Events in History
Events 501 - 561 of 561
- Nov 19 Russia launches winter offensive against Germans along Don front
- Nov 19 Operation Uranus: Soviet offensive begins during Battle of Stalingrad, 1 million Soviet soldiers encircle the German Sixth Army
- Nov 20 26th Soviet Armoured Corps recaptures Perelazovski
- Nov 20 British 8th Army recaptures Benghazi, Libya
Event of Interest
Nov 21 Adolf Hitler names field marshal Erich von Manstein commander of the newly-created Army Group Don (Heeresgruppe Don)
Adolf Hitler
- Nov 22 General-major Rodins 26th Pantser corp recaptures Ostrov
Event of Interest
Nov 22 Adolf Hitler orders Rommel's Africa Korps to fight to the last man
Erwin Rommel
Adolf Hitler
Poon Lim's 133 Day South Atlantic Odyssey
Nov 23 Chinese steward Poon Lim begins 133 days adrift after British ship SS Benlomond torpedoed by german U-boat and he is the sole survivor
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- Nov 23 Soviet 21st Army recaptures Kalatsj at Don
- Nov 24 Fieldmarshal Erich von Manstein arrives in Starobelsk
- Nov 24 French collaborator Marquis de Brinon establishes "African Falanx"
- Nov 25 National Organization for Aid to Underground, LO, forms
- Nov 26 Anti-fascist Council for National Liberation (AVNOJ) forms
- Nov 27 Bobby Managoff beats Yvon Robert in Houston, to become wrestling champ
- Nov 27 French navy at Toulon scuttles ships & subs so Nazis cannot seize them
- Nov 27 Tito appoints Anti-fascist Liberation board in Yugoslavia
- Nov 28 492 die in a fire that destroyed Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston
- Nov 29 US Office of Price Administration rations coffee for everyone, 10 pound a year
- Nov 30 U-boats sink and damage 142 allied ships this month (877,774 tons)
- Nov 30 -Dec 1st: Sea battle at Tassafaronga, Guadalcanal
- Nov 30 German supply vessel Uckermark (formerly called the Altmark) explodes & sinks off Yokohama
- Dec 1 Gasoline rationed in US
- Dec 1 The Beveridge Report is published by the British government unveiling plans for a post-war welfare state
Event of Interest
Dec 2 World’s 1st self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction occurs in Chicagi Pile-1 (world's 1st nuclear reactor) at the University of Chicago, overseen by Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi
- Dec 4 First US citizenship granted to an alien on foreign soil (James Hoey)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Dec 4 US bombers strike Italian mainland for first time in WW II
- Dec 4 Holocaust: In Warsaw, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Filipowicz set up the Żegota organization
- Dec 5 Seyss-Inquart orders students in nazi-Germany to work
- Dec 5 West Indies chocolate/coffee drop above Netherland
- Dec 6 Queen Wilhelmina announces Dutch Commonwealth
- Dec 6 RAF bombs Philips factory (150 die)
- Dec 10 Adolf Hitler names Anton Mussert "leader of the Dutch people"
- Dec 10 North Africa: 5th German panzer army forms under col-gen von Arnim
Event of Interest
Dec 10 An early report the Holocaust prepared by the Polish government-in-exile, using information obtained by Witold Pilecki, is addressed to UN member states
Witold Pilecki
- Dec 11 Australian Dutch guerrilla troops evacuated to Timor near Australia
- Dec 12 German offensive in South Western Stalingrad
- Dec 12 A fire in a hostel in St. John's, Newfoundland, kills 100 people
- Dec 13 Seyss-Inquart allows Dutch Nazi Anton Mussert to call himself Leader
- Dec 15 Massachusetts issues 1st US vehicular license plate tabs
- Dec 16 Hitler orders combat against partisans in Russia & Balkan
- Dec 17 Allies in London sentence German war criminals
- Dec 19 Robert Stroud "Birdman of Alcatraz" is transferred to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary
- Dec 20 1st Japanese bombing of Calcutta
- Dec 21 US Supreme court declares Nevada separation legal
- Dec 22 World War II: Adolf Hitler signs the order to develop the V-2 rocket as a weapon
- Dec 23 Allies air attack on Den Helder
- Dec 24 First powered flight of V-1 'buzz bomb', Peenemunde, Germany
- Dec 24 Red army occupies German airports at Tasjinskaja & Morozowsk
- Dec 25 Admiral Dalans murderer of Bosinier de la Chapelle, sentenced to death
- Dec 25 British Colonel S W Bailey reaches Mihailovics headquarter
- Dec 25 Soviet artillery and tank battle on German armies at Stalingrad
- Dec 27 1st Japanese women camp (Ambarawa) goes into use
- Dec 27 The Union of Pioneers of Yugoslavia is founded.
- Dec 28 Oberkommando Wehrmacht orders strategist flight out of Kaukasus
- Dec 28 Robert Sullivan becomes 1st pilot to fly Atlantic 100 times
- Dec 31 Battle of the Barents Sea between British Navy and German Kriegsmarine off North Cape, Norway