What happened in 1941
75 entries recorded for 1941, listed by date. That was 85 years ago.
1941 at a glance
- Years ago
- 85 (as of 2026)
- Century
- 20th century
- Decade
- 1940s
- Generation born
- Silent Generation
- Entries here
- 75
- Breakdown
- 75 historical events
January
- January 2
World War II
Second World War: Llandaff Cathedral (pictured) in Cardiff, Wales, was severely damaged by German bombing during the Cardiff Blitz.
- January 3
World War II
Second World War: As part of Operation Compass, Australian and United Kingdom forces attacked Italian forces at the Battle of Bardia in Egypt.
- January 5
World War II
Second World War: Australian and British troops defeated Italian forces in Bardia, Libya, the first battle of the war in which an Australian Army formation took part.
- January 6
State of the Union
During his State of the Union address, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt presented his Four Freedoms (composite poster depicted) as fundamental freedoms that all people ought to enjoy.
- January 10
Greco-Italian War
Greco-Italian War: The Greek army captured the strategically important Klisura Pass in Albania.
- January 10
World War II
World War II: The Greek army captures Kleisoura.
- January 20
Bucharest
A German officer is killed in Bucharest, Romania, sparking a rebellion and pogrom by the Iron Guard, killing 125 Jews and 30 soldiers.
- January 28
World War II
World War II: About three hours after Thai bombers raided Sisophon, a ceasefire paused hostilities in the Franco-Thai War.
February
- February 3
World War II
World War II: Free French and British forces began the Battle of Keren to capture the strategic town of Keren in Italian East Africa.
- February 7
Lunca massacre
Soviet border guards opened fire on civilians attempting to cross the border from the Soviet Union to Romania near Lunca, killing several hundred people.
- February 10
Operation Colossus
In the first airborne operation undertaken by the British military, a small force of paratroopers landed near Calitri, Italy, to destroy an aqueduct.
- February 23
Plutonium
Plutonium was first chemically identified by chemist Glenn T. Seaborg and his team at the University of California, Berkeley.
- February 25
Communist Party of the Netherlands
The outlawed Communist Party of the Netherlands organises a general strike in German-occupied Amsterdam to protest against Nazi persecution of Dutch Jews.
March
- March 4
World War II
Second World War: British Commandos successfully executed a raid on the Lofoten Islands in German-occupied Norway.
- March 7
World War II
World War II: 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 7
German submarine U-47 (1938)
The German submarine U-47, one of the most successful U-boats of World War II, disappeared with 45 men on board.
- March 16
World War II
World War II: Operation Appearance took place to re-establish British Somaliland in Africa.
- March 25
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers with the signing of the Tripartite Pact.
- March 27
World War II
World War II: A group of Serbian-nationalist officers of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force carried out a coup d'état after Yugoslavia joined the Axis powers.
- March 29
North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement
The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement to define technical standards for AM band radio stations came into effect.
- March 29
World War II
Second World War: British and Australian ships defeated Italian Regia Marina vessels at the Battle of Cape Matapan.
April
- April 1
Fântâna Albă massacre
Soviet border guards opened fire on civilians attempting to cross the border from the Soviet Union to Romania near Fântâna Albă, killing between 44 and 3,000 people.
- April 6
World War II
World War II: The Luftwaffe began Operation Retribution, bombing the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade in retaliation for a coup d'état that overthrew the government that had signed the Tripartite Pact.
- April 10
World War II
World War II: The Axis powers establish the Independent State of Croatia.
- April 15
World War II
World War II: In the Belfast Blitz, 200 bombers of the German Luftwaffe attack Belfast, killing some 1,000 people.
- April 26
Boris Kidrič
Boris Kidrič and Edvard Kardelj founded the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation, the main anti-fascist Slovene civil-resistance and political organization during World War II.
- April 28
World War II
World War II: Presaging a campaign of genocide against the Serbs of Croatia, around 190 people were massacred by members of the Ustaše movement in Gudovac.
May
- May 1
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane, a widely acclaimed film by actor and director Orson Welles, premiered.
- May 6
Bob Hope
American entertainer Bob Hope performed his first show with the United Service Organizations, beginning a 50-year involvement with them.
- May 10
World War II
World War II: German Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess (pictured) parachuted into Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the British government.
- May 10
Rudolf Hess
World War II: Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland to try to negotiate a peace deal between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany.
- May 10
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
World War II: The House of Commons in London is damaged by the Luftwaffe in an air raid.
- May 12
Konrad Zuse
German engineer Konrad Zuse presented the Z3, the first working programmable and fully automatic computer, to an audience of scientists in Berlin.
- May 20
World War II
World War II: German paratroopers began the Battle of Heraklion on the island of Crete, capturing the airfield and port in Heraklion ten days later.
- May 24
World War II
Second World War: The German battleship Bismarck sank the British battlecruiser Hood at the Battle of the Denmark Strait.
- May 27
World War II
World War II: The German battleship Bismarck was sunk by gun and torpedo fire by the British battleships HMS Rodney and HMS King George V and supporting cruisers.
- May 31
World War II
World War II: German forces dropped four bombs on neutral Ireland, killing 28 people and damaging Áras an Uachtaráin, the residence of the President of Ireland.
June
- June 3
World War II
World War II: In reprisal for the participation of the local population in the Battle of Crete, the German Wehrmacht destroyed the village of Kandanos, Greece, and killed about 180 of its inhabitants.
- June 5
Second Sino-Japanese War
Second Sino-Japanese War: About 4,000 people died of asphyxiation in Chongqing when the tunnel in which they were hiding became blocked during a raid in the five-year bombing campaign.
- June 8
World War II
World War II: The Allies commenced the Syria–Lebanon campaign against Vichy French possessions in the Levant.
- June 22
World War II
World War II: German minister of foreign affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop presented a declaration of war to the Soviet ambassador Vladimir Dekanozov in Berlin.
July
- July 2
Schutzstaffel
A German SS unit arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania, and began the systematic execution of up to 100,000 people over the next three years.
- July 4
The Holocaust
The Holocaust: During the German occupation of Latvia, a number of synagogues in Riga were set on fire, killing many Jews who were confined within.
- July 4
Aktion AB
German AB-Aktion in Poland: After capturing Lwów, the Nazis executed professors of the University of Lwów along with their families.
- July 6
World War II
Second World War: After a three-month siege, the Italian garrison of Saïo (in modern-day Ethiopia) surrendered to Belgian, British and Ethiopian troops.
- July 10
The Holocaust
The Holocaust: Ethnic Poles murdered at least 300 Jewish residents of Jedwabne in German-occupied Poland.
- July 31
The Holocaust
The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring authorised SS officer Reinhard Heydrich to handle preparations for the "Final Solution of the Jewish question".
August
- August 14
Dominion of Newfoundland
After a secret meeting in Newfoundland, British prime minister Winston Churchill and U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (both pictured) issued the Atlantic Charter, establishing a vision for a post–World War II world.
- August 15
Josef Jakobs
Josef Jakobs, a German spy, became the last person executed at the Tower of London.
- August 15
Deportation of Soviet Germans (1941–1942)
Decree for the mass expulsion of ethnic Germans from Crimea issued by the Soviet government.
- August 24
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler ordered the suspension of the T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and disabled, although killings continued in secret for the remainder of World War II.
- August 31
World War II
World War II: A detachment of Chetniks captured the town of Loznica in German-occupied Serbia.
September
- September 3
Deportation of Soviet Germans (1941–1942)
The mass expulsion of Soviet Germans from the Volga German ASSR began.
- September 11
Des Moines, Iowa
In Des Moines, Iowa, American aviator Charles Lindbergh delivered an antisemitic speech (reporting pictured) accusing Jews of controlling the media and manipulating the United States into joining World War II.
- September 24
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa: A Wehrmacht training event known as the Mogilev Conference began, marking an increase in violence against Jews and other civilians in the areas under General Max von Schenckendorff's command.
- September 27
SS Patrick Henry
SS Patrick Henry, the first of 2,710 Liberty ships built during World War II by the United States, was launched.
- September 29
The Holocaust
The Holocaust: Nazi forces, aided by Ukrainian collaborators, began a massacre of Jews in a ravine in Kyiv, killing more than 30,000 civilians in two days and thousands more in the following months.
October
- October 4
Willie Gillis
Willie Gillis, one of Norman Rockwell's trademark characters, debuted on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.
- October 21
World War II
World War II: German soldiers massacred nearly 2,800 Serbs in Kragujevac in reprisal for insurgent attacks in the district of Gornji Milanovac.
- October 31
Bust (sculpture)
Approximately 400 workers completed the 60-foot (18 m) busts of U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
- October 31
USS Reuben James (DD-245)
100 crew members of the USS Reuben James (pictured) perished when their vessel became the first U.S. Navy ship sunk by hostile action during World War II after it was torpedoed by the German submarine U-552.
November
- November 1
Ansel Adams
American photographer Ansel Adams (pictured) shot Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, one of his most famous photographs.
- November 14
World War II
World War II: German troops, aided by local auxiliaries, murdered nine thousand residents of the Słonim Ghetto in a single day.
- November 17
World War II
World War II: Hjalmar Siilasvuo ordered Finnish forces to halt their assault against Soviet forces near Salla, concluding Operation Arctic Fox.
- November 19
World War II
World War II: The Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran destroyed each other in the Indian Ocean.
- November 24
The Holocaust
The Holocaust: The Theresienstadt Ghetto was founded as a waystation to Nazi extermination camps and a "retirement settlement" for elderly and prominent Jews to mislead their communities about the Final Solution.
December
- December 1
Civil Air Patrol
The Civil Air Patrol, the civilian auxiliary of the United States Air Force, was founded.
- December 6
MI6
The British Secret Intelligence Service established a facility known as Camp X (pictured) in Ontario, Canada, to train covert agents in clandestine operations.
- December 8
The Holocaust
The Holocaust: The Chełmno extermination camp in occupied Poland, the first such Nazi camp to kill Jews, began operations.
- December 10
World War II
Second World War: The Royal Navy capital ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bombers east of Malaya.
- December 12
World War II
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
The Holocaust
The Holocaust: At a Nazi Party meeting in the Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler declared the imminent destruction of the Jewish people.
- December 21
World War II
World War II: A Thai-Japanese Pact of Alliance is signed.
- December 25
World War II
Second World War: The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when Mark Aitchison Young, the Governor of Hong Kong, surrendered the territory to Japan after 18 days of fierce fighting.
- December 28
World War II
World War II: Operation Anthropoid, the plot to assassinate high-ranking Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich, commences.
Questions about 1941
What happened in 1941?
This site records 75 entries for 1941, including World War II on January 2. They are listed below by date.
How long ago was 1941?
85 years ago, counting from 2026. Anyone born in 1941 turns 85 this year.
Which century is 1941 in?
1941 falls in the 20th century, in the 1940s.
Which generation was born in 1941?
Silent Generation (1928–1945). Children of the Depression and war years.
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