Events, Verisoph

1939 Hitler approves munitions programme favoring heavy artillery ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Based on figures that Hitler had cribbed from the standard history of the Great War, it gave priority above all to howitzers and heavy mortars — the decisive weapons of trench war- fare.” On 12 December 1939 Hitler personally approved the final versi ●●

1939 Ju 88 bomber mass-production begins ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The long-awaited mass-production of the Ju 88 finally began in the autumn of 1939. ●●

c. 1939 German Rhodes Scholarships terminated 0 cit. The Rhodes Trust ended the German scholarships as the Second World War began, after the scheme had already been compromised by Nazi control over which German students were allowed to study abroad. The program was never revived after the war in its original form. Germany was only later reintegrated into the scholarship's list of eligible countries. diplomacy / war ●

1939 Stibitz completes the Complex Number Calculator ai_extracted 1 cit. no story George Stibitz's relay-based Complex Number Calculator at Bell Labs is completed, able to handle complex-number arithmetic. ●●

1939 Duke of Kent becomes Grand Master, dies in wartime service 0 cit. Prince George, Duke of Kent, son of George V, became Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1939. He continued to hold the office through the early part of the Second World War until his death in an air crash in Scotland in August 1942 while on active RAF service. His death ended a continuous run of royal Grand Masters that had lasted, with brief gaps, since the 18th century. society / war ●●

30 April 1939 New York World's Fair of 1939 0 cit. Built around the theme "The World of Tomorrow," this fair featured the Trylon and Perisphere and previewed television, nylon, and early concepts of highway-based suburban living to Depression-weary Americans. It opened four months before the outbreak of World War II in Europe, and several participating countries' pavilions closed early as the war began. culture / technology ●●

31 August 1939 Gleiwitz Incident 0 cit. SS operatives dressed as Polish soldiers staged an attack on a German radio station at Gleiwitz, leaving behind a murdered concentration camp prisoner dressed in a Polish uniform as fabricated evidence. Hitler cited the fake attack, along with a wider set of staged border incidents under Operation Himmler, as justification for invading Poland the next morning. The operation was confirmed by postwar testimony from SS officer Alfred Naujocks, who led it. diplomacy / war ●●●

26 November 1939 Mainila Shelling Incident 0 cit. Soviet artillery shelled the Soviet village of Mainila and the government publicly blamed Finland for the attack, despite Finnish forces having withdrawn their artillery out of range beforehand. The Soviet Union used the incident to renounce its non-aggression pact with Finland and launch the Winter War four days later. Soviet officials and archival records later confirmed the shelling was carried out by the Red Army itself. diplomacy / war ●●

1939 Hewlett-Packard is founded in a Palo Alto garage 0 cit. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, students of Stanford's Frederick Terman, started HP in a garage that is now treated as the birthplace of Silicon Valley. Wartime and Cold War military contracts for electronics gave the young company its first steady business. economy / technology / war ●●

1939 The Highlands Order in Council Seals the Preserve 0 cit. The Kenya (Highlands) Order in Council, made in 1938 and in force from 1939, at last gave the White Highlands the force of statute. It fixed the boundary of the reserved area and set up a Highlands Board controlling who could hold land there, formally barring Africans and Indians alike. The color bar on the best farmland was now written into imperial law, and it stood until the eve of independence. economy / politics ●●●

c. 1939 Reception and the book's later political life 0 cit. The book sold modestly at first and was read mainly by scholars, but it won respect as serious ethnography. In later years it became a foundational nationalist text, cited as evidence of a dignified African civilisation and of the land the settlers had taken. Its author's name, Jomo Kenyatta, became the name of a nation's leader. culture / politics ●●

March 1939 The Bank for International Settlements handles Reichsbank gold 1 cit. The Bank for International Settlements, the Basel clearing house owned by central banks, transferred gold belonging to Czechoslovakia to the German Reichsbank after Germany seized the country in 1939. During the war it went on accepting Reichsbank gold, some of it looted. The transactions later became a case study in how a neutral financial body kept dealing with the Reich. diplomacy / economy ●●●

4 November 1939 Cash and carry replaces the arms embargo 0 cit. The United States revises its Neutrality Acts to let warring nations buy American arms, but only if they pay in cash and carry the goods away in their own ships. The rule keeps America formally neutral while opening its factories to buyers with hard currency. For Britain and France it means every rifle and aircraft must be paid for up front in dollars or gold. diplomacy / economy / war ●●●

c. 1939 Mbiyu Koinange and the independent schools 0 cit. Mbiyu Koinange, a son of Senior Chief Koinange, studied in the United States and Britain and came home to build African-run education outside the mission system. Around 1939 he helped found the Kenya Teachers College at Githunguri, a center of the independent schools movement. During the emergency he worked abroad as a spokesman for the Kenya African Union and the detained leaders. After independence he became a close and powerful figure in Kenyatta's government. He died in 1981. culture / politics ●●

c. 1939 Kibaki starts mission schooling in colonial Nyeri 2 cit. As a child, Kibaki entered the Catholic mission school world around Karima and Gatuyaini in Nyeri. The Presidential Library account says missionaries from Karima Mission were recruiting boys for schooling and that Kibaki was nominated by his father. This was the first institutional step in the route from rural Othaya into colonial-era education networks. religion / society ●●●

27 September 1940 Tripartite Pact wikidata 0 cit. treaty establishing the Axis Powers of World War Two ●●●

22 June 1940 Armistice of 22 June 1940 wikidata 1 cit. no story armistice between France and Nazi Germany in World War II ●●●

1940 Nong'an plague wikidata 0 cit. no story ●●●

10 May 1940 to 25 June 1940 Fall of France 0 cit. Germany conquers the Low Countries and France in six weeks; the British army escapes at Dunkirk without its equipment. war ●●●●

10 July 1940 to 31 October 1940 Battle of Britain 0 cit. The RAF denies the Luftwaffe air superiority; the planned invasion of Britain is shelved. war ●●●●

1940 Proclamation of the New Economic Order ai_extracted 1 cit. In 1940 the Konoe cabinet proclaimed the New Economic Order, composed of a New Financial System, a New Fiscal Policy, and a New Labor System, as Japan approached entry into World War II. ●●●●

1940 Industrial Standardization Law ai_extracted 1 cit. The Industrial Standardization Law of 1940 set norms and standards rigorously enforced by the military, making quality control a lasting feature of Japanese manufacturing. ●●

1940 to 1950 Wartime switch to bank funding ai_extracted 1 cit. Between 1940 and 1950 Japanese firms radically switched their external funding from the stock market to bank borrowing, which averaged 60 percent of liabilities versus 40 percent equity; bank financing predominance persisted until the late 1980s. ●●●

16 September 1940 First Peacetime Draft: The Selective Service System 0 cit. With war spreading in Europe and Asia, Congress passes the Selective Training and Service Act, the first peacetime conscription law in American history. The Selective Service System registers tens of millions of men through World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. society / war ●●

1 March 1940 Franco's Spain represses Freemasonry 0 cit. Franco's regime passed the Law for the Repression of Freemasonry and Communism in 1940, making membership a crime. Many Spanish Freemasons were imprisoned, exiled, or executed. politics / religion ●●

16 September 1940 First peacetime draft under the Selective Service Act 0 cit. Congress passed the first peacetime conscription law in US history as war spread in Europe and Asia. It built the mass army the country used in the Second World War. politics / war ●●

1940 to 1945 Krupp uses forced and slave labour in the Second World War 0 cit. During the Second World War Krupp used tens of thousands of prisoners of war, forced labourers and concentration camp inmates in its plants. Conditions were often brutal and many workers died. society / war ●●●●

2 September 1940 The destroyers-for-bases deal ties Britain to American support 0 cit. The United States gave Britain fifty aging destroyers in exchange for 99-year leases on bases in British Atlantic and Caribbean territories. The deal traded imperial real estate for American aid as Britain stood nearly alone against Germany. politics / war ●

1 January 1940 to 1945 The BIS keeps operating under wartime pressure 1 cit. With American Thomas McKittrick as president, the BIS stayed open throughout World War II while much of its board and business were tied to Axis powers. Critics later charged that it handled looted gold and served German interests, while defenders said it preserved a neutral channel among central banks. economy / politics / war ●●●●

1940 Quigley: banker-engendered deflation caused World War II ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Quigley argues the banker-engendered deflationary crisis of 1927-1940 can hardly be overestimated in importance. He claims it crippled democracies and gave an impetus to aggression, becoming a chief cause of World War II. ●●

1940 Amery's call forces Chamberlain from office ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The split between the anti-Bolshevik and three-bloc groups burst into the open when Leopold Amery cried to Chamberlain across the floor of the Commons on 10 May 1940, 'In the name of God, go!', leading to Chamberlain's fall. ●●

1940 British interdict German coal to Italy ai_extracted 1 cit. no story As part of economic warfare, Britain cut off seaborne German coal exports from the Baltic to Italy on March 5, 1940, three months before Italy entered the war. The move disrupted the Italian economy and strained German rail transport. ●●

1940 Soviet-Finnish Peace Treaty ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The Winter War ended with the Soviet-Finnish Peace Treaty of March 12, 1940, made at the insistence of Finnish commander Baron Mannerheim. Its terms were harsher than the original Soviet demands, taking the whole Karelian Isthmus and the Hango base. ●●

1940 France orders Weygand to bomb Soviet oil fields ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On April 11, 1940, French premier Reynaud ordered General Weygand to raid the Soviet Caucasus oil wells from Syria as soon as possible. The plan reflected an Anglo-French inclination to fight Russia rather than Germany, but Weygand could not act before France fell. ●●

1940 Hitler orders occupation of Denmark and Norway ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Hitler issued formal orders on March 1, 1940 to occupy both Denmark and Norway, planning the operation with Norwegian Nazi Vidkun Quisling. The aim was to secure the Swedish iron-ore route through Narvik before Britain could cut it. ●●

1940 Denmark surrenders to Germany ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Denmark yielded to a German ultimatum on April 8, 1940 as German divisions overran the country and seaborne forces landed in Copenhagen. The same morning German agents and troops began seizing Norwegian airfields, ports, and radio stations. ●●

1940 Churchill replaces Chamberlain as prime minister ai_extracted 1 cit. no story As German armies struck west on May 10, 1940, Chamberlain resigned and Winston Churchill formed a national government. His arrival was received with relief by a public that wanted a fighter to rally resistance. ●●

1940 Dunkirk evacuation ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Between May 28 and June 4, 1940, the British Expeditionary Force evacuated 337,131 men from the beaches at Dunkerque under constant air attack, using 887 vessels of all kinds. Hitler had ordered no intensive ground assault on the perimeter. ●●

1940 King Leopold surrenders the Belgian army ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On May 27, 1940, King Leopold made an unconditional surrender of Belgian forces to the Germans, over his government's objections and without ensuring the Allied command was informed. The British at once began evacuating through Dunkerque. ●●

1940 Franco-German armistice at Compiegne ai_extracted 1 cit. no story France's armistice with Germany was negotiated in the same railway carriage at Compiegne where Germany had surrendered in 1918 and took effect on June 25, 1940. Hitler, expecting Britain to make peace, gave France surprisingly lenient terms. ●●

1940 Petain replaces Reynaud, seeks armistice ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Unable to win Cabinet agreement to keep fighting from overseas, Reynaud resigned on June 16, 1940 and was replaced by Marshal Petain. Surrounded by defeatists, Petain immediately asked Germany for an armistice. ●●

1940 Turning point of the Battle of Britain ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The turning point of the Battle of Britain came on September 15, 1940, when 56 German invading planes were shot down. Germany's failure to win air superiority forced the postponement and then cancellation of the invasion of Britain. ●●

1940 Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The three Axis powers signed a military alliance on September 27, 1940, pledging mutual aid if one was attacked by a power not already in the war. The pact was aimed chiefly at deterring the United States from intervening. ●●

1940 Soviet Union demands Bessarabia from Romania ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On June 26, 1940, the Soviet Union gave Romania twenty-four hours to cede Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. Germany, which had a stake in Romanian oil, objected only to the demand for Bukovina. ●●

1940 Iron Guard government under Antonescu takes power ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On September 5, 1940, an Iron Guard government under Ion Antonescu took office in Bucharest after the territorial losses of that summer destroyed Romanian moderates. Its first act was to depose King Carol and replace him with his son Michael. ●●

1940 British air attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On November 11, 1940, twenty-one British planes made a torpedo attack on the Italian fleet in Taranto harbor, sinking three of six battleships for the loss of two planes and one pilot. It was an early demonstration of carrier air power against battleships. ●●

1940 Italy attacks Greece from Albania ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Mussolini launched an attack on Greece from Albania on October 28, 1940, against the unanimous advice of his generals. It was stopped within three weeks and a Greek counterattack drove deep into Albania. ●●

1940 Wavell attacks Graziani in Egypt ai_extracted 1 cit. no story On December 7, 1940, General Archibald Wavell attacked Graziani's much larger Italian force in Egypt with 31,000 men and 225 tanks. In two months he captured 130,000 Italians and advanced 600 miles for the loss of only 500 killed. ●●

1940 Destroyers-for-bases deal with Britain ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In September 1940 Roosevelt, by executive action, gave Britain fifty old World War I destroyers in exchange for ninety-nine-year leases on naval and air bases from Newfoundland to Trinidad. He also proclaimed a limited National Emergency. ●●

1940 Selective Service Act of 1940 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In September 1940 Congress passed the Selective Service Act to build up the armed forces by compulsion, providing one year of training for 900,000 men. The men were not to be used outside the Western Hemisphere. ●●

1940 Japan sets up a puppet government at Nanking ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In March 1940 Japan installed a puppet Chinese government at Nanking. Its lack of real power convinced no one, as the interior of China remained loyal to Chiang Kai-shek's government at Chungking. ●●

1940 City bombing begins by accident over London ai_extracted 1 cit. no story The bombing of cities began when lost German planes dumped their loads on London on August 24, 1940, contrary to orders. The RAF retaliated on Berlin the next night, and Goering announced deliberate city bombardment soon after. ●●

1940 National Defense Research Committee created ai_extracted 1 cit. no story As France fell in 1940, Vannevar Bush persuaded Roosevelt to create the National Defense Research Committee, which he chaired, linking science to the U.S. war effort. ●●

1940 Sengier ships Congo uranium ore to New York ai_extracted 1 cit. no story After the fall of France, Edgar Sengier of Union Miniere shipped 1,250 tons of high-grade Katanga uranium ore to New York, where it sat unwanted for over two years. ●●

1940 Amery's "In the name of God, go!" and Chamberlain's fall ai_extracted 1 cit. no story In the bitter Commons debate of 8 May 1940 Amery flung Cromwell's words at the government benches. The split vote led to Chamberlain's replacement by Churchill and Amery's return to office. ●●

1940 Halifax sent to Washington after Lothian's death ai_extracted 1 cit. no story When Lothian died in December 1940 the Washington embassy was judged so important that Halifax was moved there from the Foreign Office while keeping his War Cabinet seat. ●●

1940 Walter Lippmann indicts modern education, 1940 ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Gatto quotes Walter Lippmann, who in a December 1940 address to the science association argued that modern education had stripped away the Western cultural tradition and was destroying Western civilization. ●●

1940 NKVD deports tens of thousands of Balts to Siberia ai_extracted 1 cit. no story Other examples include the NKVD’s forced deportation of some 35,000 to 50,000 “suspect” Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians to Siberian exile in 1940 and 1941, which has remained a rigidly enforced secret inside the USSR ever since. ●●

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. ●●

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 ●●

January 1940 Mao Zedong publishes On New Democracy 0 cit. Mao set out a model of revolution led by a communist party but rooted in the peasantry and aimed first at foreign domination and landlordism. His stress on rural guerrilla struggle in a poor, mostly agrarian country spoke to conditions across the colonized world more directly than Soviet industrial doctrine. Historians credit the Maoist model with shaping liberation movements from Asia to Africa. politics / war ●●

25 July 1940 General Guisan's Rütli Report and the National Redoubt 0 cit. After the fall of France left Switzerland fully surrounded by the Axis, General Henri Guisan gathered his officers at the Rütli meadow, the Confederation's founding site, and set out a plan to withdraw the army into an Alpine fortress and fight on if invaded. The National Redoubt aimed to make conquering Switzerland more costly than it was worth. The stance is often cited as armed neutrality, though the country's survival also owed much to its economic usefulness to Germany. war ●●

c. 1940 Britain ships its gold across the Atlantic 0 cit. To meet the cash-and-carry rule, Britain sends gold and dollar securities across the Atlantic to pay for American supplies. Some shipments travel by warship under guard. The purchases keep the war going but steadily drain the reserves the country needs to buy anything from abroad. economy / war ●●●

December 1940 Britain's reserves near exhaustion 0 cit. By late 1940 Britain's gold and dollar reserves are close to running out. The Treasury warns that the country can no longer pay cash for the American arms it depends on. Churchill puts the problem directly to President Roosevelt, saying Britain will soon be unable to pay in full for shipping and supplies. diplomacy / economy / war ●●●

c. 1940 American Viscose, Courtaulds' prize in America 0 cit. The American Viscose Corporation is the United States rayon business owned by the British textile firm Courtaulds. It is highly profitable and one of the most valuable British-owned companies in America. As Britain's dollars run low, this healthy overseas asset becomes a target for sale to raise cash. economy ●●

c. 1940 Britain liquidates its American investments 0 cit. Through 1940 and 1941 the British government requisitions and sells off British-owned direct investments in the United States to raise dollars. Company after company held by British owners is cashed in to pay for the war. The policy strips Britain of the overseas holdings that had underpinned its financial strength for decades. economy / war ●●●

c. 1940 More gold leaves the country 0 cit. Alongside the sale of companies, Britain keeps shipping gold abroad to settle its bills. Reserves that took generations to build are handed over in a matter of months. The critic Andrew Boyle and others later called this stretch the selling of the family silver, the disposal of the nation's accumulated wealth to stay in the fight. economy / war ●●