1941 

Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s

Years: 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 - 1941 - 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

• January 10 - Lend-Lease is introduced into the United States Congress.
• January 19 - British troops attack Italian-held Eritrea.
• January 21 - World War II: Australian and British forces attack Tobruk[?], Libya.
• January 22 - World War II: The United Kingdom captures Tobruk[?] from Nazi forces.
• January 23 - Charles Lindbergh testifies before the United States Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
• February 3 - World War II: The Nazis forcibly restore Pierre Laval[?] to office in occupied Vichy, France.
• February 4 - World War II: The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.
• February 11 - World War II: Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli.
• March 1 - World War II: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact thus joining the Axis powers.
• March 1 - W47NV[?] begins operations in Nashville, Tennessee becoming the first FM radio station.
• March 11 - World War II: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan.
• March 17 - In Washington, DC, the National Gallery of Art[?] is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• March 22 - Washington's Grand Coulee Dam[?] begins to generate electricity.
• March 25 - World War II: Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers
• March 27 - World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor - Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa arrives in Honolulu, Hawaii and begins to study the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor.
• March 29 - World War II: Battle of Cape Matapan - Off the Peloponnesus coast in the Mediterranean, British naval forces defeat those of Italy sinking five warships. Battle started on March 27.
• April 6 - World War II: Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
• April 27 - World War II: German troops enter Athens.
• April - Russia and Japan sign a neutrality pact.
• May 6 - At California's March Field Bob Hope performs his first USO Show[?].
• May 9 - World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by United Kingdom's Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine which Allied cryptergraphers later use to break coded German messages.
• May 10 - World War II: The United Kingdom's House of Commons is destroyed by the Luftwaffe in an air raid[?].
• May 10 - World War II: Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland claiming to be on a peace mission.
• May 20 - World War II: Battle of Crete - German troops invade Crete.
• May 21 - World War II: 950 miles off the coast of Brazil, the freighter SS Robin Moor[?] becomes the first United States ship sunk by a German U-boat.
• May 24 - World War II: In the North Atlantic, the German battleship Bismarck sinks the HMS Hood killing all but three crewman on what was the pride of the Royal Navy.
• May 26 - World War II: In the North Atlantic, Swordfish from the carrier HMS Ark Royal fatally cripple the Bismarck in torpedo attack, allowing the Royal Navy Fleet.
• May 27 - World War II: President Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency."
• May 27 - World War II: German pocket battleship Bismarck is sunk in North Atlantic killing 2,300.
• June 9 - World War II: Finland initiate mobilization and put some units under German command
• June 22 - World War II: Germany attacks the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa
• June 25 - World War II: Finland attacked by the Soviet Union seeks the opportunity of revanche in the Continuation War.
• July 5 - World War II: German troops reach the Dniepr[?] River.
• November 14 - World War II: HMS Ark Royal is hit by German U-boat U-81 and sinks.
• December 7, December 6 (in Japan standard time) - Japanese navy launches a suprise attack on the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor, thus drawing the United States into World War II.

• John Vincent Atanasoff[?] and Clifford E. Berry[?] developed the Atanasoff Berry Computer.
• Ives[?] and Stilwell[?] prove that ions radiate at frequencies affected by their motion.
• In Sweden, Victor Hasselblad[?] forms the Hasselblad camera company[?].
• The Pinnacle Commune[?], a Rastafarian community, is destroyed by Jamaican authorities
• Indochina Communist party, led by Ho Chi Minh, combines with Nationalist party to form the Vietminh.

Art, Culture & Fashion

• 1941 in film
  • Citizen Kane, starring Orson Welles
  • The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart
  • Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion
  • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner
• 1941 in literature
  • The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
  • Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
  • Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry[?]
• 1941 in music
  • February 11 - 1st Gold record presented to Glenn Miller for Chattanooga Choo Choo.
• 1941 in sports[?]
  • May 15 - Joe DiMaggio starts his record-breaking 56-game home run hitting streak.
  • One of the greatest race horses of his time, Epinard[?], was taken during the German occupation of France and used as a delivery wagon horse.
• 1941 in television
  • April 30 - The FCC approves the NTSC standards of 525 lines and 30 frames per second, and authorizes commercial TV to begin on July 1.
  • May 2 - 10 television stations were granted commercial TV licenses (effective July 1). These stations were required to broadcast 15 hours per week. Bulova Watch Co.[?], Sun Oil Co.[?], Lever Bros. Co.[?] and Procter & Gamble[?] sign on as sponsors of the first commercial telecasts from WNBT in New York.
  • July 1 - Commercial TV authorized by the FCC.
  • July 1 - Ralph Edwards[?] hosted the first game show broadcast on television, Truth Or Consequences, simulcast on radio and TV and sponsored by Ivory Soap[?]. The first legal TV commercial in the United States for Bulova watches occurs at 2:29, superimposed over a test pattern[?].

Births

• January 3 - Van Dyke Parks, musician, composer
• January 4 - Henri Bergson, writer
• January 5 - Miyazaki Hayao, Japanese film maker
• January 5 - Grady Thomas[?], singer (P-Funk)
• January 8 - Graham Chapman, comedian
• January 14 - Faye Dunaway, actress
• January 15 - Captain Beefheart, singer
• January 18 - David Ruffin[?], singer (+ 1991)
• January 21 - Richie Havens, musician
• January 21 - Placido Domingo, opera singer
• January 26 - Henry Jaglom[?], director
• January 26 - Scott Glenn[?], actor
• January 30 - Dick Cheney, politician
• January 31 - Richard Gephardt, American politician
• February 8 - Nick Nolte, actor
• February 10 - Michael Apted[?], director
• February 11 - Glenn Randall Jr[?], stuntman
• February 11 - Jeremy Mackenzie[?], general
• February 13 - Sigmar Polke[?], painter
• February 17 - Julia McKenzie[?], actress
• February 17 - Gene Pitney, singer
• February 20 - Buffy Sainte-Marie[?], singer
• February 27 - Paddy Ashdown, British politician
• March 3 - Jutta Hoffmann[?], actress
• March 4 - Adrian Lyne[?], director
• March 6 - Willie Stargell[?], Baseball Hall of Famer
• March 14 - Wolfgang Petersen, director, Das Boot
• March 15 - Mike Love[?], musician ("The Beach Boys")
• March 16 - Bernardo Bertolucci, film director
• March 18 - Wilson Pickett, singer
• April 6 - Hans W. Geissendörfer[?], German film director
• May 13 - Ritchie Valens, singer (+ 1959)
• May 13 - Senta Berger[?], actress
• May 15 - K.T. Oslin[?], country musician
• May 19 - Nora Ephron, screenwriter
• May 31 - Johnny Paycheck[?] (singer)
• June 5 - Martha Argerich, Argentinian pianist
• June 27 - Krzysztof Kieslowski, film director
• October 4 - Anne Rice, horror/fantasy writer
• Richard Dawkins, British scientist
• Bob Dylan, US poet and musician

Deaths

• January 5 - Amy Johnson, aviator
• January 10 - Joe Penner[?], comedian, actor
• January 13 - James Joyce, writer
• February 11 - Rudolf Hilferding[?], German economist, Minister of Finance
• February 28 - King Alfonso XIII of Spain
• March 6 - Gutzon Borglum[?], sculptor
• March 8 - Sherwood Anderson[?], author
• March 15 - Alexej von Jawlensky, Russian impressionist painter
• March 28 - Virginia Woolf, writer
• July 10 - Jelly Roll Morton - jazz musician & composer
• August 31 - Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet (suicide)
• August 7 - Rabindranath Tagore, author
• Arthur Evans, archaeologist

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - not awarded
• Chemistry - not awarded
• Medicine - not awarded
• Literature - not awarded
• Peace - not awarded