1941

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Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1910s 1920s 1930s – 1940s – 1950s 1960s 1970s
Years:	1938 1939 1940 – 1941 – 1942 1943 1944

1941 by topic:
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By country
Australia Canada China Ecuador France Germany Greece India Ireland Italy Japan Malaya Mexico New Zealand Norway Palestine Mandate Philippines Singapore South Africa Soviet Union United Kingdom United States
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Birth and death categories
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Establishments and disestablishments categories
Establishments Disestablishments
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Works Introductions

1941 in other calendars
Gregorian calendar	1941 MCMXLI
Ab urbe condita	2694
Armenian calendar	1390 ԹՎ ՌՅՂ
Assyrian calendar	6691
Bahá'í calendar	97–98
Bengali calendar	1348
Berber calendar	2891
British Regnal year	5 Geo. 6 – 6 Geo. 6
Buddhist calendar	2485
Burmese calendar	1303
Byzantine calendar	7449–7450
Chinese calendar	庚辰年十二月初四日 (4577/4637-12-4) — to — 辛巳年十一月十四日 (4578/4638-11-14)
Coptic calendar	1657–1658
Ethiopian calendar	1933–1934
Hebrew calendar	5701–5702
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1997–1998
- Shaka Samvat	1863–1864
- Kali Yuga	5042–5043
Holocene calendar	11941
Igbo calendar
- Ǹrí Ìgbò	941–942
Iranian calendar	1319–1320
Islamic calendar	1359–1360
Japanese calendar	Shōwa 16 (昭和16年)
Juche calendar	30
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 13 days
Korean calendar	4274
Minguo calendar	ROC 30 民國30年
Thai solar calendar	2484

Year 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

Events

Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.

January

January 1 – Thailand Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram decrees January 1 as the official start of the Thai solar calendar new year (thus the previous year that began April 1 had only 9 months).
January 3 – A decree in Germany outlaws the use of Blackletter Gothic typefaces in favour of Antiqua.
January 4 – The short subject Elmer's Pet Rabbit is released, marking the second appearance of Bugs Bunny, and also the first to have his name on a title card.
January 5 – WWII: At the Battle of Bardia in Libya, Australian and British troops defeat Italian forces, the first battle of the war in which an Australian Army formation takes part.
January 6 – The keel of the USS Missouri is laid at the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn.
January 10 – The Lend-Lease Act is introduced into the United States Congress.
January 11 – The British Royal Navy light cruiser HMS Southampton (83) is sunk off Malta.
January 13 – All persons born in Puerto Rico since this day are declared U.S. citizens by birth, through U.S. federal law.
January 14 – WWII: Commerce raiding German auxiliary cruiser Pinguin captures the Norwegian whaling fleet near Bouvet Island, effectively ending Southern Ocean whaling for the duration of the war.
January 15 – John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry describe the workings of the Atanasoff–Berry Computer in print.
January 19 – WWII: British troops attack Italian-held Eritrea.
January 20 – Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes swears in U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt for his third term.
January 22 – WWII: Battle of Tobruk: Australian and British forces capture Tobruk from the Italians.
January 22 – In Sweden, Victor Hasselblad registers the Hasselblad camera company.
January 23 – Aviator Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
January 27 – WWII – Attack on Pearl Harbour: Joseph Grew, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, reports to Washington a rumor overheard at a diplomatic reception concerning a planned surprise attack on Pearl Harbour, Hawaii.
January 30 – WWII – Australians capture Derna, Libya, from the Italians.

January 21: Tobruk

February

February 3 – WWII: The Nazis forcibly restore Pierre Laval to office in occupied Vichy France.
February 4 – WWII: The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.
February 5 – Air Training Corps: The Air Training Corps was formed.
February 6 – WWII: Fall of Benghazi to the Western Desert Force. Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel is appointed commander of Afrika Korps.
February 8 – WWII: The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Lend-Lease Act.
February 9 – Winston Churchill, in a worldwide broadcast, tells the United States to show its support by sending arms to the British: "Give us the tools, and we will finish the job."
February 12
- WWII: Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli.
- Reserve Constable Albert Alexander, a patient at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, becomes the first person treated with penicillin intravenously, by Howard Florey's team. He reacts positively but there is insufficient supply of the drug to reverse his terminal infection. A successful treatment is achieved during May.
February 13 – Aircraft from HMS Formidable attack Massawa in Eritrea.
February 14 – WWII: Admiral Kichisaburō Nomura begins his duties as Japanese Ambassador to the United States.
February 19– February 22 – WWII: Three Nights' Blitz over Swansea, South Wales: Over these 3 nights of intensive bombing, which last a total of 13 hours and 48 minutes, Swansea's town centre is almost completely obliterated by the 896 high explosive bombs employed by the Luftwaffe. A total of 397 casualties and 230 deaths are reported.
February 22 – HMS Shropshire bombards Barawa, on the coast between Kismayo and Mogadishu.
February 23 – Glenn T. Seaborg isolates and discovers plutonium.
February 25 – British submarine HMS Upright attacks an Italian convoy sinking the cruiser Armando Diaz.
February 27 – The New Zealand Division cruiser HMS Leander (1931) sinks Italian armed merchant raider Ramb I off the Maldives.

March

March 1
- WWII: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact, thus joining the Axis powers.
- W47NV begins operations in Nashville, Tennessee, becoming the first FM radio station.
- Arthur L. Bristol becomes Rear Admiral for the United States Navy's Support Force, Atlantic Fleet.
March 4 – WWII: Operation Claymore - British Commandos carry out a successful raid on the Lofoten Islands off the north coast of Norway.
March 8 – WWII: The U.S. Senate passes the Lend-Lease Act.
March 11 – WWII: Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, providing for the U.S. to provide Lend-Lease aid to the Allies.
March 15 – Richard C. Hottelet is arrested by the Gestapo on "suspicion of espionage", but eventually released in July as part of a prisoner exchange.
March 16 – A group of U.S. warships arrive in Auckland, New Zealand on a goodwill visit. On March 20, they arrive in Sydney, Australia.
March 17
- In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
- British Minister of Labour Ernest Bevin calls for women to fill vital jobs.
March 22 – Washington state's Grand Coulee Dam begins to generate electricity.
March 24 – WWII: Rommel launches his first offensive in Cyrenaica.
March 25 – WWII: The Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers in Vienna.
March 27 – WWII:
- Battle of Cape Matapan: Off the Peloponnesus coast in the Mediterranean, British naval forces defeat those of Italy, sinking 5 warships. Battle ends on March 29.
- An anti-Axis coup d'état in Yugoslavia forces Prince Paul into exile; 17-year-old King Peter II assumes power.
- Attack on Pearl Harbour: Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa arrives in Honolulu to study the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour.
March 30 – WWII:
- All German, Italian, and Danish ships anchored in United States waters are taken into "protective custody".
- A German Lorenz cipher machine operator sends a 4,000-character message twice, allowing British mathematician Bill Tutte to decipher the machine's coding mechanism.

April

April – The Valley of Geysers is discovered on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia by Tatyana Ustinova.
April 4 – WWII: Axis forces capture Benghazi.
April 6 – WWII: Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
April 9 – The U.S. acquires full military defense rights in Greenland.
April 10 – WWII: The U.S. destroyer USS Niblack, while picking up survivors from a sunken Dutch freighter, drops depth charges on a German U-boat (the first "shot in anger" fired by America against Germany).
April 12 – WWII: German troops enter Belgrade.
April 13 – The Soviet Union and Japan sign a neutrality pact.
April 15 – WWII: Axis forces reach Halfaya Pass on the Libyan-Egyptian frontier.
April 17 – WWII: The Yugoslav Royal Army capitulates.
April 18 – WWII: Prime Minister of Greece Alexandros Koryzis commits suicide as German troops approach Athens.
April 19 – Bertolt Brecht's anti-war play Mother Courage and Her Children (German: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder) receives its first theatrical production at the Schauspielhaus Zürich.
April 21 – WWII: Greece capitulates. Commonwealth troops and some elements of the Greek Army withdraw to Crete.
April 23 – The America First Committee holds its first mass rally in New York City, with Charles Lindbergh as keynote speaker.
April 25 – Franklin D. Roosevelt, at his regular press conference, criticizes Charles Lindbergh by comparing him to the Copperheads of the Civil War period. In response, Lindbergh resigns his commission in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve on April 28.
April 27 – WWII: German troops enter Athens.

May

May 1
- The breakfast cereal Cheerios is introduced as CheeriOats by General Mills.
- Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane premieres in New York City.
- The first Defense Bonds and Defense Savings Stamps go on sale in the United States, to help fund the greatly increased production of military equipment.
May 2 – Anglo-Iraqi War: British combat operations against the rebel government of Rashid Ali in the Kingdom of Iraq begin.
May 5 – WWII: Emperor Haile Selassie enters Addis Ababa, which has been liberated from Italian forces; this date is subsequently commemorated as Liberation Day in Ethiopia.
May 6 – At California's March Field, entertainer Bob Hope performs his first USO Show.
May 8 – WWII: The German auxiliary cruiser Pinguin is sunk by HMS Cornwall (56) in the Indian Ocean.
May 9 – WWII: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the British Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine, which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.
May 10
- WWII: The British House of Commons is damaged by the Luftwaffe in an air raid.
- Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland, claiming to be on a peace mission.
May 12 – Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.
May 15
- The first British jet aircraft, the Gloster E.28/39, is flown.
- Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak begins as the New York Yankee centre fielder goes one for four against Chicago White Sox Pitcher Eddie Smith.
May 19 – The Viet Minh is formed in at Pác Bó in Vietnam to overthrow French rule of the nation as an alliance between the Indochina Communist party, led by Ho Chi Minh, and the Nationalist party.
May 20 – WWII: The Battle of Crete begins as Germany launches an airborne invasion of Crete.
May 21 – German submarine U-69 sinks the U.S.-flagged SS Robin Moor off the west African coast, having allowed the passengers and crew to disembark.
May 24 – WWII: In the North Atlantic, the German battleship Bismarck sinks battlecruiser HMS Hood, killing all but 3 crewmen from a total of 1,418 aboard the pride of the Royal Navy.
May 24 – The British submarine HMS Upholder torpedoes and sinks the Italian ocean liner SS Conte Rosso.
May 26 – WWII: In the North Atlantic, Fairey Swordfish aircraft from the carrier HMS Ark Royal cripple the steering of Bismarck in an aerial torpedo attack.
May 27
- WWII: Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, proclaims an "unlimited national emergency."
- WWII: German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic, killing 2,300.
- The Swiss Socialist Federation is banned.
May 30 – WWII: Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas tear down the Nazi swastika on the Acropolis in Athens, and replace it with the Greek flag.
May 31 – Anglo-Iraqi War: British troops complete the re-occupation of the Kingdom of Iraq, returning Prince 'Abd al-Ilah to power as regent for Faisal II.

June

June 5
- Four thousand Chongqing residents are asphyxiated in a bomb shelter during the Bombing of Chongqing.
- A Serbian ammunition depot explodes at Smederevo on the outskirts of Belgrade, Serbia, killing 2,500, and injuring over 4,500.
June 8 – WWII: British and Free French forces invade Syria.
June 13 – TASS, the official Soviet news agency, denies reports of tension between Germany and the Soviet Union.
June 14
- Soviet officials deport about 65,000 people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to Siberia.
- All German and Italian assets in the United States are frozen.
June 16
- All German and Italian consulates in the United States are ordered closed and their staffs to leave the country by July 10.
- WWII: British Fleet Air Arm aircraft sink the Vichy French ship Chevalier Paul.
June 20
- United States Army Air Corps becomes the Army Air Forces.
- Walt Disney's live-action animated feature, The Reluctant Dragon, is released.
June 22
- WWII: Operation Barbarossa: Germany invades the Soviet Union.
- WWII: Winston Churchill promises all possible British assistance to the Soviet Union in a worldwide broadcast: "Any man or state who fights against Nazidom will have our aid. Any man or state who marches with Hitler is our foe."
- WWII: Italy and Romania declare war on the Soviet Union.
- WWII: The First Sisak Partisan Brigade, the first anti-fascist armed unit in occupied Europe, is founded by Yugoslav partisans near Sisak, Croatia.
June 23 – WWII: Hungary and Slovakia declare war on the Soviet Union.
June 24 – The Soviet Information Bureau, predecessor of RIA Novosti, is founded.
June 25 – WWII: Finland as a co-belligerent with Germany attacks the Soviet Union to start the Continuation War.
June 28 – WWII: Albania declares war on the Soviet Union.
June 29 – WWII: Hitler's second-in-command Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring is appointed as Hitler's successor in a written decree. The decree will come into effect should Hitler die in the middle of the war. (The decree becomes void in April 1945 after Göring tries to assume power while Hitler is still alive, leading to Göring's expulsion from the Nazi Party).

July

July – The British Army's Special Air Service is formed.
July 1
- Commercial TV authorized by the FCC.
- NBC television begins commercial operation on WNBT on channel 1. The world's first legal TV commercial, for Bulova watches, occurs at 2:29 PM over WNBT before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. The 10-second spot displayed a picture of a clock superimposed on a map of the United States, accompanied by the voice-over "America runs on Bulova time." As a one-off special, the first quiz show called "Uncle Bee" was telecast on WNBT's inaugural broadcast day, followed later the same day by Ralph Edwards hosting the second game show broadcast on United States television, Truth or Consequences, as simulcast on radio and TV and sponsored by Ivory soap. Weekly broadcasts of the show commenced in 1956, with Bob Barker.
- CBS television begins commercial operation on New York station WCBW (now WCBS-TV) on channel 2.
July 2 – WWII: Empire of Japan calls up 1 million men for military service.
July 3 – WWII: Joseph Stalin, in his first address since the German invasion, calls upon the Soviet people to carry out a " scorched earth" policy of resistance to the bitter end.
July 4 – The Holocaust: The Massacre of Polish scientists and writers is committed by Nazi German troops in the occupied Polish city of Lwów.
July 5 – WWII: Operation Barbarossa: German troops reach the Dnieper River.
July 5– July 31: War is fought between Peru and Ecuador.
July 7
- WWII: American forces take over the defense of Iceland from the British.
- WWII: German troops take over Estonia from the Soviets.
July 10 – The Holocaust: Jedwabne pogrom: Local ethnic Poles massacre at least 340 Jewish residents of Jedwabne in occupied Poland.
July 13 – WWII: Montenegro starts the second popular uprising in Europe against the Axis Powers (the first being the " February strike" against deportation of Jews in Amsterdam and surroundings on February 25, 1941).
July 14 – WWII: Vichy France signs armistice terms ending all fighting in Syria and Lebanon.
July 17 – Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak ends.
July 19
- WWII: A BBC broadcast by "Colonel Britton" calls on the people of occupied Europe to resist the Nazis under the slogan "V for Victory".
- The first episode The Midnight Snack in which Tom and Jerry are officially named, more than a year after their first production Puss Gets the Boot
July 23 – WWII: Italian aircraft damage the British destroyer HMS Fearless which has to be sunk.
July 25 – Introduction of Postal codes in Germany.
July 26
- WWII: In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.
- WWII: General Douglas MacArthur is named commander of all U.S. forces in the Philippines; the Philippines Army is ordered nationalized by President Roosevelt.
July 31 – WWII – The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring orders S.S. General Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired Final Solution of the Jewish question."

August

August – Political Warfare Executive is formed in the United Kingdom.
August 1 – First production Willys MB U.S. Army Jeep.
August 6 – Six-year-old Elaine Esposito goes to an appendix operation in Florida and lapses into a coma, dying 37 years later, still comatose.
August 7 – British submarine HMS Severn sinks an Italian Marconi class submarine.
August 9 – Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet at Argentia, Newfoundland and Labrador. The Atlantic Charter is created as a result.
August 16 – HMS Mercury Royal Navy Signals School and Combined Signals School opens at Leydene, near Petersfield, Hampshire, England.
August 18 – Adolf Hitler orders a temporary halt to Nazi Germany's systematic euthanasia of the mentally ill and handicapped due to protests. However, graduates of the T-4 Euthanasia Program are then transferred to concentration camps, where they continue in their trade.
August 22 – WWII – France: The German Occupation Authority announces that anyone working for or aiding the Free French will be sentenced to death.
August 24 – WWII: A Luftwaffe bomb hits an Estonian steamer with 3,500 Soviet-mobilized Estonian men on board, killing 598 of them.
August 25 – WWII: Operation Countenance begins with United Kingdom and Soviet forces invading Iran.
August 27 – WWII: Pierre Laval is shot in an assassination attempt at Versailles, France.
August 28 – WWII: The Soviet Union announces blowing up of the massive Dnieper Hydroelectric Station and dam at Zaporizhia to prevent its capture by the Germans.
August 31 – The Great Gildersleeve debuts on NBC Radio.

September

September 6 – Holocaust: The requirement to wear the Star of David with the word "Jew" inscribed, is extended to all Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas.
September 8 – WWII – The Siege of Leningrad begins: German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad. Stalin orders the Volga Germans deported to Siberia.
September 11 – WWII: Charles Lindbergh, at an America First Committee rally in Des Moines, Iowa, accuses "the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration" of leading the United States toward war. Widespread condemnation of Lindbergh follows.
September 12 – WWII: The first snowfall is reported on the Russian front.
September 14 – The State of Vermont "declares war" on Germany, by defining the United States to be in "armed conflict" in order to extend a wartime bonus to Vermonters in the service.
September 15 – The Estonian Self-Administration, headed by Hjalmar Mäe, is appointed by the German military administration.
September 16 – Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran is forced to resign in favour of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, under pressure from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.
September 22 The town of Reshetylivka in the Soviet Union is occupied by German forces.
September 27 – The first liberty ship, the SS Patrick Henry, is launched at Baltimore.
September 29 – WWII: The Moscow Conference begins; U.S. representative Averell Harriman and British representative Lord Beaverbrook meet with Soviet foreign minister Molotov to arrange urgent assistance for Russia.
September 29– September 30 – Holocaust: Babi Yar massacre – German troops, assisted by Ukrainian police and local collaborators, kill 33,771 Jews of Kiev, Ukraine.

October

October 1
- Holocaust: The Nazi German Majdanek concentration camp (Konzentrationslager Lublin) opens in occupied Poland on the outskirts of the town Lublin. Between October 1941 and July 1944 at least 200,000 people will be killed in the camp.
- New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy becomes the Royal New Zealand Navy
October 2 – WWII: Operation Typhoon begins as Germany launches an all-out offensive against Moscow.
October 7 – John Curtin becomes the 14th Prime Minister of Australia.
October 8 – WWII: In their invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol.
October 11– October 12 – Fire destroys a Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Fall River, Massachusetts, consuming 15,850 tons of rubber and causing a setback to the United States war effort.
October 15 – British submarine HMS Torbay bombards the port of Apollonia, Cyrenaica, in Italian Libya.
Mid-October – First production P-38E Lightning fighter produced by Lockheed.
October 16 – WWII: The Soviet government moves to Kuibyshev (modern Samara), but Stalin remains in Moscow.
October 17 – WWII: The destroyer USS Kearny is torpedoed and damaged near Iceland, killing 11 sailors (the first American military casualties of the war).
October 18 – General Hideki Tōjō becomes the 40th Prime Minister of Japan.
October 21 – WWII: The Germans rampage in Yugoslavia, killing thousands of civilians.
October 23 – Walt Disney's animated film Dumbo is released.
October 24 – Franz von Werra disappears during a flight over the North Sea.
October 30 – WWII: Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.
October 31
- WWII: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors.
- Last day of carving on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

November

November 6 – WWII: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule (the first time was earlier this year on July 2). He states that even though 350,000 troops have been killed in German attacks so far, that the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers (a gross exaggeration) and that Soviet victory is near.
November 7 – WWII: The Soviet hospital ship Armenia is sunk by German aircraft while evacuating refugees, wounded military and the staff of several Crimean hospitals. It is estimated that over 5,000 people die in the sinking.
November 10 – In a speech at the Mansion House, London, Winston Churchill promises "should the United States become involved in war with Japan, the British declaration will follow within the hour."
November 12 – WWII: As the Battle of Moscow begins, temperatures around Moscow drop to -12°C, and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
November 14
- WWII: The British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sinks after being torpedoed by U-81.
- The Holocaust: In Slonim ( Byelorussian SSR), German forces engaged in Operation Barbarossa murder 9000 Jews this day.
November 17 – WWII: Attack on Pearl Harbour: Joseph Grew, the United States ambassador to Japan, cables to Washington, D.C., a warning that Japan may strike suddenly and unexpectedly.
November 18 – WWII: Operation Crusader, a British Eighth Army operation to relieve the Siege of Tobruk in North Africa, begins.
November 19 – WWII: Both commerce raiding German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran and Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney sink following a battle off the coast of Western Australia. There are no survivors from the 645 Australian sailors aboard Sydney.
November 21 – The radio program King Biscuit Time is broadcast for the first time (it later becomes the longest running daily radio broadcast in history and the most famous live blues radio program).
November 22 – WWII: HMS Devonshire sinks commerce raiding German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis, ending the longest warship cruise of the war (622 days without in-port replenishment or repair).
November 26 – WWII – Attack on Pearl Harbour: A fleet of 6 aircraft carriers commanded by Japanese Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo leaves Hitokapu Bay for Pearl Harbour under strict radio silence
November 27
- WWII: Germans reach their closest approach to Moscow. They are subsequently frozen by cold weather and attacks by the Soviets.
- A group of young men stop traffic on U.S. Highway 99 south of Yreka, California, handing out fliers proclaiming the establishment of the State of Jefferson.

December

USS Arizona ablaze after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour

December 1 – WWII:
- Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol under the authority of the United States Army Air Forces.
- A state of emergency is declared in British Malaya and the Straits Settlements.
December 2 – WWII – Attack on Pearl Harbour: The code message "Climb Mount Niitaka" is transmitted to the Japanese task force, indicating that negotiations have broken down and that the attack is to be carried out according to plan.
December 4 – The State of Jefferson is declared in Yreka, California, with judge John Childs as a governor.
December 6 – WWII:
- Soviet counterattacks begin against German troops encircling Moscow. The Wehrmacht is subsequently pushed back over 200 miles.
- The United Kingdom declares war on Finland.
December 6 – WWII: British submarine HMS Perseus is sunk by a mine off Cephalonia.
December 7 ( December 8 3:18 a.m., Japan Standard Time) – WWII:
- Attack on Pearl Harbour: Aircraft flying from Imperial Japanese Navy carriers launch a surprise attack on the United States fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, thus drawing the United States into World War II. The attack begins at 7:48 a.m. local time and is announced on radio stations in the U.S. at about 2:26 p.m. EST (19.26 GMT).
- The Japanese declaration of war on the United States and the British Empire is published in Japanese evening newspapers but not formally delivered to the U.S. until the following day. Canada declares war on Japan.
- Tobruk's British and Commonwealth garrison is relieved after Axis forces under Rommel withdraw.
December 8
- WWII: The Battle of Hong Kong begins shortly after 8:00 a.m. ( local time), less than eight hours after the attack on Pearl Harbour, when Japanese forces invade Hong Kong, which is defended by British, Canadian and local troops. The United Kingdom officially declares war on the Empire of Japan.
- WWII: The Japanese occupation of the Philippines begins ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbour when Japanese forces invade Luzon and destroy U.S. aircraft on Clark Field.
- WWII: President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his " Infamy Speech" to a Joint session of the United States Congress at 12:30 p.m. EST (17.30 GMT). Transmitted live over all four major national networks it attracts the largest audience ever for an American radio broadcast, over 81% of homes. Within an hour, Congress agrees to the President's request for a United States declaration of war upon Japan and he signs it at 4:10 p.m.
- WWII: Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, the Free French, Yugoslavia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador and Honduras also officially declare war on Japan, and the Republic of China declares war on the Axis powers.
- WWII: Japanese also attack British Malaya and Thailand.
- WWII: Guatemala declare war on Japan.
- WWII: The German advance on Moscow (Operation Typhoon) is suspended for the winter.
- Holocaust: the Nazi German Chełmno extermination camp opens in occupied Poland near the village of Chełmno nad Nerem. Between December 1941-April 1943 and June 1944-January 1945 at least 153,000 people will be killed in the camp.
December 10 – WWII: The British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse are sunk by Japanese aircraft in the South China Sea north of Singapore.
December 11 – WWII
- Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. The U.S. responds in kind.
- Mildred Gillars ("Axis Sally") delivers her first propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.
December 12 – WWII:
- Hungary and Romania declare war on the United States.
- British India declares war on the Empire of Japan.
- The United States seizes the French ship SS Normandie.
- The Kimura Detachment of the Japanese Imperial forces is occupied in Legaspi, Albay in Eastern Philippines.
December 13 – Sweden's low temperature record of -53°C is set in a village within the Vilhelmina Municipality.
December 19 – WWII: Hitler becomes Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the German Army.
December 22 – WWII: Arcadia Conference opens in Washington, D.C., the first meeting on military strategy between the heads of government of the United Kingdom and the United States following the latter's entry into the war.
December 23 – WWII: A second Japanese landing attempt on Wake Island is successful, and the American garrison surrenders after a full night and morning of fighting.
December 24 – WWII:
- British forces capture Benghazi.
- Dutch submarine HNLMS K XVI is the first Allied ship to sink a Japanese warship, sinking the destroyer Sagiri near Sarawak; K XVI is herself torpedoed the following day by Japanese submarine I 66.
December 25 – WWII:
- The Battle of Hong Kong ends after 17 days with surrender of the British Crown colony to the Japanese.
- Admiral Émile Muselier seizes the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the first part of France to be liberated by the Free French Forces.
December 26 – WWII: Winston Churchill becomes the first British Prime Minister to address a joint session of the United States Congress.
December 27 – WWII: British Commandos raid the Norwegian port of Vaagso, causing Hitler to reinforce the garrison and defenses, drawing vital troops away from other areas.

Date unknown

Classic Comics series launched in the United States with a version of The Three Musketeers.