Explore 6096 historical events from 1940–1949.
George Herman "Babe" Ruth was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambin…
Babe Ruth, American baseball player and coach (born 1895)
Charles Evans Hughes was an American politician, academic, and jurist who served as the 11th chief justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941. A member of the Republican Party,…
Charles Evans Hughes, American lawyer and politician, 11th Chief Justice of the United States (born 1862)
Alice Salomon was a German social reformer and pioneer of social work as an academic discipline. Her role was so important to German social work that the Deutsche Bundespost issued…
Alice Salomon, German-American social reformer (born 1872)
Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov was a Soviet politician. He was the Soviet Union's "propagandist-in-chief" after the Second World War, and was responsible for developing the Soviet c…
Andrei Zhdanov, Russian civil servant and politician (born 1896)
Sylvanus Griswold Morley was an American archaeologist and epigrapher who studied the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in the early 20th century. Morley led extensive excavations of…
Sylvanus Morley, American archaeologist and spy (born 1883)
Edvard Beneš was a Czech politician and statesman who served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1938, and again from 1939 to 1948. During the first six years of his se…
Edvard Beneš, Czech academic and politician, 2nd President of Czechoslovakia (born 1884)
Richard Chace Tolman was an American mathematical physicist and physical chemist who made many contributions to statistical mechanics and theoretical cosmology. He was a professor …
Richard C. Tolman, American physicist and chemist (born 1881)
Ferdinand I was the monarch of Bulgaria from 1887 to 1918, reigning as Prince of Bulgaria from 1887 to 1908 and Tsar of Bulgaria from 1908 until his abdication in 1918. Under his r…
Ferdinand I of Bulgaria (born 1861)
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a barrister, statesman, and the founder of Pakistan. He served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until the independence of Pakistan on …
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistani lawyer and politician, 1st Governor-General of Pakistan (born 1876)
Ruth Fulton Benedict was an American anthropologist and folklorist.
Ruth Benedict, American anthropologist and academic (born 1887)
Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg was a Swedish nobleman and diplomat. In World War II, he negotiated the release of about 450 Danish Jews and 30,550 non-Jewish prisoners of many …
Folke Bernadotte, Swedish soldier and diplomat (born 1895)
Warren William Krech was an American stage and screen actor, who achieved Hollywood stardom during the early 1930s. Later earning the nickname the "King of Pre-Code", he typified t…
Warren William, American actor (born 1894)
Eylard Theodore Horn was an American racing driver. Widely considered one of the greatest racers of his era, he was the first person in history to win the AAA National Championship…
Ted Horn, American race car driver (born 1910)
Susan Sutherland Isaacs, CBE was an English educational psychologist and psychoanalyst. She published studies on the intellectual and social development of children and promoted th…
Susan Sutherland Isaacs, English psychologist and psychoanalyst (born 1885)
Edythe Chapman was an American stage and silent film actress.
Edythe Chapman, American actress (born 1863)
Royal Cortissoz was an American art historian and, from 1891 until his death, the art critic for the New York Herald Tribune. During his tenure at the newspaper, he consistently ch…
Royal Cortissoz, American art critic (born 1869)
Walther Heinrich Alfred Hermann von Brauchitsch was a German Generalfeldmarschall and Commander-in-Chief (Oberbefehlshaber) of the German Army during the first two years of World W…
Walther von Brauchitsch, German field marshal (born 1881)
Franz Lehár was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas, of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow.
Franz Lehár, Austrian-Hungarian composer (born 1870)
Frederic Logan Paxson was an American historian. He also served as the President of Mississippi Valley Historical Association. He had undergraduate and PhD degrees from the Univers…
Frederic L. Paxson, American historian and author (born 1877)
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world t…
The Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, headquartered in Paris, was founded
The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine was the first phase of the 1948 Palestine war. It broke out after the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on …
Civil War in Mandatory Palestine: The Jewish paramilitary group Haganah captured Haifa from the Arab Liberation Army
High Explosive Research (HER) was the British project to develop atomic bombs independently after the Second World War. This decision was taken by a cabinet sub-committee on 8 Janu…
The United Kingdom publicly announced that it was independently developing nuclear weapons, after the US Atomic Energy A
David Ben-Gurion was the primary national founder and first prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency from 1935, and later president of the Jewish Agency …
David Ben-Gurion publicly read the Israeli Declaration of Independence at a building later called Independence Hall in T
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civi…
Arab–Israeli War: After five days of fighting, Egyptian forces captured the Israeli community of Yad Mordechai after the