1940s

The 1940s decade (the forties) ran from January 1, 1940 to December 31, 1949.

The Second World War took place in the first half of the decade, which had a profound effect on most countries and people in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. The consequences of the war lingered well into the second half of the decade, with a war weary Europe divided between the jostling spheres of influence of the West and the Soviet Union. To some degree internal and external tensions in the post-war era were managed by new institutions, including the United Nations, the welfare state and the Bretton Woods system. However the conditions of the post-war world encouraged decolonialisation and emergence of new states and governments, with China, India, Pakistan, Israel, Vietnam and others declaring independence, rarely without bloodshed. The decade also saw the early beginnings of new technologies (including computers, nuclear power and jet propulsion), often first developed in tandem with the war effort, and later adapted and improved upon in the post-war era.

Significant events



 * Germany invades Denmark, Norway, Benelux, and France from 1940-1941
 * Germany loses the Battle of Britain 1940
 * Germany attacks the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941)
 * The United States enter World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941
 * Germany and Japan suffer defeats at Stalingrad, El Alamein, and Midway in 1942 and 1943
 * D-Day landing of Allied forces on the beaches of Normandy France (June 6, 1944)
 * Iceland declares independence from Denmark. (June 17, 1944)
 * Yalta Conference, wartime meeting from 4 February 1945 to 11 February 1945 among the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union—President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Premier Josef Stalin, respectively—for the purpose of discussing Europe's postwar reorganization, intended to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe.
 * The Holocaust also known as The Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, Latinized ha'shoah; Yiddish: חורבן, Latinized churben or hurban ) is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, its allies, and collaborators. Some scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the Nazis' systematic murder of millions of people in other groups, including ethnic Poles, the Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, gay men, and political and religious opponents. By this definition, the total number of Holocaust victims is between 11 million and 17 million people.
 * Germany surrenders May 7, 1945
 * Establishment of the United Nations Charter (June 26, 1945) effective (October 24, 1945)
 * Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and August 9, 1945); Japan surrenders on August 15
 * World War II officially ends on September 2, 1945
 * India gains independence from Britain August 15, 1947.
 * Establishment of the State of Israel May 14, 1948
 * Establishment of the defense alliance NATO April 4, 1949.

World leaders



 * Prime Minister Clement Attlee (United Kingdom)
 * Prime Minister David Ben Gurion (Israel)
 * Prime Minister Winston Churchill (United Kingdom)
 * Prime Minister John Curtin (Australia)
 * Head of state Francisco Franco (Spain)
 * Emperor Hirohito (Japan)
 * Chancellor Adolf Hitler (Germany)
 * President İsmet İnönü (Turkey)
 * Governor-General Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Pakistan)
 * Chairman Chiang Kai-shek (Nationalist China) (Taiwan)
 * Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (Canada)
 * Prime Minister and President Hồ Chí Minh (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) (North Vietnam)
 * Prime Minister Benito Mussolini (Italy)
 * Prime-Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (India)
 * President Juan Perón (Argentina)
 * President Franklin D. Roosevelt (United States)
 * General Aung San (Burma)
 * General Secretary Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union)
 * President Harry S. Truman (United States)
 * President Getúlio Vargas (Brazil)
 * Chairman Mao Zedong (China)

Military leaders



 * General Charles de Gaulle (France)
 * General Dwight D. Eisenhower (United States)
 * General George Marshall (United States)
 * General Douglas MacArthur (United States)
 * General Omar Bradley (United States)
 * General George S. Patton (United States)
 * General Hideki Tōjō (Japan)
 * General Kuniaki Koiso (Japan)
 * Field Marshal Hajime Sugiyama (Japan)
 * Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (United Kingdom)
 * Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov (Soviet Union)
 * Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Germany)
 * ReichsMarshall Hermann Göring (Germany)
 * Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (United States)
 * Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King (United States)
 * Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Japan)
 * Fleet Admiral Osami Nagano (Japan)

Technical innovations

 * Ballistic missiles
 * Computers
 * Jet aircraft
 * Nuclear weapons

Film
Although the 1940s was a decade dominated by World War II important and noteworthy films about a wide variety of subjects were made during that era. Hollywood was instrumental in producing dozens of classic films during the 1940s, several of which were about the war and some are on most lists of all-time great films. European cinema survived although obviously curtailed during wartime and yet many films of high quality were made in England, France, Italy, Russia and elsewhere in Europe. Akira Kurosawa and other directors managed to produce significant films during the 40s in Japan as well.

Some of Hollywood's best films of the 1940s include: The Maltese Falcon directed by John Huston 1941, It's a Wonderful Life directed by Frank Capra 1946, Double Indemnity directed by Billy Wilder 1944, Meet Me in St. Louis directed by Vincente Minnelli 1944, Casablanca directed by Michael Curtiz 1942, Citizen Kane directed by Orson Welles 1941, The Big Sleep directed by Howard Hawks 1946, The Lady Eve directed by Preston Sturges 1941, The Shop Around the Corner directed by Ernst Lubitsch 1940, White Heat directed by Raoul Walsh 1949, Yankee Doodle Dandy directed by Michael Curtiz 1942, and Notorious directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1946. The Walt Disney Studios released the animated feature films Pinocchio 1940, Dumbo 1941, Fantasia 1941, and Bambi 1942.

In France during the war the tour de force Children of Paradise directed by Marcel Carné 1945, was shot in Nazi occupied Paris. Memorable films from Post-war England include David Lean's Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), Carol Reed's Odd Man Out (1947) and The Third Man (1949), and Powell and Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1946) and The Red Shoes (1948), Laurence Olivier's Hamlet, the first non-American film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) directed by Robert Hamer. Italian neorealism of the 1940s produced poignant movies made in post-war Italy. Roma, città aperta directed by Roberto Rossellini 1945, Sciuscià directed by Vittorio De Sica 1946, Paisà directed by Roberto Rossellini 1946, La terra trema directed by Luchino Visconti 1948, and Bitter Rice directed by Giuseppe De Santis 1949, are some well-known examples.

In Japanese cinema The 47 Ronin is a 1941 black and white two-part Japanese film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail 1945, and the post-war Drunken Angel 1948, and Stray Dog 1949, directed by Akira Kurosawa are considered important early works leading to his first masterpieces of the 1950s. Drunken Angel 1948, marked the beginning of the successful collaboration between Kurosawa and actor Toshirō Mifune that lasted until 1965.

Entertainers

 * Dana Andrews
 * Jean Arthur
 * Fred Astaire
 * Mary Astor
 * Lauren Bacall
 * Josephine Baker
 * Anne Baxter
 * Jack Benny
 * William Bendix
 * Ingrid Bergman
 * Humphrey Bogart
 * Charles Boyer
 * Walter Brennan
 * James Cagney
 * Cab Calloway
 * Lon Chaney Jr.
 * Montgomery Clift
 * Claudette Colbert
 * Ronald Colman
 * Gary Cooper
 * Abbott and Costello
 * Joseph Cotten
 * Joan Crawford
 * Bing Crosby
 * Dorothy Dandridge
 * Bette Davis
 * Doris Day
 * Olivia de Havilland
 * Marlene Dietrich
 * Walt Disney
 * Kirk Douglas
 * Irene Dunne
 * Duke Ellington
 * Alice Faye
 * Errol Flynn
 * Henry Fonda


 * Joan Fontaine
 * Clark Gable
 * Ava Gardner
 * Judy Garland
 * Greer Garson
 * Paulette Goddard
 * Betty Grable
 * Cary Grant
 * Sidney Greenstreet
 * Carl Stuart Hamblen
 * Rita Hayworth
 * Katharine Hepburn
 * Bob Hope
 * Lena Horne
 * Walter Huston
 * Jennifer Jones
 * Danny Kaye
 * Gene Kelly
 * Alan Ladd
 * Veronica Lake
 * Hedy Lamarr
 * Dorothy Lamour
 * Bert Lancaster
 * Laurel and Hardy
 * Charles Laughton
 * Peter Lawford
 * Vivien Leigh
 * Gene Lockhart
 * June Lockhart
 * Carole Lombard
 * Peter Lorre
 * Myrna Loy
 * Ida Lupino
 * Vera Lynn
 * Fred MacMurray
 * Fredric March


 * Ray Milland
 * Carmen Miranda
 * Marylin Monroe
 * Margaret O'Brien
 * Maureen O'Hara
 * Gregory Peck
 * Walter Pidgeon
 * Dick Powell
 * Eleanor Powell
 * William Powell
 * Tyrone Power
 * Anthony Quinn
 * Claude Rains
 * Basil Rathbone
 * Ronald Reagan
 * Edward G. Robinson
 * Ginger Rogers
 * Roy Rogers
 * Cesar Romero
 * Mickey Rooney
 * Rosalind Russell
 * Joseph Schildkraut
 * Lizabeth Scott
 * Barbara Stanwyck
 * James Stewart
 * Elizabeth Taylor
 * Robert Taylor
 * Gene Tierney
 * Spencer Tracy
 * Lana Turner
 * John Wayne
 * Orson Welles
 * Richard Widmark
 * Cornel Wilde
 * Jane Wyman
 * Loretta Young

Musicians

 * Marian Anderson
 * The Andrews Sisters
 * Louis Armstrong
 * Gene Autry
 * Pearl Bailey
 * Benny Carter
 * Charlie Barnet
 * Count Basie
 * Irving Berlin
 * Mills Brothers
 * Les Brown
 * Sammy Cahn
 * Cab Calloway
 * Nat King Cole
 * Perry Como
 * Bing Crosby
 * Jimmy Dorsey
 * Tommy Dorsey
 * Billy Eckstine
 * Duke Ellington
 * Ella Fitzgerald
 * Ira Gershwin
 * Dizzy Gillespie
 * Benny Goodman
 * Dick Haymes
 * Billie Holiday
 * Lena Horne
 * Betty Hutton
 * Mahalia Jackson


 * Harry James
 * Al Jolson
 * Danny Kaye
 * Sammy Kaye
 * Gene Krupa
 * Mario Lanza
 * Peggy Lee
 * Johnny Mercer
 * Glenn Miller
 * Charles Mingus
 * Vaughn Monroe
 * Charlie Parker
 * Édith Piaf
 * Cole Porter
 * Bud Powell
 * Max Roach
 * Richard Rodgers
 * Paul Robeson
 * Artie Shaw
 * Dinah Shore
 * Frank Sinatra
 * Kate Smith
 * Ink Spots
 * Billy Strayhorn
 * Ernest Tubb
 * Sarah Vaughan
 * Hank Williams
 * Bob Wills
 * Teddy Wilson

Sports
During the 1940s Sporting events were disrupted and changed by the events that engaged and shaped the entire world. During World War II in the United States Heavyweight Boxing Champion Joe Louis and numerous stars and performers from American baseball and other sports served in the armed forces until the end of the war. Among the well known baseball players who served during World War II were Joe Dimaggio, Bob Feller, Hank Greenberg, and Ted Williams. They like many others sacrificed their personal and valuable career time for the benefit and well being of the rest of society.

Boxing



 * Buddy Baer
 * Ezzard Charles
 * Billy Conn
 * Rocky Graziano
 * Joe Louis
 * Sugar Ray Robinson
 * Max Schmelling
 * Jersey Joe Walcott
 * Tony Zale

Baseball



 * Bill Dickey
 * Joe Dimaggio
 * Bob Feller
 * Josh Gibson
 * Hank Greenberg
 * Monte Irvin
 * Buck Leonard
 * Johnny Mize
 * Stan Musial
 * Satchel Paige
 * Branch Rickey
 * Jackie Robinson
 * Ted Williams

Activists and religious leaders

 * Mohandas Gandhi
 * Billy Graham