| 1941-01-17
Kuomintang forces under orders from Chiang Kai-Shek open fire at communist forces, resuming the Chinese Civil War after World War II.
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| 1941-12-12
Adolf Hitler announces extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery
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| 1941-05-01
World War II: German forces launch a major attack on Tobruk.
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| 1941-01-02
World War II: German bombing severely damages the Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales
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| 1941-12-24
World War II: Hong Kong falls to the Japanese Imperial Army.
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| 1941-03-11
World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan.
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| 1941-06-02
World War II: German paratoopers murder Greek civilians in the village of Kondomari.
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| 1941-03-17
In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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| 1941-10-22
World War II: French resistance member Guy Môquet and 29 other hostages are executed by the Germans in retaliation for the death of a German officer.
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| 1941-03-01
W47NV (now known as WSM-FM) begins operations in Nashville, Tennessee becoming the first FM radio station in the U.S..
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| 1941-07-07
World War II: U.S. forces land in Iceland, taking over from an earlier British occupation.
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| 1941-12-19
World War II: Adolf Hitler becomes Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the German Army.
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| 1941-10-31
World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It is the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by enemy action in WWII.
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| 1941-03-01
World War II: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact, allying itself with the Axis powers.
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| 1941-12-25
Admiral Chester W Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet
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| 1941-10-17
For the first time in World War II, a German submarine attacks an American ship.
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| 1941-12-12
World War II: UK declares war on Bulgaria. Hungary and Romania declare war on the United States. India declares war on Japan.
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| 1941-12-14
World War II: Japan signs treaty of alliance with Thailand.
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| 1941-11-12
World War II: The Soviet cruiser Chervona Ukraina is destroyed during the Battle of Sevastopol.
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| 1941-03-19
World War II: The 99th Pursuit Squadron also known as the Tuskegee Airmen, the first all-black unit of the Army Air Corp, is activated.
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| 1941-03-29
North American Radio Broadcasting Agreement goes into effect at 03:00 local time.
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| 1941-07-13
World War II: Montenegrins start a popular uprising against the Axis Powers (Trinaestojulski ustanak).
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| 1941-12-26
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in the United States.
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| 1941-11-07
World War II: Soviet hospital ship Armenia is sunk by German planes while evacuating refugees and wounded military and staff of several Crimea’s hospitals. It is estimated that over 5,000 people died in the sinking.
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| 1941-04-16
Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians throws the only Opening Day no-hitter in the history of Major League Baseball, beating the Chicago White Sox 1-0.
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| 1941-12-12
World War II: USMC F4F "Wildcats" sink the first 4 major Japanese ships off Wake Island.
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| 1941-11-06
World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule. He states that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, the Germans had lost 4.5 million soldiers and that Soviet victory was near.
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| 1941-10-04
Norman Rockwell's Willie Gillis character debuts on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.
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| 1941-05-24
World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks the then pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen.
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| 1941-10-20
World War II: Thousands of civilians in Kragujevac in German-occupied Serbia are killed in the Kragujevac massacre.
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| 1941-11-08
The Albanian Communist Party is founded.
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| 1941-12-17
World War II: Japanese forces land in Northern Borneo.
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| 1941-01-09
World War II: The Greek Triton (S.112) sinks the Italian submarine Neghelli in Otranto.
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| 1941-12-08
Japanese forces invade Thailand's southern peninsula. They face a heavy resistance, however, Plaek Phibunsongkhram ordered a ceasefire.
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| 1941-05-09
World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.
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| 1941-06-27
German troops capture the city of Białystok during Operation Barbarossa.
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| 1941-02-04
The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.
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| 1941-05-27
World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency".
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| 1941-08-18
Adolf Hitler orders a temporary halt to Nazi Germany's systematic euthanasia of the mentally ill and the handicapped due to protests.
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| 1941-01-10
Lend-Lease is introduced in the U.S. Congress.
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| 1941-12-24
World War II: Kuching is conquered by Japanese forces.
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| 1941-09-27
The SS Patrick Henry is launched becoming the first of more than 2,700 Liberty ships.
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| 1941-12-09
World War II: The Republic of China, Cuba, Guatemala, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, and the Philippine Commonwealth, declare war on Germany and Japan.
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| 1941-12-08
The United States and the Republic of China declare war against Japan.
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| 1941-11-12
World War II: Temperatures around Moscow drop to -12 ° C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
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| 1941-09-17
World War II: A decree of the Soviet State Committee of Defense, restoring Vsevobuch in the face of the Great Patriotic War, is issued
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| 1941-08-15
Corporal Josef Jakobs is executed by firing squad at the Tower of London at 7:12am, making him the last person to be executed at the Tower for treason.
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| 1941-12-16
World War II: Japanese forces occupy Miri, Sarawak
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| 1941-04-27
World War II: The Communist Party of Slovenia, the Slovene Christian Socialists, the left-wing Slovene Sokols (also known as "National Democrats") and a group of progressive intellectuals establish the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People.
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| 1941-04-16
World War II: The Italian convoy Duisburg, directed to Tunisia, is attacked and destroyed by British ships.
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| 1941-07-04
Nazi Germans massacre Polish scientists and writers in the captured Polish city of Lwów.
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| 1941-07-31
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."
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| 1941-09-30
World War II: Holocaust in Kiev, Ukraine: German Einsatzgruppe C complete Babi Yar massacre.
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| 1941-03-28
World War II: Battle of Cape Matapan – in the Mediterranean Sea, British Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham leads the Royal Navy in the destruction of three major Italian heavy cruisers and two destroyers.
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| 1941-12-23
World War II: The Japanese Imperial Army occupies Wake Island.
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| 1941-05-12
Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.
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| 1941-03-02
World War II: First German military units enter Bulgaria after it joined the Axis Pact.
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| 1941-10-30
1,500 Jews from Pidhaytsi (in western Ukraine) are sent by Nazis to Belzec extermination camp.
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| 1941-03-22
The Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, United States, begins to generate electricity.
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| 1941-11-14
World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sinks due to torpedo damage from U-81 sustained on November 13.
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| 1941-06-22
Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. The Soviet 22 June Song is dedicated to this day.
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| 1941-08-14
World War II – Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt sign the Atlantic Charter of war stating postwar aims.
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| 1941-06-01
The Farhud, a pogrom of Iraqi Jews, takes place in Baghdad.
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| 1941-10-29
Holocaust: In the Kaunas Ghetto over 10,000 Jews are shot by German occupiers at the Ninth Fort, a massacre known as the "Great Action".
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| 1941-12-10
World War II: The Royal Navy capital ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse are sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo bombers near Malaya.
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| 1941-05-10
World War II: Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland to try to negotiate a peace deal between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany.
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| 1941-02-11
The first gold record is presented to Glenn Miller for "Chattanooga Choo Choo".
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| 1941-05-05
Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; the country commemorates the date as Liberation Day or Patriots' Victory Day.
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| 1941-12-01
World War II: Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol.
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| 1941-11-01
American photographer Ansel Adams takes a picture of a moonrise over the town of Hernandez, New Mexico that would become one of the most famous images in the history of photography.
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| 1941-07-16
Joe DiMaggio hits safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as a MLB record.
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| 1941-10-08
World War II: In their invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol.
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| 1941-06-01
World War II: Battle of Crete ends as Crete capitulates to Germany.
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| 1941-12-11
World War II: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, following the Americans' declaration of war on Japan in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States, in turn, declares war on Germany and Italy.
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| 1941-05-06
At California's March Field, Bob Hope performs his first USO show.
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| 1941-10-09
A coup in Panama declares Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango the new president.
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| 1941-01-18
World War II: British troops launch a general counter-offensive against Italian East Africa.
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| 1941-12-15
The American Federation of Labor adopts a no-strike policy in war industries.
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| 1941-08-16
HMS Mercury, Royal Navy Signals School and Combined Signals School opens at Leydene, near Petersfield, Hampshire, England.
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| 1941-09-23
World War II: The first gas chamber experiments are conducted at Auschwitz.
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| 1941-06-23
The Lithuanian Activist Front declares independence from the Soviet Union and forms the Provisional Government of Lithuania; it lasts only briefly as the Nazis will occupy Lithuania a few weeks later.
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| 1941-04-15
In the Belfast Blitz, two-hundred bombers of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) attack Belfast, Northern Ireland killing one thousand people.
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| 1941-04-23
World War II: The Greek government and King George II evacuate Athens before the invading Wehrmacht.
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| 1941-07-26
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.
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| 1941-01-28
French-Thai War: Final air battle of the conflict. Japanese-mediated armistice goes into effect later in the day.
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| 1941-10-31
A fire in a clothing factory in Huddersfield, England kills 49
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| 1941-08-01
The first Jeep is produced.
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| 1941-03-27
World War II: Yugoslavian Air Force officers topple the pro-axis government in a bloodless coup.
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| 1941-05-10
World War II: The House of Commons in London is damaged by the Luftwaffe in an air raid.
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| 1941-05-13
World War II: Yugoslav royal colonel Dragoljub Mihailović starts fighting with German occupation troops, beginning the Serbian resistance.
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| 1941-12-21
World War II: A formal treaty of alliance between Thailand and Japan is signed in the presence of the Emerald Buddha in Wat Phra Kaew.
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| 1941-11-19
World War II: Battle between HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran. The two ships sink each other off the coast of Western Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians and about 77 German seamen.
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| 1941-07-07
World War II: Beirut is occupied by Free France and British troops.
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| 1941-07-20
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and names Lavrenti Beria its chief.
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| 1941-10-11
Beginning of the National Liberation War of Macedonia.
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| 1941-05-20
World War II: Battle of Crete – German paratroops invade Crete.
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| 1941-12-05
World War II: Great Britain declares war on Finland, Hungary and Romania.
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| 1941-01-22
World War II: British and Commonwealth troops capture Tobruk from Italian forces during Operation Compass.
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| 1941-11-24
World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French.
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| 1941-01-10
World War II: The Greek army captures Kleisoura.
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| 1941-03-04
World War II: The United Kingdom launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands.
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| 1941-05-30
World War II: Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas climb on the Athenian Acropolis, tear down the Nazi swastika.
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| 1941-09-04
World War II: a German submarine makes the first attack against a United States ship, the USS Greer.
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| 1941-06-22
The June Uprising in Lithuania begins.
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| 1941-03-29
World War II: British Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy forces defeat those of the Italian Regia Marina off the Peloponnesian coast of Greece in the Battle of Cape Matapan.
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| 1941-12-05
World War II: In the Battle of Moscow Georgy Zhukov launches a massive Soviet counter-attack against the German army, with the biggest offensive launched against Army Group Centre.
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| 1941-04-13
Pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed.
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| 1941-07-05
World War II: German troops reach the Dnieper River.
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| 1941-02-25
February Strike: In occupied Amsterdam, a general strike is declared in response to increasing anti-Jewish measures instituted by the Nazis.
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| 1941-10-31
After 14 years of work, drilling is completed on Mount Rushmore.
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| 1941-12-09
World War II: The 19th Bombardment Group attacks Japanese ships off the coast of Vigan, Luzon.
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| 1941-06-14
June deportation, the first major wave of Soviet mass deportations and murder of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, begins.
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| 1941-04-14
World War II: The Ustashe, a Croatian far-right organization is put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis Powers after the Axis Operation 25 invasion. Rommel attacks Tobruk.
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| 1941-05-27
World War II: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing almost 2,100 men.
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| 1941-09-22
World War II: On Jewish New Year Day, the German SS murder 6,000 Jews in Vinnytsya, Ukraine. Those are the survivors of the previous killings that took place a few days earlier in which about 24,000 Jews were executed.
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| 1941-09-03
Holocaust: Karl Fritzsch, deputy camp commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, experiments with the use of Zyklon B in the gassing of Soviet POWs.
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| 1941-09-29
World War II: Holocaust in Kiev, Ukraine: German Einsatzgruppe C begins the Babi Yar massacre, according to the Einsatzgruppen operational situation report.
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| 1941-04-06
World War II: Nazi Germany launches Operation 25 (the invasion of Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and Operation Marita (the invasion of Greece).
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| 1941-12-25
World War II: Battle of Hong Kong ends, beginning the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong.
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| 1941-10-30
World War II: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves U.S. $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Allied nations.
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| 1941-12-10
World War II: Battle of the Philippines – Imperial Japanese forces under the command of General Masaharu Homma land on the Philippine mainland.
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| 1941-03-25
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers with the signing of the Tripartite Pact.
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| 1941-10-23
World War II: Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov takes command of Red Army operations to prevent the further advance into Russia of German forces and to prevent the Wehrmacht from capturing Moscow.
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| 1941-06-27
Romanian governmental forces, allies of Nazi Germany, launch one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history in the city of Iaşi, (Romania), resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews.
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| 1941-11-13
World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is torpedoed by U 81, sinking the following day.
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| 1941-01-09
World War II: First flight of the Avro Lancaster.
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| 1941-07-27
Japanese troops occupy French Indo-China.
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| 1941-07-10
Jedwabne Pogrom: the massacre of Jewish people living in and near the village of Jedwabne in Poland.
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| 1941-12-20
World War II: First battle of the American Volunteer Group, better known as the "Flying Tigers" in Kunming, China.
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| 1941-04-01
The Blockade Runner Badge for the German navy is instituted.
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| 1941-06-08
World War II: Allies invade Syria and Lebanon.
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| 1941-04-10
World War II: The Axis Powers in Europe establish the Independent State of Croatia from occupied Yugoslavia with Ante Pavelić's Ustaše fascist insurgents in power.
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| 1941-04-17
World War II: The Kingdom of Yugoslavia surrenders to Germany.
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| 1941-05-31
A Luftwaffe air raid in Dublin, Ireland claims 38 lives.
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| 1941-08-30
World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins.
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| 1941-01-06
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address.
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| 1941-01-25
Pope Pius XII elevates the Apostolic Vicariate of the Hawaiian Islands to the dignity of a diocese. It becomes the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.
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| 1941-12-13
World War II: Hungary and Romania declare war on the United States.
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| 1941-06-22
Various Communist and Socialist French Resistance movements merge to one group.
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| 1941-10-17
German troops execute the male population of the villages Kerdyllia in Serres, Greece and burn the houses down.
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| 1941-12-12
World War II: Fifty four Japanese A6M Zero fighters raid Batangas Field, Philippines. Jesus Villamor and four Filipino fighter pilots fend them off; Cesar Basa is killed.
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| 1941-09-27
Foundation of EAM (National Liberation Front) in Greece.
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| 1941-05-06
The first flight of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.
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| 1941-01-23
Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
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| 1941-09-16
World War II: concerned that Reza Pahlavi the Shah of Persia was to align his petroleum-rich country with Germany during World War II, the United Kingdom and the USSR invade Iran in late August and force him to resign in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
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| 1941-08-22
World War II: German troops reach Leningrad, leading to the siege of Leningrad.
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| 1941-06-05
Four thousand Chongqing residents are asphyxiated in a bomb shelter during the Bombing of Chongqing.
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| 1941-06-03
World War II: The Wehrmacht razes the Greek village of Kandanos to the ground, killing 180 of its inhabitants.
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| 1941-09-08
World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins. German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad.
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| 1941-12-06
World War II: The United Kingdom declares war on Finland in support of the Soviet Union during the Continuation War.
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| 1941-04-27
World War II: German troops enter Athens.
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| 1941-01-20
Franklin Roosevelt is the only President inaugurated for a third term.
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| 1941-06-30
World War II: Operation Barbarossa – Germany captures Lviv, Ukraine.
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| 1941-12-15
Holocaust: German troops execute over 15,000 Jews at Drobitsky Yar, a ravine southeast of the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine.
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| 1941-02-23
Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.
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| 1941-10-02
World War II: In Operation Typhoon, Germany begins an all-out offensive against Moscow.
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| 1941-12-07
World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy attacks the US Pacific Fleet and its defending Army Air Forces and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
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