October 1941 in History

Events in History

Oct 2 6 Paris synagogues are bombed by Gestapo
Oct 2 Germans launch attack on Moscow

Event of Interest

Oct 3 Adolf Hitler says Russia is "already broken and will never rise again" in a broadcast to the German people

Oct 3 All elderly Jewish men of Kerenchug Ukraine, are killed by SS
Oct 3 Nazis blow up 6 synagoges in Paris
Oct 6 German army occupies Briansk, USSR
Oct 7 German army occupies Viarma, USSR
Oct 8 Building at Concentration Camp Birkenau begins
Oct 9 Coup in Panama declares Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango the new president.

Manhattan Project

Oct 9 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt approves an atomic program that would become the Manhattan Project

Oct 10 RAF bombs Piraeus to prevent German heavy armor advancing
Oct 10 WW2: Battle of Moscow - Germans Wehrmacht forces encounter stronger than expected resistance at the Mozhaisk line, west of Moscow
Oct 12 Soviet government moves from Moscow to Volga as Nazis forces close in on Moscow
Oct 13 Nazis kill 11,000 Jewish children and old people, in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine; additional murders continue on the 14th [1]
Oct 14 1st mass deportation of Kowno, Lodz, Minsk & Riga
Oct 15 1st mass deportation of German Jews to Eastern Europe

Appointment of Interest

Oct 15 Hideki Tojo appointed Prime Minister of Imperial Japan

Oct 15 Jews caught outside Nazi Ghetto walls in occupied Poland could be put to death
Oct 16 "Gordo" comic strip (by Gus Arriola) 1st appears in newspapers
Oct 16 Germany advances within 60 miles (96 K) of Moscow

Historic Siege

Oct 16 Romanian Legionnaires enter Odessa, Russia during the Siege of Odessa, part of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union

Oct 17 USS Kearney becomes the 1st US destroyer torpedoed in World War II, while the country is still officially neutral
Oct 18 Soviet spy Richard Sorge arrested in Tokyo
Oct 20 Nazi occupiers murder 500 inhabitants of Kragujevac Serbia

Theater Premiere

Oct 22 Maxwell Anderson's play "Candle in the Wind" premieres in NYC

Oct 25 16,000 Jews massacred in Odessa, Ukraine
Oct 25 Germany attacks Moscow

Event of Interest

Oct 25 Winston Churchill routes "Forces South" to SE Asia

Event of Interest

Oct 26 Second meeting of partisans Tito & Draza Mihailovic in Yugoslavia

President of Yugoslavia and Revolutionary Josip Broz Tito

WWII Hero and War Criminal Draža Mihailović

Oct 27 Chicago Daily Tribune editorialize there will not be war with Japan
Oct 31 Clothing factory fire in Huddersfield, England kills 49
Oct 31 Mount Rushmore Monument is completed in South Dakota, designed by Gutzon Borglum
Oct 31 Prior to US joining WWII, German submarine U-552 torpedoes US destroyer Reuben James near Iceland

Birthdays in History

Oct 2 Zareh Baronian, Armenian theologian, born in Bucharest, Romania (d. 2017)

Anne Rice (1941-2021)

Oct 4 American Gothic novelist (Interview with a Vampire), born in New Orleans, Louisiana

Oct 4 Lori Saunders, Kansas City Mo (Petticoat Junction, Dusty Trails)
Oct 4 Roy Blount, Jr., American writer
Oct 5 Eduardo Duhalde, President of Argentina (2002-03), born in Lomas de Zamora, Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina
Oct 7 John Ford Noonan, American playwright (A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking), born in Stamford, Connecticut (d. 2018)
Oct 8 Jesse Jackson, American clergyman and Democratic presidential candidate (1984, 88), born in Greenville, South Carolina
Oct 9 Brian Lamb, American founder of c-span, born in Lafayette, Indiana
Oct 9 Trent Lott, American politician (Rep-R-MS, 1973-1989, Senator-R-MS 1989-2007), born in Grenada, Mississippi
Oct 10 Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigerian writer and environmentalist, born in Bori, Nigeria (d. 1995)
Oct 10 Laurence Henry Tribe, Harvard Law professor, born in Shanghai, China
Oct 12 Craig Washington, American politician (Rep-D-Texas), born in Longview, Texas
Oct 12 Michael Mansfield, English barrister, born in London
Oct 14 Alexander Burdonsky, Russian theater director and Joseph Stalin's grandson, born in Samara, Russia (d. 2017)
Oct 14 Jim Courter, American politician (Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Jersey), born in Montclair, New Jersey
Oct 21 Marina Ripa, countess/writer (My First 40 Years), born in Rome, Italy
Oct 23 Igor Smirnov, Transnistrian politician, President of breakaway region of Moldova, born in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Soviet Union
Oct 24 William H. Dobelle, American biomedical engineer (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2013 nominee), born in Massachusetts (d. 2004)
Oct 25 Anne Tyler, American writer (Accidental Tourist), born in Hennepin County, Minnesota
Oct 31 Dan Alderson, American scientist (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and sci-fi fandom figure, (d. 1989)

Deaths in History

Oct 5 Louis Brandeis, American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States, dies at 84
Oct 12 Harry Micajah Daugherty, American politician, lawyer and political manager accused of corruption, dies at 81
Oct 13 GJ Berenschot, Dutch Army General and Supreme Commander of Dutch East Indies army, dies
Oct 17 John S Plaskett, Canadian astronomer (Plaskett's twins), dies
Oct 18 Dirk Fock, Dutch politician and Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (1921-26), dies at 83
Oct 18 Manuel Teixeira Gomes, 7th President of Portugal, dies at 81
Oct 25 Robert Delaunay, French artist, dies at 56
Oct 26 Arkady Gaidar, Russian Soviet children's writer, killed in combat at 37
Oct 27 Ernest Everett Just, African-American embryologist (physiology of development, fertilization, cell division), dies of pancreatic cancer at 58
Oct 31 Herwarth Walden, German art writer and critic, dies in a Soviet prison at 63