Events, Verisoph

1940 Their strategy was congruent in candidate ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Their strategy was congruent in many important respects with that of Nazi “philosopher” Alfred Rosenberg, and Intermarium leaders established a close working relationship with the Rosenberg ministry at least as early as 1940. ●●

1940 Rentschler becomes National City Bank chairman ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Gordon Rentschler became chairman of National City Bank after James Perkins died in July 1940. Rentschler coordinated war bond distribution and aligned the bank with FDR's war financing strategy. ●●

1940 FDR reelected to a third term ai_extracted 2 cit. no story Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidency for the third time on November 5, 1940, though with lower popular and electoral percentages than his prior election. This gave him continued power to lead America into its wartime mobilization. ●●

1940 Burgess Urges Debt Limit Restraint on Government Securities rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In July 1940, W. Randolph Burgess, vice chairman of National City Bank, advised Treasury Secretary Morgenthau about risks to the government securities market. He expressed concern that rapid debt increases could harm financial stability. ●●

1940 Glass-Steagall Act Severs National City from Morgan Dominance rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story National City Bank and Chase backed the Glass-Steagall Act, separating from Morgan's dominance. This allowed them to compete more aggressively for war business during WWII. ●●

1940 Rentschler Leads National City Bank as War Finance Accelerates rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Gordon Rentschler became chairman of National City Bank in July 1940 after James Perkins' death. He coordinated massive war bond distribution and aligned the bank with FDR's military financing. ●●

1940 Burgess Warns Morgenthau of Government Securities Risks rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story W. Randolph Burgess, vice chairman of National City Bank, cautioned Treasury Secretary Morgenthau in July 1940 about market risks from excessive government debt. He urged restraint to prevent security market destabilization. ●●

1940 Lamont Expresses Banker Support for British Aid rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Morgan partner Thomas Lamont phoned President FDR on December 18, 1940, expressing banker enthusiasm for unlimited material support to Britain. This reflected Wall Street alignment with administration foreign policy. ●●

1940 As members of a private bank before 1940, Morgan partners had a pro... rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Although I didn’t realize it at first, this was a propitious time in which to write a history of the House of Morgan, perhaps the first time anyone could do it justice. Secrecy has always been a Morgan fetish, and almost all earli... ●●

1940 France signs armistice with Nazi Germany ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On June 22, 1940, French Premier Marshal Petain submitted to the Nazi blitzkrieg and signed an armistice, leaving Britain to fight alone. ●●

1940 J. P. Morgan becomes a public corporation ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In February 1940, J. P. Morgan and Company announced its transformation from a private partnership to a publicly traded corporation. ●●

1940 CHAPTER 34––Surreal Saviors During his new life in New York (1940) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story He was cast in a pundit’s role by a Wall Street famished for educated guesses about German war strategy. In early April 1940, Thomas W. Lamont, senior... ●●

1940 Ingrid’s apartment overlooked the garden of the Museum of Mo... (1940) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The ERC was often flying blind in tracking down threatened artists and intellectuals amid the alarums of war. In July 1940, the group decided on a dar... ●●

1940 The Warburgs of Hamburg were spared the ghastly world of the... (1940) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Possibly from proud memories of the old rivalry, these Altona Warburgs never appealed to the Hamburg Warburgs, so far as one can tell. On May 8, 1940,... ●●

1940 Like many sons of strong (1940) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story They also had their own little girl with the charming name of Lux. On May 10, 1940, the Germans jolted their fairy-tale realm of Eerde. As Josi recall... ●●

1940 CHAPTER 38––The Upstart On April 18 (1940) rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In German propaganda broadcasts, William Joyce—dubbed “Lord Haw-Haw” from his sneering tone—had denounced German-Jewish perpetrators behind the operat... ●●

1940 Hitler-Stalin secret negotiations on excluding America from Eurasia candidate ai_extracted 2 cit. no story Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin agreed in secret negotiations in November 1940 that America should be excluded from Eurasia. Both aspirants to global power recognized that American power injected into Eurasia would preclude their ambitions regarding global domination. ●●

1940 He would be naturalized as a British citizen in February 1940, but until then he rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story He would be naturalized as a British citizen in February 1940, but until then he was technically an enemy alien. ●●

1940 Auer delivers first ton of uranium oxide to War Office ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Auer, the thorium specialists, purveyors of gas mantles and radioactive toothpaste, delivered the first ton of pure uranium oxide processed from Joachimsthal ores to the War Office in January 1940. ●●

1940 Soviet physicists report spontaneous fission of uranium ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Two associates of Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov reported to the Physical Review in June 1940 that they had observed rare spontaneous fissioning in uranium. ●●

1940 “We are aware that a catastrophe might come any day,” he wrote in the midst of P rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story “We are aware that a catastrophe might come any day,” he wrote in the midst of Poland’s agony.1287 Catastrophe for Denmark waited until April 1940 and came then with brutal efficiency. ●●

1940 I had assumed that once we had demonstrated that in the fission of uranium neutr rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story I had assumed that once we had demonstrated that in the fission of uranium neutrons are emitted, there would be no difficulty in getting people interested; but I was wrong.”1299 The Uranium Committee’s November 1 report had in fact been languishing in Roosevelt’s files; Watson finally decided on his own in early February 1940 to bring it up again.1300 He asked Lyman Briggs if he had anything to add. ●●

1940 Using their numbers, Edward Teller in one of the many calculations he made durin rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Using their numbers, Edward Teller in one of the many calculations he made during this period arrived at a critical mass in excess of thirty tons, the same order of magnitude as Perrin and Peierls had calculated before him.1316 With only slightly more pessimistic assumptions Roberts concluded that “the cross-section for capture [in natural uranium] is sufficiently large that it now seems impossible for a fast-neutron chain reaction to occur, even in an infinitely large block of pure uranium.”1317 By the spring of 1940 experiments at Columbia and the DTM had thus ruled out both slow- and significant fast-neutron fission in U238 and ruled in slow-neutron fission in U235. ●●

1940 “In the spring of 1940 it was announced that President Roosevelt would speak to rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story “In the spring of 1940 it was announced that President Roosevelt would speak to a Pan American Scientific Congress in Washington, and as one of the professors of George Washington University I was invited. ●●

1940 I did not intend to go candidate ai_extracted 1 cit. no story I did not intend to go.”1320 The other event of that crucial day, May 10, 1940, reversed his intention: the phony war abruptly ended. ●●

1940 By mid-November 13,700 tons of high explosives had fallen and 12,600 tons of inc rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story By mid-November 13,700 tons of high explosives had fallen and 12,600 tons of incendiary canisters, an average of 201 tons per night; for the entire Blitz, September to May, the total tonnage reached 18,800—18.8 kilotons by modern measure, spread across nine months.1353 London civilian deaths in 1940 and 1941 totaled 20,083, civilian deaths elsewhere in Britain 23,602, for a total death by Blitz in the second and third year of the war (about which the United States was still officially neutral) of 43,685.1354 After that the bombing went the other way. ●●

1940 Auer orders sixty tons of uranium oxide from Belgium ai_extracted 2 cit. no story In June 1940, about the time Simon was hammering out his kitchen strainer, Auer ordered sixty tons of refined uranium oxide from the Union Miniére in occupied Belgium.1357 Paul Harteck in Hamburg tried that month to measure neutron multiplication in an ingenious arrangement of uranium oxide and dry ice—frozen carbon dioxide, a source of carbon free from any impurity other than oxygen—but was unable to convince Heisenberg to lend him enough uranium to guarantee unambiguous results. ●●

1940 “As time went on and the fission process became better understood, I found it in rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story “As time went on and the fission process became better understood, I found it increasingly difficult to believe that one fission product should behave in a way so different from the rest, and early in 1940 I returned to the problem.”1377 The 60-inch cyclotron, with a massive rectangular-framed magnet spacious enough to shelter Lawrence’s entire crew between its poles for a photograph—twenty-seven men, two rows seated on the lower jaw of the beast, Lawrence prominent at center, and a third row standing inside its maw—was up and running by then; McMillan used it to study the 2.3-day activity in more detail. ●●

1940 Tizard Mission brings British secrets to America ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Churchill had sent over Henry Tizard in the late summer of 1940 with a delegation of experts and a black-enameled metal steamer trunk, the original black box, full of military secrets. ●●

1940 He convinced McMillan: “I left Berkeley in November 1940 to take part in the dev rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story He convinced McMillan: “I left Berkeley in November 1940 to take part in the development of radar for national defense.”1384 Lawrence’s and McMillan’s priorities are a measure of the priorities of American science in late 1940. ●●

1940 In 1940 Lawrence had recruited a Harvard experimentalist named Kenneth Bainbridg rejected ai_extracted 2 cit. no story In 1940 Lawrence had recruited a Harvard experimentalist named Kenneth Bainbridge, by trade a nuclear physicist—Bainbridge built the Harvard cyclotron—to work on radar at MIT. ●●

1940 They had chosen gaseous diffusion at dinner one evening in 1940 on their way hom rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story They had chosen gaseous diffusion at dinner one evening in 1940 on their way home from a trip to Schenectady by systematically ruling out other methods as unsuitable for large-scale production, much as Peierls and Simon had done.1483 They were interested in nuclear power, Booth remembers, not bomb-making. ●●

1940 Dunning and Urey appraise gaseous diffusion ai_extracted 1 cit. no story If a chain reaction became possible with normal uranium, a smaller and probably cheaper power plant could be made with enriched uranium.”1484 Dunning and Urey produced a joint appraisal of the gaseous-diffusion process in November 1940. ●●

1940 Szilard joins Columbia under NDRC contract ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Szilard had finally gone on the Columbia payroll on November 1, 1940, when the $40,000 National Defense Research Committee contract came through for physical-constant measurements. ●●

1940 On the recommendation of Theodor von Kármán, whom he consulted at Caltech, he an rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On the recommendation of Theodor von Kármán, whom he consulted at Caltech, he and Edward Teller in 1940 extended and clarified shock-wave theory. ●●

1940 Rich Congo pitchblende shipped to the United States ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Nichols told him about a recent and fortuitous discovery: some 1,250 tons of extraordinarily rich pitchblende—it was 65 percent uranium oxide—that the Union Minière had shipped to the United States in 1940 from its Shinkolobwe mine in the Belgian Congo to remove it beyond German reach. ●●

1940 In July 1940, in the desperate time after the debacle of Dunkirk and at the begi rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In July 1940, in the desperate time after the debacle of Dunkirk and at the beginning of the Battle of Britain, Churchill had written his Minister of Aircraft Production to that effect: “But when I look round to see how we can win the war I see that there is only one sure path . ●●

1940 There were still occasional flashes of intuition, ... rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story There were still occasional flashes of intuition, as in his design of the campaign against France in 1940 and in his refusal to permit a retreat in fr ●●

1940 April 1940, on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Nor... rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In April 1940, on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Norway, he told a secret briefing: Up to now we have succeeded ●●

1940 Franz Simon, now officially working for the MAUD Committee, produced a report nearly as crucial to t rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Franz Simon, now officially working for the MAUD Committee, produced a report nearly as crucial to the future of uranium-bomb development as the original Frisch-Peierls memoranda had been. ●●

1940 But Leo Szilard at least was not yet done with protest. rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story But Leo Szilard at least was not yet done with protest. ●●

1940 that they had observed rare spontaneous fissioning in uranium. rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story that they had observed rare spontaneous fissioning in uranium. ●●

1940 it was already clear to two intelligent observers that nuclear weapons would be weapons of mass dest rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story it was already clear to two intelligent observers that nuclear weapons would be weapons of mass destruction against which the only apparent defense would be the deterrent effect of mutual possession. ●●

1940 to begin sorting out its chemistry—although he was a physicist by graduate training, he had earned h rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story to begin sorting out its chemistry—although he was a physicist by graduate training, he had earned his B. ●●

1940 the same day Louis Turner sent Szilard his transuranic theories: anticipation and discovery can cut rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story the same day Louis Turner sent Szilard his transuranic theories: anticipation and discovery can cut that close in science. ●●

1940 while visiting Berkeley to deliver a lecture, Enrico Fermi attended a seminar one of Oppenheimer’s p rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story while visiting Berkeley to deliver a lecture, Enrico Fermi attended a seminar one of Oppenheimer’s protégés led in the master’s style. ●●

1940 that the United States must also be pursuing a program when the names of prominent physicists, chemi rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story that the United States must also be pursuing a program when the names of prominent physicists, chemists, metallurgists and mathematicians disappeared from international journals: secrecy itself gave the secret away. ●●

1940 some 1,200 tons in all, the only source of untraced bomb material available to them during the war w rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story some 1,200 tons in all, the only source of untraced bomb material available to them during the war with the mines at Joachimsthal under surveillance and the Belgian Congo cut off. ●●

1940 Germany seizes 1,200 tons of Belgian uranium ore ai_extracted 1 cit. no story the German Army in Belgium confiscated and removed to Germany about 1200 tons of uranium ore. ●●

1940 1940: Kay had learned to love both the sciences and humanities as ... rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story to love both the sciences and humanities as a child in central Massachusetts, where he was born in 1940. His father was a physiologist who designed artificial legs and arms. On long walks with him, Ka ●●

1940 1940: Alan Kay (1940– ) at Xerox PARC in 1974. rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Alan Kay (1940– ) at Xerox PARC in 1974. Kay’s 1972 sketch for a Dynabook. Lee Felsenstein (1945– ). The first issue, October 1972. ●●

1940 1940: cuum-tube circuits to see what else they might do. At a conference at rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story cuum-tube circuits to see what else they might do. At a conference at Dartmouth College in September 1940, Mauchly saw a demonstration by George Stibi ●●

1940 1940: bes, and he bought a supply at eight cents apiece. “Before November 19 rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story bes, and he bought a supply at eight cents apiece. “Before November 1940,” his wife later said, “Mauchly had successfully tested certain components of ●●

1940 1940: Engelbart into the paradise of personal computing. Kay had learned to rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Engelbart into the paradise of personal computing. Kay had learned to love both the sciences and humanities as a child in central Massachusetts, where ●●

1940 1940: Alan Kay (1940– ) at Xerox PARC in 1974. Kay’s 1972 sketch for a Dynab rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Alan Kay (1940– ) at Xerox PARC in 1974. Kay’s 1972 sketch for a Dynabook. Lee Felsenste ●●

1940 Information history in 1940 rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story e population genetics community. …[Shannon] discovered principles that were rediscovered later. ●●

1940 40 he was invited to give the John Danz memorial lectures at rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In 1940 he was invited to give the John Danz memorial lectures at the University of Washington in Seattle ●●

1940 “Johnny was suddenly in a great hurry to see the Grand Canyo rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The whole scene was a mute play; it seemed completely routine, the man paid, he and his beast drank up and quietly left the place.”30 After visiting ●●

1940 “I discussed the cellular model with von Neumann in the late rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story “I discussed the cellular model with von Neumann in the late 1940’s,” he later wrote to Arthur Burks, and he evidently had similar discussions with Ni ●●

1940 Princeton University rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Novaya Zemlya NPL, see National Physical Laboratory nuclear pulse propulsion nuclear weapons, prf.1, 1.1, 4.1, 10.1, 15.1, 15.2, 16.1, 17.1, 17.2 ●●

1940 Katyn massacre of Polish prisoners of war ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Zuboff highlights Stalin's systematic execution of 15,000 Polish nationalists captured as prisoners of war from the 1939 invasion. ●●

1940 Event of 1940 rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story One of the most battered nations, Japan, grew by two and a half million people between 1940 and 1945 ●●

1940 On 24 March, General Thomas noted the follow- ing conversation with Fritz Todt: ‘Fuehrer has again e rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On 24 March, General Thomas noted the follow- ing conversation with Fritz Todt: ‘Fuehrer has again emphasized ener- getically that everything is to be done so that the war can be ended in 1940 with a great military victory. ●●

1940 As Keitel put it to Thomas in January 1940: ‘The main thing is that one has the impression that the rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story As Keitel put it to Thomas in January 1940: ‘The main thing is that one has the impression that the ammunition programme has now started up on a large scale and one would then have to consider in the summer whether, given our raw material situation, ●●

1940 Todt appointed to head Ministry for Ammunition ai_extracted 1 cit. no story And it was Todt who was duly appointed by Hitler on 17 March 1940 to head a new Ministry for Ammunition. ●●

1940 Todt Ministry creates gun and artillery committee ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Finally, in Novem- ber 1940 the Todt Ministry established a national committee to oversee the production of guns and artillery, headed Para enough by ‘Cannon Mueller’ from Krupp. ●●

1940 Then, from the first months of 1940 onwards, as rationing began to bite and the shelves of the Germa rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Then, from the first months of 1940 onwards, as rationing began to bite and the shelves of the German shops emptied, the accounts of the savings banks swelled with a completely unprecedented volume of deposits. ●●

1940 It was not finally adopted until February 1940, by which time the great ammunition drive was already rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story It was not finally adopted until February 1940, by which time the great ammunition drive was already in full swing. ●●

1940 367 Ink Victory in the West — Sieg im Westen At 5.35 on the morning of 10 May 1940, after months of rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story 367 Ink Victory in the West — Sieg im Westen At 5.35 on the morning of 10 May 1940, after months of ‘phoney war’, the Western front roared into life.’ Thousands of German guns began drubbing the opposing French, Dutch and Belgian positions. ●●

1940 The German army that invaded France in May 1940 was far from being a carefully honed weapon of moder rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The German army that invaded France in May 1940 was far from being a carefully honed weapon of modern armoured warfare.’ Of Germany’s 93 combat-ready divisions on 10 May 1940, only 9 were Panzer divisions, with a total of 2,439 tanks between them. ●●

1940 Though Germany’s overall tank strength in May 1940 was certainly not overwhelming, matters would hav rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Though Germany’s overall tank strength in May 1940 was certainly not overwhelming, matters would have been far worse but for the tank production drive that began in the autumn of 1939. ●●

1940 Germany signs arms-for-oil deal with Romania ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In March 1940, the German Foreign Office began the process of rolling back Anglo-French domi- nance in the Ploesti oilfield, by concluding an unprecedented arms-for- oil deal.** Romania guaranteed Germany an increased supply of oil at preferential pr ●●

1940 How- ever, the value of goods seized by the victorious Wehrmacht was clearly enormous.*' A French en rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story How- ever, the value of goods seized by the victorious Wehrmacht was clearly enormous.*' A French enumeration of goods taken by the Germans between 1940 and 1944 came to no less than 154 billion francs or 7.7 billion Reichsmarks, at official exchange ●●

1940 395 EZ Britain and America: Hitler’s Strategic Dilemma In July 1940, in a desperate bid to unhitch rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story 395 EZ Britain and America: Hitler’s Strategic Dilemma In July 1940, in a desperate bid to unhitch the Soviet Union from its pact with Germany, Churchill sent Stafford Cripps, his new ambassador in Moscow, to a meeting with the Soviet dictator. ●●

1940 But once Roosevelt was safely re-elected in Nov- ember 1940 and the Anglo-American alliance began to rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story But once Roosevelt was safely re-elected in Nov- ember 1940 and the Anglo-American alliance began to take on concrete form, the Third Reich too faced an acute strategic dilemma.’ In the short term neither Britain nor America posed a direct military t ●●

1940 Despite the euphoria that followed the victory parades of July 1940, these basic preconditions for t rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Despite the euphoria that followed the victory parades of July 1940, these basic preconditions for the defeat of Britain were never met.’ At no point in the war did Germany assemble the naval or aerial forces necessary to dominate the British Isles t ●●

1940 461 1940 - Newfoundland, Bermuda, rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story 461 1940 - Newfoundland, Bermuda, St ●●

1940 The last reference has to candidate ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The last reference has to do with the bacteriological warfare experiments the Japanese had carried out against China between 1940 and 1942 ●●

1940 Battle of Britain enters critical phase rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story By September 1940, Hitler faces strategic dilemma after both German navy and Luftwaffe fail to achieve decisive victory; Germany lacks technology and resources for successful invasion. ●●

1940 Hitler faces strategic dilemma after Battle of Britain failure rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story By September 1940, German navy and Luftwaffe fail; Hitler cannot bring decisive weapon against Britain. ●●

1940 Britain launches strategic bombing offensive on Germany ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Autumn 1940: Britain begins building heavy bomber fleet to destroy German industry and war economy. ●●

1940 Anglo-American aircraft production scheme drafted ai_extracted 1 cit. no story July 23, 1940: Secret meeting produces scheme for 72,000 aircraft per year production expansion. ●●

1940 Roosevelt proposes 50,000 aircraft per year ai_extracted 1 cit. no story President Roosevelt proposes world's largest military-industrial complex with 50,000 aircraft yearly capacity. ●●

1940 Jack Parsons Communicates with Crowley rejected ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Levenda describes that Ray and Mildred Burlingame were in direct communication with Alistair Crowley in the 1940s when Jack Parsons was being considered for a leadership position with the OTO Agape Lodge. ●●

7 September 1940 The Blitz bombing campaign against Britain 0 cit. The Luftwaffe shifted from targeting RAF airfields to sustained night bombing of London and other British cities, killing over 40,000 civilians before the campaign wound down in mid-1941. The bombing was intended to break British morale and force surrender, but it failed to do so and instead hardened public resolve. The Blitz became a defining example of strategic bombing aimed at civilian populations. war ●●

c. 1940 Kwame Nkrumah is initiated into Prince Hall Freemasonry unproven 0 cit. Kwame Nkrumah, later the first president of Ghana, was initiated into Prince Hall Freemasonry while a student in the United States between 1935 and 1945. The precise date is not well pinned down in available sources, so it is marked approximate, but the initiation itself is recorded in histories of Freemasonry in Ghana and Prince Hall Masonic scholarship, distinguishing it from the unverified claims made about other African leaders below. politics / society ●●

c. 20 January 1940 Bletchley Park breaks Enigma traffic 0 cit. Codebreakers at the Government Code and Cypher School's wartime station, Bletchley Park, achieved their first sustained breaks into German Enigma-encrypted traffic, building on earlier Polish cryptanalytic work. The resulting decrypted intelligence, codenamed Ultra, gave Allied commanders access to German military communications for the rest of the war. Historians credit Ultra with shortening the war, though its full extent stayed classified until the 1970s. technology / war ●●●

16 September 1940 National Guard federalized before World War II 0 cit. As war spread in Europe and Asia, Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act, and President Roosevelt ordered the entire National Guard, about 300,000 soldiers, into a year of federal active duty starting that month. Guard divisions such as the 34th 'Red Bull' Division later fought in North Africa and Italy, and other Guard units fought across the Pacific. The 1940 mobilization gave the Regular Army a badly needed trained cadre well before Pearl Harbor. war ●●●

1940 Banning of the Kikuyu Central Association 0 cit. In 1940 the colonial government proscribed the Kikuyu Central Association and several allied bodies, arresting leaders and using wartime emergency powers against African political organising. The ban showed how readily the state moved from surveillance to suppression. Driven underground, the grievances the association voiced fed into later, harder resistance. politics ●●

1940 Sengier ships Congolese uranium to New York 0 cit. Edgar Sengier, a director of Union Miniere, foresaw war and had roughly 1,200 tons of high-grade Shinkolobwe uranium ore shipped to New York, where it sat in a warehouse on Staten Island. In 1942 he sold it to the United States Army for the secret atomic bomb program. The ore was far richer than American or Canadian sources, and its origin in a Belgian colony was kept quiet. economy / technology / war ●●●

August 1940 Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee in Marseille 0 cit. The Emergency Rescue Committee sends journalist Varian Fry to Vichy France, where he helps thousands of artists, writers and intellectuals escape the Nazis, among them Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall and Max Ernst. Fry worked with forged papers and secret mountain routes into Spain. The committee later merged with the International Relief Association. culture / politics / war ●●●

1940 Roosevelt's order builds a classification machine 0 cit. President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8381, the first presidential order to set rules for classifying government information. It gave the marking system a legal footing rooted in the president's own authority rather than an act of Congress. From here the American secrecy regime would grow through a chain of executive orders, each rewriting the last. politics / war ●●

14 May 1940 Britain forms the Local Defence Volunteers 0 cit. As German forces overran France and invasion loomed, War Secretary Anthony Eden called by radio for men not in the army to enrol as Local Defence Volunteers. Within weeks hundreds of thousands had signed up, many too old or too young for regular service. The force was meant to watch the coast and countryside and to slow any German landing until the army could respond. society / war ●●●

July 1940 The Local Defence Volunteers are renamed the Home Guard 0 cit. Churchill pressed for a stronger name, and the Local Defence Volunteers became the Home Guard. Membership passed a million men and later reached about 1.5 million. At first they were badly short of weapons, drilling with shotguns, pikes and improvised gear until arms arrived from Britain and the United States. society / war ●●

c. 1940 Farm Labour in Wartime Sussex 0 cit. Through the Second World War Kenyatta lived in the English countryside, working as an agricultural labourer on a farm at Storrington in Sussex and lecturing on Africa for the Workers' Educational Association and to British troops. The years among ordinary English working people, far from colonial officialdom, deepened his ease in Britain. He kept up his political writing and contacts with other anti-colonial activists throughout. economy / society ●

1940 The Kikuyu Central Association Is Banned at the Outbreak of War 3 cit. In 1940, as the Second World War began, the colonial government banned the Kikuyu Central Association along with the Ukamba Members Association and the Taita Hills Association, citing security fears, and detained several of its leaders. With Kenyatta away in Britain and its main African political vehicle outlawed, organized Kikuyu politics was pushed underground for the duration of the war. The ban left the government chiefs and the mission-aligned elite as the recognized African voices, strengthening the loyalist establishment just as grievances over land and labour were sharpening. politics / society / war ●●

c. 1940 Kenyans Fight in the King's African Rifles 0 cit. Tens of thousands of Kenyan Africans served in the King's African Rifles during the Second World War, first in the East African campaign that drove the Italians from Somaliland and Ethiopia, then in the brutal jungle fighting against Japan in Burma. They fought alongside white soldiers, saw the wider world, and learned that colonial rule was neither universal nor invincible. The estimated hundred thousand or so Kenyans who served came home with new skills, expectations, and a sharpened sense of the injustice they had left behind. society / war ●●●

c. 1940 The 1940 age-set and wartime conscription 0 cit. The name Anake a 40, the Young Men of 40, points to the year 1940. Among the Kikuyu, men initiated in the same period shared an age-set identity, and many of this cohort were drafted into the British colonial forces from 1940 as the Second World War spread. The shared year of service and initiation gave the group its name and a strong sense of common generation. society / war ●●

1940 The KCA is banned and goes underground 0 cit. The colonial government banned the Kikuyu Central Association in 1940, during the Second World War, treating it as a security risk. Driven underground, the association kept its members bound through secret oaths, which now held a network the state could not see. This underground oathing tradition carried the movement through the 1940s. When mass politics revived after the war, the oath was ready to hand. politics / society ●●

1940 Fabian Imperialism and the Colonial Bureau 0 cit. The Fabians who founded the LSE were, in the early twentieth century, socialist imperialists: their 1900 manifesto Fabianism and the Empire rejected abrupt decolonization in favour of a reformed, efficient empire. In 1940 the Fabian Society set up the Fabian Colonial Bureau, led substantially by Rita Hinden, which strongly shaped the Attlee government's colonial policy and the gradualist, managed path to independence that favoured moderate, constitutional successors over radicals. Historians cite this Fabian tradition of permeation and managed decolonization as a documented mechanism by which the metropole helped shape a compatible post-colonial elite. politics / society ●●