1941 Calendar

January 9, 1941 – World War II: First flight of the Avro Lancaster.

January 27, 1941 – New Year’s Day in Chinese calendar. Start of the year of the Metal Snake in Chinese astrology.

April 14, 1941 – World War II: The Ustashe, a Croatian far-right organization is put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis Powers after the Axis Operation 25 invasion. Rommel attacks Tobruk.

June 30, 1941 – World War II: Operation Barbarossa – Germany captures Lviv, Ukraine.

July 27, 1941 – Japanese troops occupy French Indo-China.

August 24, 1941 – Adolf Hitler orders the cessation of Nazi Germany’s systematic T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and the handicapped due to protests, although killings continue for the remainder of the war.

September 3, 1941 – The Holocaust: Karl Fritzsch, deputy camp commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, experiments with the use of Zyklon B in the gassing of Soviet POWs.

October 31, 1941 – World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It is the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by enemy action in WWII.

December 25, 1941 – Admiral Chester W. Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet

December 26, 1941 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in the United States.

January 8, 1941 – Boris Vallejo, Peruvian illustrator

February 19, 1941 – David Gross, American physicist, Nobel laureate

February 22, 1941 – Giorgos Arvanitis, Greek cinematographer

June 10, 1941 – David Walker, Australian racing driver

June 23, 1941 – Roger McDonald, Australian writer

June 25, 1941 – Denys Arcand, Canadian film director

July 17, 1941 – Achim Warmbold, German rally driver

August 26, 1941 – Akiko Wakabayashi, Japanese actress

September 4, 1941 – Joanna Van Gyseghem, English actress

November 23, 1941 – Franco Nero, Italian actor