160 Fun Facts About 1940s

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor took place on which date?

Roosevelt called it 'a date which will live in infamy'. Glenn Miller's 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' was the number-one song in America that day.

The D-Day landings in Normandy took place on which date in 1944?

Codenamed Operation Neptune within Operation Overlord, it remains the largest seaborne invasion in history.

Victory in Europe Day, marking Germany's unconditional surrender, is celebrated on which date?

The definitive surrender document was signed in Karlshorst, Berlin, at 22:43 that night. Japan's surrender came in September.

The first nuclear device ever detonated, the Trinity test, took place in July 1945 in which state?

It was an implosion-type bomb fired at White Sands Proving Ground. Robert Oppenheimer directed the Los Alamos lab that designed it.

The United Nations officially came into existence on 24 October of which year?

The charter had been drafted at a San Francisco conference that spring; the first General Assembly met in London in January 1946 with 51 nations.

The Marshall Plan, officially the European Recovery Program, began operating in April of which year?

It replaced the harsher Morgenthau Plan and ran for four years before the Mutual Security Act largely superseded it in 1951.

The Berlin Airlift, which supplied West Berlin during the Soviet blockade, began in June of which year?

The blockade ran from 24 June 1948 to 12 May 1949; the airlift itself continued until September 1949.

Which newspaper printed the famous wrong headline 'Dewey Defeats Truman' in November 1948?

The Republican-leaning paper had once called Truman a 'nincompoop'. Truman gleefully posed with a copy the next day.

The North Atlantic Treaty founding NATO was signed on 4 April of which year?

There were twelve founding members, including the US, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland alongside the Western Union states.

Historians often date the Cold War's start to Truman's March 1947 speech pledging aid to which two countries?

The Truman Doctrine argued that without help both would slide into the communist bloc.

How many individual defendants did the 1945-46 Nuremberg trials of major Nazi leaders try?

The International Military Tribunal also indicted six German organisations. Twelve of the men were sentenced to death.

The State of Israel was proclaimed at the Tel Aviv Museum on which date?

David Ben-Gurion read the declaration; war with neighbouring Arab states began the next day.

The Zoot Suit Riots of June 1943 between servicemen and young Mexican Americans took place in which city?

The suits were criticised as a wasteful use of rationed wool. Detroit, Mobile and Beaumont also saw race riots that summer.

Most US wartime rationing ended in August 1945, but rationing of which item lingered into 1946?

It had been distributed evenly per household member. In Britain, by contrast, sweet rationing lasted until 1953.

The Pentagon was dedicated in January of which year, only 16 months after ground was broken?

Ground was broken on the morning of 11 September, two years earlier. It is the world's second-largest office building with about 6.5 million square feet of floor space.

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum's work on Mount Rushmore, begun in 1927, was completed in which year?

His son Lincoln finished the job after Gutzon died that March. Borglum called it the Shrine of Democracy.

Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's colour line at first base for which team on April 15, 1947?

General manager Branch Rickey had scouted him from the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro leagues.

The first post-war Summer Olympics, the 'Austerity Games' of 1948, were held in which city?

The 1940 Games had been scheduled for Tokyo and then Helsinki, and the 1944 Games provisionally for London, before the war cancelled both.

Which aircraft was Chuck Yeager flying when he broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947?

He hit Mach 1.05 at 45,000 feet in a plane he named Glamorous Glennis after his wife.

Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition crossed the Pacific on a raft built mainly from what?

The raft was built in Peru in an indigenous style copied from conquistador illustrations, to test whether South Americans could have settled Polynesia.

The debris found near Roswell in 1947 came from a balloon train belonging to which secret programme?

The balloons were meant to detect Soviet nuclear tests. The army's cover story about a weather balloon fed decades of UFO theories.

Where was ENIAC, the first programmable electronic general-purpose computer, dedicated in February 1946?

It cost $487,000 and the press dubbed it a 'Giant Brain'. It had already been put to practical work in December 1945.

The first working transistor was built in 1947 at which research laboratory?

John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for it.

Percy Spencer's Raytheon 'Radarange', the first commercial microwave oven, went on sale in which year?

Spencer, a self-taught engineer from Maine, had discovered the heating effect by accident in 1945 while working with radar magnetrons.

Edwin Land's company created the first instant camera, the Land Camera, in which year?

The company was Polaroid, originally founded to exploit Land's polarising polymer.

At which Philadelphia department store was the Slinky first demonstrated in November 1945?

Naval engineer Richard James set up an inclined plane in the toy section on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and sold out in minutes.

Earl Tupper, a former DuPont chemist, created the first Tupperware product in which year?

He made it in Leominster, Massachusetts. The home party sales model that made it famous came later, in the 1950s.

Louis Réard's 1946 swimsuit was named the bikini after an atoll where what had just happened?

Rival designer Jacques Heim had launched the 'Atome' two months earlier, billed as the smallest swimsuit in the world.

General Mills launched Cheerios in 1941 under what original name?

The name changed in 1945 after Quaker Oats complained about the use of the word 'oats'.

Swiss engineer George de Mestral conceived the hook-and-loop fastener he named Velcro in which year?

The idea came from burrs sticking to his dog; his breakthrough was thinking of hook-and-eye closures at a tiny scale. Weavers in Lyon initially rejected it.

Candy Land was designed in 1948 by schoolteacher Eleanor Abbott while she recovered from which illness?

She created it in a San Diego hospital for children on the ward. Milton Bradley published it in 1949 as a stopgap beside its school-supplies line.

The murder-mystery board game Cluedo was first manufactured in 1949 by which British company?

Anthony Pratt devised it during the war. In North America it became Clue.

Silly Putty is generally said to have been first made in 1943 by an engineer working for which company?

James Wright in New Haven is the usual credit, though Dow Corning's Earl Warrick insisted he patented it first. A toy store owner spotted its potential in 1949.

The planned suburb of Levittown, New York, was built between 1947 and 1951 for whom?

Levitt & Sons mass-produced the houses assembly-line style, and the name became shorthand for post-war suburbia.

The post-war baby boom in the US is generally dated from 1946 to which year?

The exact boundaries are debated, but 1946–1964 is the standard definition of the boomer generation.

Casablanca, released in 1942, was directed by whom?

Warner Bros. bought the unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's in January 1942, weeks after Pearl Harbor.

Citizen Kane (1941) was the first feature film directed by whom?

Charles Foster Kane was a composite of William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer and Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946) became a Christmas staple, but how did it fare on release?

Despite five Oscar nominations, its weak sales led studios to think Capra had lost his commercial touch.

Which 1946 William Wyler film about returning veterans won seven Oscars, including one for amputee Harold Russell?

William Wyler directed; Fredric March won Best Actor. Russell also received an honorary Oscar the same night.

Disney's Fantasia (1940) set its animation to classical pieces conducted by whom?

Seven of the eight segments were performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. The film also pioneered the Fantasound stereo system.

Bugs Bunny's definitive characterisation debuted in 1940 in which Tex Avery cartoon?

An early version had appeared in Porky's Hare Hunt in 1938. Bugs went on to star in more than 160 shorts through 1964.

Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas', the best-selling physical single ever, came from which 1942 film?

Irving Berlin's song won the Oscar for Best Original Song; Crosby's recording has sold an estimated 50 million-plus copies.

Glenn Miller's 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' holds what distinction in recording history?

It came from his first film, Sun Valley Serenade, and was number one in the US on the day of Pearl Harbor. Miller vanished on a flight over the Channel in December 1944.

In the early 1940s Frank Sinatra became the idol of screaming teenage fans known by what nickname?

He had joined Harry James's band as vocalist in 1939 for $75 a week before signing with Columbia in 1943.

The Andrews Sisters' 1941 hit about a Chicago trumpeter drafted into the army was called what?

The Minneapolis trio's record is considered an early example of jump blues. Bette Midler revived it in 1973.

Charlie Parker was a leading figure in which fast, harmonically complex 1940s jazz style?

The style grew out of after-hours jam sessions in New York in the early years of the decade, alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk.

George Orwell's Animal Farm was first published in England in August of which year?

Publisher Fredric Warburg had accepted it in July 1944, but paper shortages and reluctance to offend the Soviet ally delayed it.

Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was published on 8 June of which year?

It was his ninth and final completed book; he died of tuberculosis in January 1950.

Anne Frank's diary was first published in Amsterdam in 1947 under what title?

The name means 'The Annex' (literally 'the back house'). Miep Gies had saved the pages and gave them to Otto Frank, the family's only survivor.

How many performances did Death of a Salesman run after its February 1949 Broadway premiere?

It won both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony for Best Play that year.

Wonder Woman first appeared in October 1941 in which comic?

Her first solo feature came in Sensation Comics #1 in January 1942. She was created by psychologist William Moulton Marston.

Joe Simon said he created Captain America by first choosing whom as 'the best villain of them all'?

The character famously punched him on the cover of the first issue in early 1941, months before the US entered the war.

The Battle of Britain takes its name from a speech Churchill gave to the Commons on which date?

He said 'the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin.'

The Battle of Britain was the first major military campaign fought entirely by what?

The RAF and Fleet Air Arm defended Britain against the Luftwaffe.

What was the codename of the Dunkirk evacuation?

More than 338,000 Allied soldiers were rescued between 26 May and 4 June 1940.

Roughly how many Allied soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940?

The first of the famous 'little ships' arrived on 28 May.

Which German formation was destroyed at the Battle of Stalingrad?

Hitler refused Paulus's request to surrender; the defeat turned the tide on the Eastern Front.

What is the modern name of the city of Stalingrad?

The battle is considered the largest and deadliest urban battle in military history.

On what dates in 1942 was the Battle of Midway fought?

Japan lost its four main aircraft carriers, six months after Pearl Harbor.

How many main aircraft carriers did Japan lose at Midway?

Admiral Yamamoto had hoped to lure out and destroy the US carriers that escaped Pearl Harbor.

What was the operational designation of the American invasion of Iwo Jima?

The five-week battle from February to March 1945 targeted the island's two airfields.

Which Associated Press photographer took the famous flag-raising picture on Iwo Jima?

Japanese defenders had 18 km of tunnels beneath the island.

What was the name of the enriched-uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima?

Fat Man, a plutonium implosion weapon, fell on Nagasaki three days later.

The B-29 Enola Gay was named after whose mother?

It took off from Tinian at 02:45 local time on 6 August 1945.

How many Japanese cities had been devastated by conventional bombing before the atomic attacks?

The two atomic bombs killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people.

Which Army general directed the Manhattan Project from 1942 to 1946?

J. Robert Oppenheimer directed the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the bombs.

What was the Manhattan Project's British counterpart, which it absorbed?

The project employed nearly 130,000 people and cost nearly $2 billion.

What was the Manhattan Project's original codename before it took the Manhattan District name?

Its first headquarters were in Manhattan.

What share of the Bletchley Park codebreaking workforce were women?

The team penetrated the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers.

Which codebreaking organisation was housed at Bletchley Park during World War II?

Its wartime work stayed classified until the mid-1970s.

How many B-25 bombers took part in the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in April 1942?

They launched from the carrier USS Hornet with no fighter escort.

From which aircraft carrier did the Doolittle Raid launch?

Doolittle was promoted two grades to brigadier general and given the Medal of Honor.

The Yalta Conference of February 1945 was held in which palaces?

Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin planned the postwar reorganization of Europe there.

Which two British prime ministers attended the Potsdam Conference in 1945?

Labour won the general election midway through the conference.

How many weeks after Germany's unconditional surrender did the Potsdam Conference open?

It ran from 17 July to 2 August 1945 in the Soviet occupation zone.

On what date did Franklin D. Roosevelt die in office?

He was the longest-serving US president and the only one to serve more than two terms.

For how many days had FDR's final vice president held the office when Roosevelt died?

His later legislative agenda was called the Fair Deal.

Whom did Roosevelt and Truman defeat in the 1944 presidential election?

It was Roosevelt's weakest performance in his four elections, though still a landslide.

Which British party leader became prime minister in 1945 and launched the National Health Service?

He led Labour from 1935 to 1955 and had been mayor of Stepney.

Whom did Attlee appoint as Health Minister to build the NHS after the 1945 election?

The NHS launched in 1948 at Park Hospital in Davyhulme near Manchester.

Where was the NHS officially launched in 1948?

It is now called Trafford General Hospital.

Which two provinces of British India were divided at partition in 1947?

India and Pakistan legally came into existence at midnight on 14-15 August 1947.

What was the boundary of partition between India and Pakistan called?

Its publication was accompanied by horrific communal violence.

Who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi on 30 January 1948?

He fired three bullets at point-blank range at Birla House in New Delhi.

How old was Gandhi when he was assassinated?

He was walking to an evening multi-faith prayer meeting at Birla House.

How large was the 1944 Bretton Woods gathering at the Mount Washington Hotel?

It set up the IMF and what became the World Bank at the Mount Washington Hotel.

Which two economists independently shaped the ideas behind the Bretton Woods system?

Keynes worked at the British Treasury and White at the US Treasury.

Which veterans' organization led the drafting of the 1944 G.I. Bill?

Former Illinois governor John H. Stelle is called the 'Father of the G.I. Bill'.

What was the formal name of the first G.I. Bill?

It reached Roosevelt's desk on June 22, 1944.

The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act became law over the veto of which president?

It restricted union power after the strike waves of 1945 and 1946.

Which GPO telephone engineer designed the Colossus codebreaking computer?

It is often wrongly credited to Turing, who designed the earlier electromechanical Bombe.

Colossus was built to help break which German code system?

The Mark 1 prototype was working by December 1943.

Whose Z3, completed in Berlin in 1941, was the first electromechanical computer?

Colossus, by contrast, was the first programmable electronic digital computer.

Alfred Kinsey, author of the 1948 report on male sexual behavior, was a zoologist where?

The data came from about 5,300 men over fifteen years.

Which record label introduced the 33 1/3 rpm LP in 1948?

RCA Victor countered with the 7-inch 45 single.

Which Swiss chemist won the 1948 Nobel Prize for discovering DDT's insecticidal action?

DDT was used in the second half of the war to limit malaria and typhus.

Which three scientists shared the 1945 Nobel Prize for the development of penicillin?

Fleming had discovered crude penicillin in 1928.

The Vespa scooter, launched in 1946, was made by which Italian company?

The name means 'wasp'; its Pontedera plant had built bombers before the war.

In what year did Ferrari build its first road car?

Enzo Ferrari founded the company in 1939 and it adopted its current name in 1945; the first Ferrari-badged car, the 125 S, appeared in 1947.

How many consecutive games did Joe DiMaggio hit safely in during his 1941 streak?

The streak ran from May 15 to July 16, 1941.

How many World Series championships did the Yankees win during Joe DiMaggio's 13-year career?

Only Yogi Berra, with ten rings, has more.

For which team did Ted Williams play his entire 19-year career?

His service in World War II and Korea interrupted the career; he finished with a .344 average.

Which 1948 Triple Crown winner was the first racehorse to earn US$1 million?

He won 16 consecutive stakes races for Calumet Farm.

How many consecutive title defenses did heavyweight champion Joe Louis win?

His reign from 1937 to 1949 is the longest of any boxer.

How many gold medals did Fanny Blankers-Koen win at the 1948 London Olympics?

The 30-year-old mother of two was nicknamed 'the Flying Housewife'.

The NBA was created in August 1949 by merging the NBL with which league?

The league counts the BAA's June 1946 founding as its own.

Which Canadian team hosted the New York Knickerbockers in what the NBA calls its first game, in 1946?

The game was played at Maple Leaf Gardens on November 1, 1946.

How many performances did the original Broadway run of Oklahoma! achieve after opening in 1943?

Rodgers and Hammerstein received a special Pulitzer Prize for it in 1944.

Oklahoma! was based on which 1931 play by Lynn Riggs?

It is set outside Claremore in Indian Territory in 1906.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1949 musical was based on which Pulitzer-winning 1947 book by James Michener?

The 1949 musical ran for 1,925 performances.

Rebecca (1940) was Alfred Hitchcock's first film under contract with which producer?

It was his first American project and starred Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine.

How Green Was My Valley (1941) tells the story of a mining family from which country?

John Ford's film was based on Richard Llewellyn's 1939 novel.

In Felix Salten's original book, what kind of animal was Bambi?

Disney switched to a white-tailed deer, more recognized across the United States.

Disney's Dumbo (1941) was made to recoup losses from which two earlier films?

At 64 minutes it is one of the studio's shortest animated features.

Which novelist co-wrote the screenplay of Double Indemnity (1944) with Billy Wilder?

The story came from James M. Cain's novel, serialized in Liberty magazine in 1936.

Under what title was Miracle on 34th Street initially released in the United Kingdom?

Edmund Gwenn won Best Supporting Actor for playing Kris Kringle.

Which film beat Miracle on 34th Street to the 1947 Best Picture Oscar?

Miracle still won three Oscars, including for its story and screenplay.

Which 1948 film was the first British production to win the Best Picture Oscar?

Laurence Olivier directed and starred, cutting about 90 minutes from the play.

Which 1948 Italian neorealist film was voted the greatest film of all time by Sight & Sound in 1952?

Vittorio De Sica's film follows a poor father hunting his stolen bicycle in postwar Rome.

Which blacklisted screenwriter was openly hired by Otto Preminger in 1960, signalling the blacklist's decline?

He wrote Exodus; he had been one of the 'Hollywood Ten'.

Which radio announcer created Howdy Doody, which reached NBC television in late 1947?

The show pioneered color production in 1956 and helped NBC sell color sets.

Texaco Star Theater gave which comedian the nickname 'Mr. Television' after its 1948 TV debut?

Fred Allen had hosted the radio version from 1940 to 1944.

Which watchmaker aired the world's first television advertisement on July 1, 1941?

It ran before a Dodgers-Phillies game on New York station WNBT.

Hemingway's 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is set during which conflict?

Robert Jordan is an American demolitions expert assigned to blow up a bridge.

What is the name of the indifferent narrator of Camus's 1942 novella The Stranger?

The first French edition was limited to 4,400 copies.

On what date did A Streetcar Named Desire first open on Broadway?

Tennessee Williams wrote it while living on Toulouse Street in New Orleans.

In which country was Saint-Exupéry's famous 1943 novella about a young prince first published?

Saint-Exupéry's works were banned in Vichy France; it appeared there only after liberation.

Under what name did Curious George first appear in a 1939 book?

He was one of the monkeys in Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys before his own 1941 book.

How many people died in the November 1942 Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire?

It remains the deadliest nightclub fire in history; exits had been locked and décor was flammable.

Which ship's cargo of ammonium nitrate detonated in the 1947 Texas City disaster?

At least 581 people died, including all but one of the town's volunteer firefighters.

The 1944 Hartford circus fire broke out during a performance by which circus?

At least 167 people died in Connecticut's deadliest disaster.

Who chaired the UN committee that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

It was adopted on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris.

How many UN members voted in favour of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948?

None voted against; eight abstained and two did not vote.

How many articles make up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

It was adopted as a 'common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations'.

In what year was the Cannes Film Festival founded?

Its origins date to a 1938 plan by French education minister Jean Zay.

The Tony Awards are named after which co-founder of the American Theatre Wing?

Producer Brock Pemberton founded the awards.

In what year was the first Golden Globes ceremony held?

It was organized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Woody Guthrie wrote 'This Land Is Your Land' in 1940 as a critical response to which song?

He was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing Irving Berlin's anthem on the radio.

Nat King Cole's trio was the top-selling group of the 1940s on which record label?

It was the label's only black act; Cole went solo in 1950.

What was the name of Hank Williams's backup band, managed by his mother?

He learned guitar from blues musician Rufus Payne.

Which Polish mathematician first broke Enigma message keys around December 1932?

He used permutation theory and flaws in German procedures.

What did the German name Vergeltungswaffe 2, or V-2, mean?

Its development name was Aggregat-4; a June 1944 test launch became the first object in space.

On what date did a V-2 test launch retroactively become the first artificial object to reach space?

The 100 km altitude was later chosen to define the edge of space.

To which two cities had the cancelled 1940 Olympic Games been assigned?

The 1944 Games had been provisionally planned for London, which hosted in 1948.

The idea of Rosie the Riveter originated in a 1942 song by which songwriters?

Rosie became the subject of a Hollywood film in 1944.

What did the Japanese military call the Pearl Harbor attack during planning?

It was also referred to as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI.

On what date did Japan dispatch its naval attack group toward Pearl Harbor?

Japan wanted the US to lift sanctions and stop aiding China.

Which Norwegian engineer received the first aerosol spray can patent, in Oslo in 1927?

Norway's postal service issued a stamp celebrating the invention in 1998.

When Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945, what did he become the only US president to have done?

He was elected four times, in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944.

How many meetings were held at Potsdam between 17 and 25 July before the conference paused for the British election?

Molotov, Eden, Bevin and Byrnes were the key foreign ministers.

How many people did the Manhattan Project employ at its peak?

Over 80 percent of its cost went to fissile material production plants.

How many people attended the Hartford circus performance when fire broke out in July 1944?

More than 700 people were injured under the big top.

Who bought the rights to Alfred Butts's word game in 1948 and renamed it Scrabble?

Butts had called it Criss-Crosswords; Brunot chose 'Scrabble', a real word meaning 'scratch frantically', and made early sets in a converted Connecticut schoolhouse.

The second 'M' in M&M's stood for Bruce Murrie, son of which rival chocolate firm's president?

Forrest Mars got the idea from soldiers eating Smarties in the Spanish Civil War; Murrie sold his minority stake to Mars in 1949.

Which magazine editor coined the phrase 'The New Look' for Christian Dior's debut 1947 collection?

Dior's first collection, shown on 12 February 1947 and officially called 'Corolla', had 90 garments and re-established Paris as the centre of fashion after the war.

In which California city did Frank Zamboni build the first ice resurfacing machine in 1949?

Zamboni started out in the refrigeration business making ice blocks; his name became a genericized trademark for the machine.

In which California city did the McDonald brothers open the first McDonald's in 1940?

The brothers aimed to make $1 million before turning 50; their 'Speedee Service System' followed in 1948, and Ray Kroc didn't arrive until 1955.

What did Lego call the early version of its interlocking plastic toy pieces introduced in 1949?

They were based on Hilary Page's Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, patented in Britain in 1940; Lego had only started making plastic toys in 1947.

What did the Reynolds Rocket ballpoint pen cost at its 1945 New York debut?

That was about $224 in today's money, yet the store sold many thousands within a week; Milton Reynolds had copied the design from an Argentine Birome.

Besides Willys, which company built the standardized WWII jeep, under the designation GPW?

Built from 1941 to 1945 to a single design, it was the world's first mass-produced four-wheel-drive car; Bantam had built the original prototype.