WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO OCTOBER 1940
Find out what all happened January to October 1940

World War II: The Soviet Union formally annexes Latvia. (5. August 1940)

World War II: Battle of Cape Spada – The Royal Navy and the Regia Marina clash; the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni sinks, with 121 casualties. (19. July 1940)

George Stibitz pioneers the first remote operation of a computer. (9. September 1940)

Meeting between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini at the Brenner Pass. (4. October 1940)

Chad becomes the first French colony to join the Allies under the administration of Félix Éboué, France's first black colonial governor. (26. August 1940)

Witold Pilecki is voluntarily captured and sent to Auschwitz in order to smuggle out information and start a resistance. (19. September 1940)

For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award. (29. February 1940)

The P-51 Mustang makes its maiden flight. (26. October 1940)

The Allies begin their attack on the Norwegian town of Narvik which is occupied by Nazi Germany. (15. April 1940)

King Haakon VII, Crown Prince Olav and the Norwegian government left Tromsø and went into exile in London. (7. June 1940)

The 1940 Summer Olympics are cancelled due to war. (1. May 1940)

Members of Soviet politburo, including general secretary Joseph Stalin, sign an order for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs, known also as the Katyn massacre. (5. March 1940)

Estonia was illegally annexed by the Soviet Union. (6. August 1940)

World War II: the United Kingdom and the Vichy France government break off diplomatic relations. (5. July 1940)

Balham underground station disaster in London, England, occurs during the Nazi Luftwaffe air raids on Great Britain. (14. October 1940)

World War II: Battle of Britain – During a night-time air raid by the German Luftwaffe, St. Paul's Cathedral in the City of London, England is hit by a bomb. (9. October 1940)

World War II: Italy declares war on France and the United Kingdom. (10. June 1940)

Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose is arrested and detained in Calcutta. (2. July 1940)

World War II: German raids on British shipping convoys and military airfields begin. (10. May 1940)

In a ceremony held in Berkeley, California, because of the war, physicist Ernest Lawrence receives the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics from Sweden's Consul General in San Francisco. (29. February 1940)