What happened in 1940

World14

• Jan 6WWII: Winter War – General Semyon Timoshenko takes command of all Soviet forces.
• Jan 7WWII: Winter War: Battle of Raate Road – Outnumbered Finnish troops decisively defeat Soviet forces.
• Jan 8Winter War: Battle of Suomussalmi – Finnish forces destroy the Soviet 44th Rifle Division.
• Feb 1WWII: Winter War – Soviet forces launch a major assault on Finnish troops occupying the Karelian Isthmus.
• Mar 12Moscow Peace Treaty: The Soviet Union and Finland sign a peace treaty in Moscow, ending the Winter War; Finns, along with the world at large, are shocked by the harsh terms.
• Apr 9WWII: Germany invades the neutral countries of Denmark and Norway in Operation Weserübung, opening the Norwegian campaign. The British Royal Navy attempts to attack elements of the German fleet off Norway. Vidkun Quisling proclaims a new collaborationist regime in Norway. The German invasion of Denmark lasts for about six hours, before that country capitulates.
• MayThe first free flight of Igor Sikorsky's Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 helicopter is made in the United States.
• Jun 14Soviet ultimatum to Lithuania: The Soviet Union demands that its Red Army be allowed to enter Lithuania and form a pro-Soviet puppet "People's Government of Lithuania".
• Jun 21WWII: The unsuccessful Italian invasion of France begins with an offensive in the Alps.
• Jun 30WWII: German forces land in Guernsey, marking the start of the 5-year Occupation of the Channel Islands.
• Jul 3WWII: Attack on Mers-el-Kébir: British naval units sink or seize ships of the French fleet anchored in the Algerian ports of Mers-el-Kebir and Oran, to prevent them from falling into German hands. The following day, Vichy France breaks off diplomatic relations with Britain.
• Aug 20Leon Trotsky is attacked with an ice axe in his Mexico home by NKVD agent Ramón Mercader.
• Sep 27WWII: Germany, Italy and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact.
• Nov 30The Battle of South Guangxi (Second Sino-Japanese War) concludes after a year with the Japanese retiring having attained their strategic objectives; however, the Central Hubei Operation concludes after five days leaving many Japanese dead.

North America9

• Jun 30The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is placed under the Department of the Interior.
• Jul 1The first Tacoma Narrows Bridge opens for business, built with an girder and above the water, as the third-longest suspension bridge in the world.
• Jul 23Welles Declaration: United States Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles announces that the U.S. will not accord diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union's occupation of the Baltic states.
• Jul 27Bugs Bunny makes his debut in the Oscar-nominated cartoon short, A Wild Hare. However, it is not until 1941 that his name is adopted.
• Nov 51940 United States presidential election: Democrat incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt decisively defeats Republican challenger Wendell Willkie, and becomes the United States' first and only third-term president.
• Nov 7In Tacoma, Washington, the -long center span of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (known as Galloping Gertie) collapses.
• Nov 13The Walt Disney animated film Fantasia, the first commercial film shown in stereophonic sound, has its world premiere at the Broadway Theatre in New York City. It is the first box office failure for Disney, though it recoups its cost years later and becomes one of the most highly regarded of Disney's films.
• Nov 25Woody Woodpecker makes his debut in the animated short, Knock Knock. It is not until 1941 that his current name is adopted.
• DecTimely Comics' Captain America Comics #1 (cover dated March 1941), first appearance of Captain America and Bucky, hits newsstands in the United States.

Europe65

• Mar 18WWII: Axis powers – Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at Brenner Pass in the Alps. After being informed by Hitler that the Germans are ready to attack in the west, Mussolini agrees to bring Italy into the war in due course.
• Apr 12The Faroe Islands are occupied by British troops, following the German invasion of Denmark. This action is taken to avert a possible German occupation of the islands, with serious consequences for the course of the Battle of the Atlantic.
• May 10The Battle of France begins.
• May 10The Battle of the Netherlands begins.
• May 17Zeeland is overrun by German forces, ending the Battle of the Netherlands and beginning full German occupation of the Netherlands (Noord-Beveland surrenders on May 18, and the remaining Dutch troops are withdrawn from Zeelandic Flanders on May 19).
• MayWWII: The Dunkirk evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from France begins.
• Jun 4The Dunkirk evacuation ends: The British and French navies, together with large numbers of civilian vessels from various nations, complete evacuating 300,000 troops from Dunkirk, France to England.
• Jun 18Winston Churchill tells the House of Commons of the United Kingdom: "The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin... if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour."
• Jun 22WWII: Second Armistice at Compiègne: The French Third Republic and Nazi Germany sign an armistice, ending the Battle of France in the Forest of Compiègne, in the same Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits railroad car used by Marshal Ferdinand Foch to conclude the Armistice with Germany in 1918. This divides France into a Zone occupée in the north and west, under the Military Administration in France (Nazi Germany), and a southern Zone libre, Vichy France.
• Jul 10WWII: The Battle of Britain air offensive of the German Luftwaffe against the British RAF Fighter Command begins.
• Aug 13WWII: Luftwaffe Adlertag ("Eagle Day") strike on southern England occurs, starting the rapid escalation of the Battle of Britain.
• Aug 18WWII: "The Hardest Day" in the Battle of Britain: Both sides lose more aircraft combined on this day than at any other point during the campaign, without the Luftwaffe achieving dominance over RAF Fighter Command.
• Oct 28WWII: Greco-Italian War begins when Italian troops invade Greece, meeting strong resistance from Greek troops and civilians. This action signals the start of the Balkan Campaign.
• Nov 2WWII: Greco-Italian War – Battle of Elaia–Kalamas in Epirus: Outnumbered Greek forces repel the Italian Army.
• Nov 20WWII: Hungary, Romania and Slovakia join the Axis powers.

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USSR / Russia2

• Mar 5Katyn massacre: Members of the Soviet Politburo (Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Mikhail Kalinin, Kliment Voroshilov and Lavrentiy Beria) sign an order, prepared by Beria, for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs.
• Aug 3The Lithuanian SSR is annexed into the Soviet Union, followed by the Latvian SSR on August 5 and the Estonian SSR August 6, just seven weeks after their occupation. Ethnic Germans will be deported to Germany.

Asia3

• Mar 13Indian nationalist Udham Singh assassinates Sir Michael O'Dwyer (in revenge for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre) at Caxton Hall in London, for which he is hanged on 31 July at HM Prison Pentonville.
• Mar 23Pakistan Movement: The Lahore Resolution, calling for greater autonomy for what will become Pakistan in British India, is drawn up by the All-India Muslim League during a three-day general session at Iqbal Park, Lahore.
• Mar 30WWII: Former Kuomintang member and Chinese foreign minister, Wang Jingwei, announces the creation of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China in Nanjing.

Middle East4

• Jun 11WWII: The Western Desert Campaign opens, with British forces crossing the Frontier Wire into Italian Libya.
• Sep 9WWII: The Italian invasion of Egypt commences from Libya, progressing only as far as Sidi Barrani.
• Nov 25Patria disaster: As British authorities attempt to deport Jewish refugees (originating from German-occupied Europe) from Mandatory Palestine to Mauritius, aboard the requisitioned emigrant liner at Haifa, the Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah sinks the ship with a bomb, killing around 250 refugees and crew.
• Dec 9WWII: Operation Compass – British forces in North Africa begin their first major offensive, with an attack on Italian forces at Sidi Barrani, Egypt.

Latin America1

• Sep 7The President of Paraguay, José Félix Estigarribia, dies in a plane crash.

Africa2

• Sep 23WWII: Battle of Dakar – Naval forces of Free France and Britain fail to take the port of Dakar in French West Africa from Vichy France.
• Nov 12WWII: The Battle of Gabon, begun on October 27, concludes with Free French Forces taking control of the colony of Gabon and the remainder of French Equatorial Africa from the Vichy regime.