forces defeat Germans in the Battle of Loznica. |
| September 3, 1941 | The Holocaust: Karl Fritzsch, deputy camp commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, experiments with the use of Zyklon B in the gassing of Soviet POWs. |
| September 4, 1941 | World War II: A German submarine makes the first attack of the war against a United States warship, the USS Greer. |
| September 5, 1941 | Whole territory of Estonia is occupied by Nazi Germany. |
| September 8, 1941 | World War II: German forces begin the Siege of Leningrad. |
| September 11, 1941 | Construction begins on The Pentagon. |
| September 11, 1941 | Charles Lindbergh's Des Moines Speech accusing the British, Jews and FDR's administration of pressing for war with Germany. |
| September 17, 1941 | World War II: A decree of the Soviet State Committee of Defense restores compulsory military training. |
| September 17, 1941 | World War II: Soviet forces enter Tehran during the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. |
| September 20, 1941 | The Holocaust in Lithuania: Lithuanian Nazis and local police begin a mass execution of 403 Jews in Nemenčinė. |
| September 22, 1941 | The Holocaust in Ukraine: On the Jewish New Year Day, the German SS murders 6,000 Jews in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. Those are the survivors of the previous killings that took place a few days earlier in which about 24,000 Jews were executed. |
| September 27, 1941 | The Greek National Liberation Front is established with Georgios Siantos as acting leader. |
| September 27, 1941 | The SS Patrick Henry is launched, becoming the first of more than 2,700 Liberty ships. |
| September 28, 1941 | World War II: The Drama uprising against the Bulgarian occupation in northern Greece begins. |
| September 28, 1941 | Ted Williams achieves a .406 batting average for the season, and becomes the last major league baseball player to bat .400 or better. |
| September 29, 1941 | During World War II, German forces, with the aid of local Ukrainian collaborators, begin the two-day Babi Yar massacre. |
| September 30, 1941 | World War II: The Babi Yar massacre comes to an end. |
| October 4, 1941 | Norman Rockwell's Willie Gillis character debuts on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. |
| October 8, 1941 | World War II: During the preliminaries of the Battle of Rostov, German forces reach the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol. |
| October 9, 1941 | A coup in Panama declares Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango the new president. |
| October 11, 1941 | Beginning of the National Liberation War of Macedonia. |
| October 17, 1941 | World War II: The USS Kearny becomes the first U.S. Navy vessel to be torpedoed by a U-boat. |
| October 20, 1941 | World War II: Thousands of civilians in German-occupied Serbia are murdered in the Kragujevac massacre. |
| October 22, 1941 | World War II: French resistance member Guy Môquet and 29 other hostages are executed by the Germans in retaliation for the death of a German officer. |
| October 23, 1941 | The Holocaust: Nazi Germany prohibits Jews from emigrating, including in its occupied territories. |
| October 29, 1941 | The Holocaust: In the Kaunas Ghetto, over 10,000 Jews are shot by German occupiers at the Ninth Fort, a massacre known as the "Great Action". |
| October 30, 1941 | President Roosevelt approves $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Allied nations. |
| October 30, 1941 | Holocaust: Fifteen hundred Jews from Pidhaytsi are sent by Nazis to Bełżec extermination camp. |
| October 31, 1941 | After 14 years of work, Mount Rushmore is completed. |
| October 31, 1941 | World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 U.S. Navy sailors. It is the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by enemy action in WWII. |
| November 1, 1941 | 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 7, 1941 | World War II: Soviet hospital ship Armenia is sunk by German planes while evacuating refugees and wounded military and staff of several Crimean hospitals. It is estimated that over 5,000 people died in the sinking. |
| November 12, 1941 | World War II: Temperatures around Moscow drop to −12 °C (10 °F) as the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city. |
| November 12, 1941 | World War II: The Soviet cruiser Chervona Ukraina is destroyed during the Battle of Sevastopol. |
| November 13, 1941 | World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is torpedoed by U-81, sinking the following day. |
| November 14, 1941 | World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sinks due to torpedo damage from the German submarine U-81 sustained on November 13. |
| November 14, 1941 | World War II: German troops, aided by local auxiliaries, murder nine thousand residents of the Słonim Ghetto in a single day. |
| November 19, 1941 | World War II: Battle between HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran. The two ships sink each other off the coast of Western Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians and about 77 German seamen. |
| November 24, 1941 | World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French Forces. |
| November 25, 1941 | HMS Barham is sunk by a German torpedo during World War II. |
| November 26, 1941 | World War II: The Hull note is given to the Japanese ambassador, demanding that Japan withdraw from China and French Indochina, in return for which the United States would lift economic sanctions. On the same day, Japan's 1st Air Fleet departs Hitokappu Bay for Hawaii. |
| November 30, 1941 | The Holocaust: The SS-Einsatzgruppen round up 11,000 Jews from the Riga Ghetto and kill them in the Rumbula massacre. |
| December 1, 1941 | World War II: Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives his tacit approval to the decision of the imperial council to initiate war against the United States. |
| December 1, 1941 | World War II: Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol. |
| December 5, 1941 | World War II: In the Battle of Moscow, Georgy Zhukov launches a massive Soviet counter-attack against the German army. |
| December 5, 1941 | World War II: Great Britain declares war on Finland, Hungary and Romania. |
| December 6, 1941 | World War II: Camp X opens in Canada to begin training Allied secret agents for the war. |
| December 7, 1941 | World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (For Japan's near-simultaneous attacks on Eastern Hemisphere targets, see December 8.) |
| December 8, 1941 | World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares December 7 to be "a date which will live in infamy", after which the U.S. declares war on Japan. |
| December 8, 1941 | World War II: Japanese forces simultaneously invade Shanghai International Settlement, Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. (See December 7 for the concurrent attack on Pearl Harbor in the Western Hemisphere.) |
| December 9, 1941 | World War II: China, Cuba, Guatemala, and the Philippine Commonwealth declare war on Germany and Japan. |
| December 9, 1941 | World War II: The American 19th Bombardment Group attacks Japanese ships off the coast of Vigan, Luzon. |
| December 10, 1941 | World War II: The Royal Navy capital ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse are sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bombers near British Malaya. |
| December 10, 1941 | World War II: Battle of the Philippines: Imperial Japanese forces under the command of General Masaharu Homma land on Luzon. |
| December 11, 1941 | World War II: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, following the Americans' declaration of war on the Empire of Japan in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States, in turn, declares war on them. |
| December 11, 1941 | World War II: Poland declares war on the Empire of Japan. |
| December 11, 1941 | World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy suffers its first loss of surface vessels during the Battle of Wake Island. |
| December 12, 1941 | World War II: Fifty-four Japanese A6M Zero fighters raid Batangas Field, Philippines. Jesús Villamor and four Filipino fighter pilots fend them off; César Basa is killed. |
| December 12, 1941 | The Holocaust: Adolf Hitler declares the imminent extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery. |
| December 15, 1941 | The Holocaust in Ukraine: German troops murder over 15,000 Jews at Drobytsky Yar, a ravine southeast of the city of Kharkiv. |
| December 19, 1941 | World War II: Adolf Hitler appoints himself as head of the Oberkommando des Heeres. |
| December 19, 1941 | World War II: Limpet mines placed by Italian divers heavily damage HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth in Alexandria harbour. |
| December 20, 1941 | World War II: First battle of the American Volunteer Group, better known as the "Flying Tigers", in Kunming, China. |
| December 21, 1941 | World War II: A Thai-Japanese Pact of Alliance is signed. |
| December 23, 1941 | World War II: After 15 days of fighting, the Imperial Japanese Army occupies Wake Island. |
| December 24, 1941 | World War II: Kuching is conquered by Japanese forces. |
| December 24, 1941 | World War II: Benghazi is conquered by the British Eighth Army. |
| December 25, 1941 | Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, appointed commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet on December 17,[32] arrives at Pearl Harbor. |
| December 25, 1941 | World War II: Battle of Hong Kong ends, beginning the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. |
| December 25, 1941 | Admiral Émile Muselier seizes the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which become the first part of France to be liberated by the Free French Forces. |
| December 26, 1941 | U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in the United States. |
| December 28, 1941 | World War II: Operation Anthropoid, the plot to assassinate high-ranking Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich, commences. |