1940 | EPFL Graph Search

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A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280. Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January 1940 January 4 – WWII: Luftwaffe Colonel Hermann Göring assumes control of most war industries in Germany. January 6 – WWII: Winter War – General Semyon Timoshenko takes command of all Soviet forces. January 7 – WWII: Winter War: Battle of Raate Road – Outnumbered Finnish troops decisively defeat Soviet forces. January 8 WWII: Winter War: Battle of Suomussalmi – Finnish forces destroy the Soviet 44th Rifle Division. WWII: Food rationing in the United Kingdom begins; it will remain in force until 1954. January 9 – WWII: British submarine is sunk in the Heligoland Bight. January 10 – WWII: Mechelen incident – A German plane carrying secret plans for the invasion of Western Europe makes a forced landing in Belgium, leading to mobilization of defense forces in the Low Countries. January 27 – WWII: A peace resolution introduced in the Parliament of South Africa is defeated 81–59. January 29 – Three gasoline-powered trains carrying factory workers crash and explode while approaching Ajikawaguchi Station, Yumesaki Line (Nishinari Line), Osaka, Japan, killing at least 181 people and injuring at least 92. February 1940 February 2–11 – Scheduled dates for the 1940 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, cancelled in November 1939 due to WWII (originally allocated to Sapporo, Japan). February 1 – WWII: Winter War – Soviet forces launch a major assault on Finnish troops occupying the Karelian Isthmus. February 2 – Vsevolod Meyerhold is executed in the Soviet Union on charges of treason and espionage. He is cleared of all charges fifteen years later, in the first waves of de-Stalinization. February 16 – WWII: Altmark Incident: British destroyer pursues German tanker Altmark into the neutral waters of Jøssingfjord in southwestern Norway and frees the 290 British seamen held aboard.

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Related concepts (28)

1863

January 1 – Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation during the third year of the American Civil War, making the abolition of slavery in the Confederate states an official war goal. It proclaims the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's four million slaves and immediately frees 50,000 of them, with the rest freed as Union armies advance. January 2 – Master Lucius Tar Paint Company (Teerfarbenfabrik Meister Lucius), predecessor of Hoechst, as a worldwide chemical manufacturing brand, founded in a suburb of Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

1968

January 1968 February 1968 January – The I'm Backing Britain campaign starts spontaneously. January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. January 10 – John Gorton is sworn in as 19th Prime Minister of Australia, taking over from John McEwen after being elected leader of the Liberal Party the previous day, following the disappearance of Harold Holt. Gorton becomes the only Senator to become Prime Minister, though he immediately transfers to the House of Representatives through the 1968 Higgins by-election in Holt's vacant seat.

1972

Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar time [the legal time scale], its duration was 31622401.141 seconds of Terrestrial Time (or Ephemeris Time), which is slightly shorter than 1908). January 1972 January 1 – Kurt Waldheim becomes Secretary-General of the United Nations.