Events

• January 5 - FM radio is demonstrated to the FCC for the first time.
• January 12 - World War II: Russia bombs cities in Finland.
• June 21 - France surrenders to Germany
• February 2 - Frank Sinatra debuts with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra
• February 2 - The Complex Number Calculator, a calculator for complex arithmetic based on relays, was completed. (see History of computing).
• February 2 - The first transposons are discovered in maize (Zea mays, aka corn) by Barbara McClintock.
• February 23 - World War II: Soviet Union troops conquer Lasi Island[?].
• February 29 - For her role as as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award (Best Supporting Actress).
• March 12 - Soviet Union and Finland sign a peace treaty in Moscow ending the Winter War. Finns, and the World opinion, shocked by the harsh terms.
• March 18 - World War II: Axis powers - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom.
• April 7 - Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.
• May 10 - World War II: Germany invades Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
• May 13 - World War II: Nazi Germany's conquest of France begins as the German army crosses the Meuse River.
• May 14 - World War II: The Dutch city of Rotterdam is bombed by the German Luftwaffe.
• May 14 - World War II: The Netherlands surrender to Germany.
• May 15 - World War II: German troops occupy Amsterdam and invade Northern France.
• May 15 - Nylon stockings go on sale for the first time in the United States.
• May 17 - World War II: Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium
• May 20 - Holocaust: The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.
• May 24 - Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.
• May 25 - World War II: The Battle of Dunkirk begins.
• May 26 - World War II: Battle of Dunkirk - In France, Allied forces begin a massive evacuation from Dunkirk.
• May 28 - World War II: Belgium surrenders to Germany.
• July 5 - World War II: The United Kingdom and the Vichy France government break off diplomatic relations.
• November - Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Wendell L. Wilkie in the U.S. presidential election
• November 11 - The Royal Navy launches the first aircraft carrier strike in history, on the Italian fleet at Taranto
• November 11 - The German Hilfskreuzer (cruiser) Atlantis captures top secret[?] British mail, and sends it to Japan
• December 30 - California opens its first freeway the Arroyo Seco Parkway[?].

• Charlie Chaplin directs the film The Great Dictator in which he plays a fascist dictator, clearly modeled on Adolf Hitler.
• The first McDonald's restaurant is founded by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald, in San Bernardino, California.

• USSR annexes the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.
• Germany begins a bombing campaign against Britain in preparation for an invasion, in what becomes known as the Battle of Britain.

Art, Culture & Fashion

• 1940 in film
  • February 23 - The animated movie Pinocchio is released.
  • Rebecca, directed by Alfred Hitchcock
  • All This and Heaven Too
  • The Grapes of Wrath
  • The Great Dictator, starring Charlie Chaplin
• 1940 in literature
• 1940 in music
• 1940 in sports[?]
  • February 28 - Basketball is televised for the first time (Fordham University[?] vs. the University of Pittsburgh in Madison Square Garden).
• 1940 in television
  • January - The FCC holds public hearings on television.
  • February 25 - The first televised ice hockey game, the Rangers vs Canadians, from Madison Square Garden.
  • February 26 - The first quiz show, Spelling Bee, is televised.
  • February 28 - The first basketball game is televised, from Madison Square Garden; Fordham vs the University of Pittsburgh.
  • March 15 - RCA cuts price of television sets
  • June - W2XBS (NBC) covers the Republican National Convention[?] from Philadelphia for 33 hours, over a five day period
  • August 29 - Peter Goldmark[?] of CBS announces his invention of a color television system.
  • September 3 - CBS resumes it's television transmitions with the first demonstration of high definition color TV, by W2XAB, transmitting from the Chrysler Building.

Births

• January 14 - Julian Bond[?], civil rights activist[?] (cofounder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, chairman of NAACP board of directors)
• January 20 - Carol Heiss[?], Olympic figure skating gold medalist
• January 22 - John Hurt, actor
• February 3 - Fran Tarkenton[?], Football Hall of Famer
• February 4 - George Romero[?], horror movie writer, producer, director
• February 5 - H.R. Giger, artist
• February 6 - Tom Brokaw, news anchorman
• February 8 - Ted Koppel, journalist
• February 19 - Smokey Robinson, musician
• February 25 - Ron Santo[?], baseball player
• February 28 - Mario Andretti[?], automobile driver
• February 29 - Edward Frederick Benson, American writer
• March 7 - Rudi Dutschke[?], student leader (+ 1979)
• March 7 - Daniel J. Travanti[?], actor
• March 9 - John Cale, composer, musician
• March 9 - Raul Julia[?], actor (+ 1994)
• March 10 - Dean Torrence[?], musician ("Jan and Dean")
• March 10 - Chuck Norris, actor, martial arts practitioner
• March 12 - Al Jarreau[?], singer
• March 15 - Phil Lesh of The Grateful Dead
• March 16 - Bernardo Bertolucci, Italian writer and film director
• March 22 - Haing S. Ngor[?], actor (+ 1996)
• March 24 - Bob Mackie[?], costume designer
• March 30 - Astrud Gilberto[?], singer
• April 2 - Penelope Keith, actress
• April 16 - Queen Margaret II of Denmark
• April 25 - Al Pacino, actor
• April 26 - Giorgio Moroder, composer
• May 8 - Ricky Nelson, pop singer, (+ 1985)
• May 9 - James L. Brooks[?], producer, writer
• May 11 - Juan Downey, video artist (+ 1993)
• May 20 - Stan Mikita[?], Hockey Hall of Famer
• May 20 - Sadaharu Oh, baseball star
• June 23 - Adam Faith, English singer and actor
• June 23 - Wilma Rudolph, American runner
• July 7 - Ringo Starr, English drummer (Beatles)
• August 3 - Martin Sheen, American actor
• November 27 - Bruce Lee
• October 9 - John Lennon, English musician and singer (Beatles)
• October 14 - Cliff Richard, English pop singer
• December 21 - Frank Zappa, American rock musician, composer and satirist

Deaths

• February 11 - John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, Governor-General of Canada (1935-1940).
• March 10 - Mikhaïl Boulgakov[?], Russian writer
• March 16 - Selma Lagerlöf, writer
• May 25 - Joe De Grasse, pioneer Hollywood film director
• May 28 - Friedrich Karl von Hessen (*1868)
• June 10 - Marcus Mosiah Garvey, publisher, entrepreneur, black nationalist
• June 29 - Paul Klee, Swiss artist
• August 21 - Leon Trotsky, Russian revolutionary
• October 10 - Berton Churchill, pioneer Hollywood actor
• October 11 - Lluís Companys, President of Catalan Generalitat, shot at Montjuïc Castle, Barcelona.
• November 9 - Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - not awarded
• Chemistry - not awarded
• Medicine - not awarded
• Literature - not awarded
• Peace - not awarded