Events 401 - 553 of 553
Event of Interest
Sep 30 Admiral Chester Nimitz's B-17 finds Guadalcanal using a National Geographic map
- Sep 30 SS exterminates 3,500 Jews in Zelov Lodz Poland in 6 week period
- Oct 1 Bell P-59 Airacomet fighter, 1st US jet, makes maiden flight
- Oct 1 Little Golden Books (children's books) begins publishing
- Oct 2 RMS Queen Mary, carrying thousands of US troops, slices cruiser HMS Curacao in half, killing 239
Event of Interest
Oct 7 Maxwell Anderson's "Eve of St Mark" premieres in NYC
- Oct 7 US & UK government announce establishment of United Nations
- Oct 8 Fight at Matanikau, Guadalcanal (John Hersey-Into the Valley)
- Oct 9 Statute of Westminster 1931 passed by the Australian parliament, formalises Australian autonomy
- Oct 10 1,300 Austrian Jews transported to Theresienstadt concentration camp
- Oct 11 -Oct 12] Naval battle at Cape Esperance, Guadalcanal
- Oct 12 Successful Soviet counter attack through 37th Guard division
- Oct 12 US navy defeats Japanese in WW II Battle of Cape Esperance
- Oct 14 Dobbe resistances group overthrows Bonkarten distribution
- Oct 14 German assault on Tractor factory, 1000s killed
- Oct 14 Japanese battleship strikes Henderson Field, Guadalcanal
- Oct 15 German 6th Army occupies Tractorenfabriek, 3,000 Germans die
- Oct 16 Cyclone in Bay of Bengal kills some 40,000 south of Calcutta India
- Oct 20 "Durham Manifesto" issued by the Southern Conference on Race Relations held in Durham, North Carolina, calls for fundamental changes in race relations
- Oct 22 1st ships of invasion fleet for Oran (Algeria) leave Scotland
- Oct 22 Operation Flagpole: US Major General Mark Clark & Brigadier General Lyman Lemnitzer meet Vichy French Général Charles Mast secretly in small fishing village of Cherchell, Algeria to finalize plans for Allied Invasion of North Africa
- Oct 23 During WWII, Britain launches major offensive at El Alamein, Egypt
- Oct 23 First ships of invasion fleet to Morocco leave Norfolk
- Oct 23 German units go through Red October factory in Stalingrad
- Oct 24 Second day of battle at El Alamein: British infantry
- Oct 25 3rd day of battle at El Alamein: British offensive
- Oct 25 Battle of Henderson Field Guadalcanal begins
- Oct 26 Battle of Santa Cruz: Japanese naval offensive against US forces near Solomon Islands
- Oct 26 Fourth day of battle at El Alamein: Australian breakthrough
- Oct 26 Second day of Battle of Henderson Field, Guadalcanal
- Oct 27 5th day of battle at El Alamein: heavy battles/Australian advance
- Oct 27 US aircraft carrier Hornet sinks off Santa Cruz
- Oct 28 6th day battle at El Alamein: British offensive under Montgomery
- Oct 28 Train crashes into bus, killing 16 & injuring 20 (Detroit Michigan)
- Oct 29 Alaska highway completed
- Oct 29 Nazis murder 16,000 Jews in Pinsk, Soviet Union
- Oct 29 Seventh day of battle at El Alamein: Montgomery assault
- Oct 30 8th day of battle at El Alamein: new Australian assault
- Oct 30 US aircraft carrier Enterprise reaches Noumea
- Oct 31 9th day of the Battle of El Alamein
- Oct 31 U-boats sink and damage 120 allied ships this month (659,457 tons)
- Nov 1 10th day of battle at El Alamein
- Nov 1 John H. Johnson publishes 1st issue of Negro Digest
- Nov 2 11th day of battle at El Alamein: British assault on Tel el Aqqaqir
- Nov 3 12th day of battle at El Alamein: Scottish assault
- Nov 3 William L Dawson elected to Congress from Chicago
- Nov 4 13th day of battle at El Alamein: Afrika Korps draws back
- Nov 5 Nazi raid on Greek Jews in Paris
- Nov 5 Pro-British Clandestine Radio Diego Suarez's final transmission
- Nov 6 Nazis kill 12,000 Jews in the Minsk ghetto
- Nov 7 1st US President to broadcast in a foreign language - FDR, in French
- Nov 8 1st WW II American expeditionary force lands in Africa (Gold Coast)
- Nov 8 Adolf Hitler proclaims fall of Stalingrad from Munich beer hall
Event of Interest
Nov 8 Operation Torch; began as US and British forces under Eisenhower land in French North Africa
- Nov 8 Vichy-France drops diplomatic relations with US
- Nov 9 German occupiers install Erik Scavenius as Danish premier
- Nov 9 Transport number 44 departs with French Jews to nazi-Germany
- Nov 10 Philip Barry's "Without Love" premieres in NYC
- Nov 10 US troops occupy airport of Port-Lyautey, Morocco
- Nov 10 US-British troops occupies Oran, Algeria
- Nov 11 -12] last German offensive in Stalingrad
- Nov 11 745 French Jews deported to Auschwitz
- Nov 11 Germany completes its WWII occupation of France
- Nov 11 Jews in the Free Zone of France ordered to wear a yellow star of David
- Nov 11 Lt-general Kumakashi Harada becomes Japanese commander on Java
- Nov 11 Transport #45 departs with French Jews to Nazi-Germany
- Nov 11 WWII: British led Allied forces defeat Erwin Rommel's German and Italian Army Panzers in Second Battle of El-Alamein, North Africa, helping to secure the Suez Canal
- Nov 12 WWII Naval Battle of Guadalcanal begins between Allied and Japanese forces in Solomon Islands
- Nov 13 Chaotic "sea battle of Friday the 13th" at Guadalcanal
- Nov 13 Minimum draft age lowered from 21 to 18 in the US
- Nov 14 -Nov 15th) Japanese/US sea battle at Savo-Island in Guadalcanal
- Nov 14 Last Vichy-French troops in Algeria surrender
- Nov 15 World War II: First flight of the Heinkel He 219.
- Nov 16 Assault of US B-17 Flying Fortresses on airport at Sidi Ahmed
Event of Interest
Nov 18 Thornton Wilder's "Skin of our Teeth" premieres in NYC
Event of Interest
Nov 19 Joseph Goebbels visits "German Theatre in the Netherlands"
- Nov 19 Operation Uranus: Soviet offensive begins during Battle of Stalingrad, 1 million Soviet soldiers encircle the German Sixth Army
- Nov 19 Russia launches winter offensive against Germans along Don front
- Nov 20 26th Soviet Armoured Corps recaptures Perelazovski
- Nov 20 British 8th Army recaptures Benghazi, Libya
- Nov 21 Adolf Hitler names field marshal Erich von Manstein commander of the newly-created Army Group Don (Heeresgruppe Don)
- Nov 22 Adolf Hitler orders Rommel's Africa Korps to fight to the last man
- Nov 22 General-major Rodins 26th Pantser corp recaptures Ostrov
- Nov 23 3rd & 5th Romanian army corps surrenders
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
- Nov 23 German 4th & 6th Army surrounded at Stalingrad
- Nov 23 Japanese bombing of Port Darwin, Australia
- Nov 23 Soviet 21st Army recaptures Kalatsj at Don
- Nov 23 US Coast Guard Woman's Auxiliary (SPARS) authorized
- Nov 24 French collaborator Marquis de Brinon establishes "African Falanx"
- Nov 24 German Fieldmarshal Erich von Manstein arrives in Starobelsk, Ukraine
- Nov 25 National Organization for Aid to Underground, LO, forms
- Nov 26 Anti-fascist Council for National Liberation (AVNOJ) forms
- Nov 27 French navy at Toulon scuttles ships & subs so Nazis cannot seize them
- 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 -Dec 1st: Sea battle at Tassafaronga, Guadalcanal
- Nov 30 German supply vessel Uckermark (formerly called the Altmark) explodes & sinks off Yokohama
- Nov 30 U-boats sink and damage 142 allied ships this month (877,774 tons)
- 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 Chicago Pile-1 (world's 1st nuclear reactor) at the University of Chicago, overseen by Enrico Fermi
- Dec 4 FDR orders dismantling of Works Progress Administration
- Dec 4 First US citizenship granted to an alien on foreign soil (James Hoey)
- Dec 4 Holocaust: In Warsaw, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Filipowicz set up the Żegota organization
- Dec 4 US bombers strike Italian mainland for first time in WW II
- Dec 5 Seyss-Inquart orders students in nazi-Germany to work
- Dec 5 West Indies chocolate/coffee drop above Netherland
Event of Interest
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"
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
- Dec 10 North Africa: 5th German panzer army forms under col-gen von Arnim
- Dec 11 Australian Dutch guerrilla troops evacuated to Timor near Australia
- Dec 12 A fire in a hostel in St. John's, Newfoundland, kills 100 people
- Dec 12 German offensive in South Western Stalingrad
- 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, convicted murdered, transferred to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, where he becomes known as "Birdman of Alcatraz"
- 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, Netherlands
- 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