1941
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 - World War II: Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers
- March 27 - World War II: 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 27 - World War II: German troops enter Athens.
- April - Russia and Japan sign a neutrality pact.
- May 6 - At California's March Field Bob Hope performs his first USO Show.
- May 9 - World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by United Kingdom's Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine which Allied cryptergraphers later use to break coded German messages.
- May 10 - World War II: The United Kingdom's House of Commons is destroyed by the Luftwaffe in an air raid.
- May 10 - World War II: Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland claiming to be on a peace mission.
- May 20 - World War II: Battle of Crete - German troops invade Crete.
- May 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.
- May 24 - World War II: In the North Atlantic, the German battleship Bismarck sinks the HMS Hood killing all but three crewman on what was the pride of the Royal Navy.
- May 26 - World War II: In the North Atlantic, Swordfish planes from the carrier HMS Ark Royal fatally cripple the German battleship Bismarck in torpedo attack, allowing the Royal Navy Fleet.
- May 27 - World War II: President Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency."
- May 27 - World War II: German pocket battleship Bismarck is sunk in North Atlantic killing 2,300.
- June 9 - World War II: Finland initiate mobilization and put some units under German command
- June 22 - World War II: Germany attacks the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa
- June 25 - World War II: Finland attacked by the Soviet Union seeks the opportunity of revanche in the Continuation War.
- July 5 - World War II: German troops reach the Dniepr River.
- July 7 - World War II: American forces land in Iceland to forestall an invasion by the Nazis.
- July 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.
- July 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 18 - Holocaust: Adolf Hitler orders an end to the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and handicapped due to protests within Germany.
- September 6 - 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.
- September 8 - World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins - German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad.
- September 16 - Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran is forced to resign in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran under pressure from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.
- October 2 - World War II: Operation Typhoon - Germany begins an all-out offensive against Moscow.
- October 8 - World War II: In their invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol.
- October 21 - World War II: Germans rampage in Yugoslavia, killing thousands of civilians.
- November 14 - World War II: HMS Ark Royal is hit by German U-boat U-81 and sinks.
- November 27 - A group of young men stop traffic on highway US 99 south of Yreka, California, handing out fliers proclaiming the establishment of the State of Jefferson.
- December 7, December 6 (in Japan standard time) - Japanese navy launches a surprise attack on the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor, thus drawing the United States into World War II.
- December 25 - World War II: British and Canadians are defeated by the Japanese at Hong Kong.
- December 27 - World War II: British Commandos raid the Norwegian port of Vaagso, causing hitler to reinforce the garrison.
- 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.
- The Pinnacle Commune, a Rastafarian community, is destroyed by Jamaican authorities
- Indochina Communist party, led by Ho Chi Minh, combines with Nationalist party to form the Vietminh.
=Ongoing events
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 sports
- May 15 - Joe DiMaggio starts his record-breaking 56-game home run hitting streak.
- One of the greatest race horses of his time, Epinard, was taken during the German occupation of France and used as a delivery wagon horse.
- 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 (d. 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. Geissendörfer, German film director
- April 23 - Paavo Lipponen, Prime Minister of Finland
- May 13 - Ritchie Valens, singer (d. 1959)
- May 13 - Senta Berger, actress
- May 15 - K.T. Oslin, country musician
- May 19 - Nora Ephron, screenwriter
- 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
- June 6 - Louis Chevrolet, automobile builder
- July 10 - Jelly Roll Morton - jazz musician & composer
- August 31 - Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet (suicide)
- August 7 - Rabindranath Tagore, author
- Arthur Evans, archaeologist
- Physics - not awarded
- Chemistry - not awarded
- Medicine - not awarded
- Literature - not awarded
- Peace - not awarded
1941 is also the title of a Steven Spielberg movie made in 1979 see 1941 (film).