Explore 6096 historical events from 1940–1949.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many eng…
World War II: The three-week-long Battle of Aachen concluded, making the city the first on German soil to be captured…
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many eng…
World War II: The Japanese battleship Musashi, one of the heaviest and most powerfully armed ever constructed, was…
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was a German Nazi politician, police administrator, and military leader. He was the fourth and longest-serving Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel, serving …
Heinrich Himmler ordered a crackdown on the Edelweiss Pirates, a nonconformist youth group that assisted army…
USS Tang was a Balao-class submarine of World War II, the first ship of the United States Navy to bear the name Tang. She was built and launched in 1943, serving until being sunk b…
USS Tang, the U.S. Navy submarine credited with sinking more ships than any other American submarine, sank when it was…
The Easter Riots is the name given to a period of unrest in Uppsala, Sweden, during the Easter of 1943. The fascist group Swedish Socialist Union held its national congress in Upps…
The Easter Riots break out in Uppsala, Sweden
Operation Vulcan was one of the last ground attacks by the Allied forces of the First Army against the Italian and German forces in Tunisia in the last Axis bridgeheads in North Af…
World War II: Operations Vulcan and Strike force the surrender of the last Axis troops in Tunisia
AHS Centaur was a hospital ship which was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland, Australia, on 14 May 1943. Of the 332 medical personnel and civilia…
World War II: A Japanese submarine sinks AHS Centaur off the coast of Queensland
The Battle of Porta was fought on 8–9 June 1943 at the Porta and Mouzaki passes in western Thessaly, between the partisans of the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) and the Roya…
World War II: The two-day Battle of Porta between the Royal Italian Army and the Greek People's Liberation Army begins
Arthur Goldstein was a German journalist and communist politician.
The left-wing German Jewish exile Arthur Goldstein is murdered in Auschwitz
Tokyo City was a municipality in Japan and capital of Tokyo Prefecture which existed from 1 May 1889 until the establishment of Tokyo Metropolis on 1 July 1943. The historical bou…
The City of Tokyo and the Prefecture of Tokyo are both replaced by the Tokyo Metropolis.
The Allies, or Allied powers, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during World War II (1939–1945) to oppose the Ax…
World War II: An Allied invasion fleet sails for Sicily (Operation Husky, July 10, 1943).
The Allied invasion of Sicily, also known as the Battle of Sicily and Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II in which Allied forces invaded the Italian island of Sic…
World War II: Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, begins.
The Rayleigh bath chair murder was a 1943 incident of patricide in which a disabled man was killed in Rayleigh, Essex, England. An anti-tank grenade had been rigged to his hooded w…
The Rayleigh bath chair murder occurred in Rayleigh, Essex, England.
HMS Eclipse was an E-class destroyer of the Royal Navy that saw service in the Atlantic, Arctic, and Mediterranean theatres during World War II, until sunk by a mine in the Aegean …
World War II: The British destroyers HMS Eclipse and HMS Laforey sink the Italian submarine Ascianghi in the…
The Battle of Trahili was fought on 15 August 1943 between Cretan partisans and German occupying forces during World War II. It took place near the village of Vorizia in south-cent…
World War II: Battle of Trahili: Superior German forces surround Cretan partisans, who manage to escape against all…
The Massacre of Kommeno was a Nazi war crime perpetrated by members of the Wehrmacht in the village of Kommeno, Greece, in 1943, during the German occupation of Greece in World War…
World War II: 317 Greek civilians are murdered by soldiers of the German 1st Mountain Division in the village of…
The Seventh Army was a United States army created during World War II that evolved into the United States Army Europe (USAREUR) during the 1950s and 1960s. It served in North Afric…
World War II: The U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton arrives in Messina, Italy, followed several hours…
USS Harmon (DE-678) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy. USS Harmon was named after Mess Attendant Leonard Roy Harmon, who was posthumously awarded the N…
USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after a black person, is commissioned.
The Pennsylvania Railroad, officially the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad established in 1846 and headquartered in Phila…
Pennsylvania Railroad's premier train derails at Frankford Junction in Philadelphia, killing 79 people and injuring…
The Gulf Hotel fire claimed 55 lives in the early-morning hours of September 7, 1943 in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States. The fire remains the worst loss of life in a fire in…
A fire at the Gulf Hotel in Houston kills 55 people.
The German Seventeenth Army was a field army of Nazi Germany during World War II.
World War II: The German 17th Army begins its evacuation of the Kuban bridgehead (Taman Peninsula) in southern Russia…
The Armistice of Cassibile was signed on 3 September 1943 by Italy and the Allies, marking the end of hostilities between them during World War II. The armistice was approved by bo…
World War II: The Armistice of Cassibile is proclaimed by radio. OB Süd immediately implements plans to disarm the…
The Allies, or Allied powers, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during World War II (1939–1945) to oppose the Ax…
World War II: The Allies land at Salerno and Taranto, Italy.
Albert Hofmann was a Swiss chemist known for being the first to synthesize, ingest, and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Hofmann's team also is…
Albert Hofmann accidentally discovers the hallucinogenic effects of the research drug LSD