1941 History Timeline

Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Decades: 1890s - 1900s - 1910s - 1920s - 1930s - 1940s - 1950s - 1960s - 1970s - 1980s - 1990s

Years: 1936 - 1937 - 1938 - 1939 - 1940 - 1941 - 1942 - 1943 - 1944 - 1945 - 1946

Events

January 10 - Lend-Lease is introduced into the United States Congress.
January 19 - British troops attack Italian-held Eritrea.
January 21 - World War II: Australian and British forces attack Tobruk, Libya.
January 22 - World War II: The United Kingdom captures Tobruk from Nazi forces.
January 23 - Charles Lindbergh testifies before the United States Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
February 3 - World War II: The Nazis forcibly restore Pierre Laval to office in occupied Vichy, France.
February 4 - World War II: The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.
February 11 - World War II: Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli.
March 1 - World War II: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact thus joining the Axis powers.
March 1 - W47NV begins operations in Nashville, Tennessee becoming the first FM radio station.
March 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.
March 17 - In Washington, DC, the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
March 22 - Washington's Grand Coulee Dam begins to generate electricity.
March 25 - Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers
March 27 - Attack on Pearl Harbor: Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa arrives in Honolulu, Hawaii and begins to study the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor.
March 29 - World War II: Battle of Cape Matapan - Off the Peloponnesus coast in the Mediterranean, British naval forces defeat those of Italy sinking five warships. Battle started on March 27.
April 6 - World War II: Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
April - Russia and Japan sign a neutrality pact.
June 22 - World War II: Germany attacks the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, Finland sees an opportunity and launches the Continuation War.
November 14 - World War II: HMS Ark Royal is hit by German U-boat U-81 and sinks.
December 7, December 6 (in Japan standard time) - Japanese navy abruptly attacks the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor, thus drawing the United States into World War II.

John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford E. Berry developed the Atanasoff Berry Computer.
Ives and Stilwell prove that ions radiate at frequencies affected by their motion.
In Sweden, Victor Hasselblad forms the Hasselblad camera company.

Art, Culture & Fashion

1941 in film

Citizen Kane, starring Orson Welles
The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart
Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner

1941 in literature

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry

1941 in music

February 11 - 1st Gold record presented to Glenn Miller for Chattanooga Choo Choo.

1941 in television

April 30 - The FCC approves the NTSC standards of 525 lines and 30 frames per second, and authorizes commercial TV to begin on July 1.
May 2 - 10 television stations were granted commercial TV licenses (effective July 1). These stations were required to broadcast 15 hours per week. Bulova Watch Co., Sun Oil Co., Lever Bros. Co. and Procter & Gamble sign on as sponsors of the first commercial telecasts from WNBT in New York.
July 1 - Commercial TV authorized by the FCC.
July 1 - Ralph Edwards hosted the first game show broadcast on television, Truth Or Consequences, simulcast on radio and TV and sponsored by Ivory Soap. The first legal TV commercial in the United States for Bulova watches occurs at 2:29, superimposed over a test pattern.

Births

January 3 - Van Dyke Parks, musician, composer
January 4 - Henri Bergson, writer
January 5 - Miyazaki Hayao, Japanese film maker
January 5 - Grady Thomas, singer (P-Funk)
January 8 - Graham Chapman, comedian
January 14 - Faye Dunaway, actress
January 15 - Captain Beefheart, singer
January 18 - David Ruffin, singer (+ 1991)
January 21 - Richie Havens, musician
January 21 - Placido Domingo, opera singer
January 26 - Henry Jaglom, director
January 26 - Scott Glenn, actor
January 30 - Dick Cheney, politician
January 31 - Richard Gephardt, American politician
February 8 - Nick Nolte, actor
February 10 - Michael Apted, director
February 11 - Glenn Randall Jr, stuntman
February 11 - Jeremy Mackenzie, general
February 13 - Sigmar Polke, painter
February 17 - Julia McKenzie, actress
February 17 - Gene Pitney, singer
February 20 - Buffy Sainte-Marie, singer
February 27 - Paddy Ashdown, British politician
March 3 - Jutta Hoffmann, actress
March 4 - Adrian Lyne, director
March 6 - Willie Stargell, Baseball Hall of Famer
March 14 - Wolfgang Petersen, director, Das Boot
March 15 - Mike Love, musician ("The Beach Boys")
March 16 - Bernardo Bertolucci, film director
March 18 - Wilson Pickett, singer
April 6 - Hans W. GeissendÃ¶rfer, German film director
May 31 - Johnny Paycheck (singer)
June 5 - Martha Argerich, Argentinian pianist
June 27 - Krzysztof Kieslowski, film director
October 4 - Anne Rice, horror/fantasy writer
Richard Dawkins, British scientist
Bob Dylan, US poet and musician

Deaths

January 5 - Amy Johnson, aviator
January 10 - Joe Penner, comedian, actor
January 13 - James Joyce, writer
February 11 - Rudolf Hilferding, German economist, Minister of Finance
February 28 - King Alfonso XIII of Spain
March 6 - Gutzon Borglum, sculptor
March 8 - Sherwood Anderson, author
March 15 - Alexej von Jawlensky, Russian impressionist painter
March 28 - Virginia Woolf, writer
July 10 - Jelly Roll Morton - jazz musician & composer
August 31 - Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet (suicide)
August 7 - Rabindranath Tagore, author
Arthur Evans, archaeologist

Nobel Prizes

Physics - not awarded
Chemistry - not awarded
Medicine - not awarded
Literature - not awarded
Peace - not awarded

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