Explore 5072 historical events from 1940–1949.
Johnnie N. Lewis was a Liberian lawyer and politician who served as the 18th Chief Justice of Liberia from 2006 to 2012. Before his appointment to the Supreme Court, he served as a…
Johnnie Lewis, Liberian lawyer and politician, 18th Chief Justice of Liberia (died 2015)
Clare Mary Francis MBE is a British novelist who in her first career as a yachtswoman has twice sailed across the Atlantic on her own. She was the first woman to skipper a successf…
Clare Francis, English sailor and author
Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills is an English actress and singer. A daughter of Sir John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell and younger sister of actress Juliet Mills, she began her act…
Hayley Mills, English actress
Timothy James Curry is an Emmy Award-winning English actor and singer. He is famous for playing many villainous roles and rose to prominence as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the musical fi…
Tim Curry, English actor and singer
Victor Emmanuel III was King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. A member of the House of Savoy, he also reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941…
King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy abdicates and is succeeded by Umberto II
The V-2 rocket, with the development name Aggregat-4 (A4), was the world's first practical, modern ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was…
First successful launch of an American V-2 rocket at White Sands Proving Ground
Louis Alexander Slotin was a Canadian physicist and chemist who took part in the Manhattan Project. Born and raised in the North End of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Slotin earned both his B…
Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core at Los A
The Emirate of Transjordan, officially the Amirate of Trans-Jordan, was a British protectorate under the League of Nations mandate established on 11 April 1921, which remained as s…
The Emirate of Transjordan becomes independent from the United Kingdom as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan after rat
An institutional referendum was held by universal suffrage in the Kingdom of Italy on 2 June 1946, a key event of contemporary Italian history. Until 1946, Italy was a kingdom rule…
Birth of the Italian Republic: In a referendum, Italians vote to turn Italy from a monarchy into a Republic
Sandro Chia is an Italian painter and sculptor. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he was, with Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria, and Mimmo Paladino, a principal mem…
Sandro Chia, Italian painter and sculptor
Steven Logan Bennett was a United States Air Force pilot who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Vietnam War.
Steven L
Paul Charles William Davies is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, a professor in Arizona State University and director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Scie…
Paul Davies, English physicist and author
Archibald Johnstone Kirkwood, Baron Kirkwood of Kirkhope,, is a British Liberal Democrat politician.
Archy Kirkwood, Baron Kirkwood of Kirkhope, Scottish lawyer and politician
Nicholas Herbert Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford,, is a British economist, banker, and academic. He is the IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government and Chair of the Grantham …
Nicholas Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford, English economist and academic
The La Salle Hotel was a historic hotel located on the northwest corner of La Salle Street and Madison Street in the Chicago Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States…
A fire in the La Salle Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, kills 61 people
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster that serves as the primary national public broadcasting company of the United Kingdom, headquarte…
The United Kingdom's BBC returns to broadcasting its television service, which has been off air for seven years because
The 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake struck Vancouver Island on the coast of British Columbia, Canada, on June 23 at 10:15 a.m. with a magnitude estimated at 7.0 Ms and 7.5 Mw. The…
The 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake strikes Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
The Canadian Citizenship Act was a statute passed by the Parliament of Canada in 1946 which created the legal status of Canadian citizenship. The Act defined who were Canadian citi…
In the Canadian Citizenship Act, the Parliament of Canada establishes the definition of Canadian citizenship
The Kielce pogrom was an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence that took place on 4 July 1946 in the city of Kielce, Poland. Polish soldiers, police officers, and civilians attacked a b…
The Kielce pogrom against Jewish Holocaust survivors in Poland.
Bonnie Blair Brown is an American theater, film and television actress. She has had a number of high-profile roles, including in the play Copenhagen on Broadway, the leading actres…
Blair Brown, American actress
Carlton Alex Sherwood was an American journalist who produced the anti-John Kerry film Stolen Honor. Sherwood served on two news teams which were responsible for the award of the P…
Carlton Sherwood, American soldier and journalist (died 2014)
Douglas Hewson Christie, Jr. was a Canadian lawyer and political activist based in Victoria, British Columbia, who was known nationally for his defence of clients such as Holocaust…
Doug Christie, Canadian lawyer and activist (died 2013)
Phil Alexander Robertson was an American professional hunter, businessman and television personality who was the founder of hunting products company Duck Commander. A reality telev…
Phil Robertson, American hunter and television personality (died 2025)
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of about 7,641 islands,…
After 381 years of near-continuous colonial rule by various powers, the Philippines attains full independence from the…