1. About.com
  2. Education
  3. 20th Century History

Discuss in my forum

1940s Timeline

Timeline of the 20th Century

By , About.com Guide

1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s

1940

1941

  • Japanese Attack Pearl Harbor
  • Jeep Invented
  • Manhattan Project Begins
  • Mount Rushmore Completed
  • Nazi Rudolf Hess Flies to Britain on a Peace Mission
  • Siege of Leningrad

1942

  • Anne Frank Goes Into Hiding
  • Battle of Midway
  • Battle of Stalingrad
  • Japanese-Americans Held in Camps
  • Nazis Raze Town in Retaliation for Reinhard Heydrich's Death
  • T-shirt Introduced

1943

  • French Resistance Leader Jean Moulin Killed
  • Grave of Katyn Forest Massacre Found
  • Italy Joins the Allies
  • Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

1944

  • Ballpoint Pens Go On Sale
  • D-Day
  • First German V1 and V2 Rockets Fired
  • Hitler Escapes Assassination Attempt

1945

  • FDR Dies
  • First Computer Built (ENIAC)
  • Germans Surrender
  • Hitler Commits Suicide
  • Microwave Oven Invented
  • Slinky Toy Hits Shelves
  • United Nations Founded
  • U.S. Drops Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

1946

1947

  • Chuck Yeager Breaks the Sound Barrier
  • Dead Sea Scrolls Discovered
  • Jewish Refugees Aboard the Exodus Turned Back by British
  • Marshall Plan
  • Polaroid Cameras Invented

1948

1949

  • China Becomes Communist
  • First Non-Stop Flight Around the World
  • George Orwell Publishes Nineteen Eight-Four
  • NATO Established
  • Soviet Union Has Atomic Bomb

1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s

©2012 About.com. All rights reserved. 

A part of The New York Times Company.