Centuries: Year in Review 20th Century (19th century - 20th century - 21st century)
Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s
Years: 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 - 1945 - 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950
Births
Deaths
- February 11 - Al Dubin, Swiss songwriter.
- February 11 - J S H Lokerman, Dutch resistance fighter
- September 26 - Béla Bartók, aged 64, Hungarian composer
- Stefan Banach, Polish mathematician
- Charles Williams, British author
Events
- February 11 - Yalta Conference ends
- May 8 : V-E Day (Victory in Europe, as Nazi Germany surrenders) of World War II.
- June 26 : United Nations' charter signed.
- July 16 : The Trinity Test, the first test of an atomic bomb using 6 kilograms of plutonium, succeeds in detonating, unleashing an explosion equivalent to that of 20,000 tons of TNT.
- July 28 : A US bomber accidentally crashes into the Empire State Building
- August 6 August 9 : Two atomic bombs, (Little Boy and Fat Man) are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan, ending World War II.
- September 2 : V-J Day (Victory in Japan, as Imperial Japan surrenders)
- April 12: United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945) dies in office; Vice President Harry S Truman (1945-1953) takes the Oath of Office.
- Foundation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
- Physics - Wolfgang Pauli
- Chemistry - Artturi Ilmari Virtanen
- Medicine - Sir Alexander Fleming, Ernst Boris Chain, Sir [Howard Walter Florey]]
- Literature - Gabriela Mistral
- Peace - Cordell Hull