1940..........1950

1940

• The dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in London stands untouched while surrounding buildings are engulfed in smoke and flames during a German bombing raid on December 29, 1940. Germany had quickly overpowered the Allies after World War II began in September 1939, leaving only Great Britain undefeated in Europe. In an effort to force capitulation, the German air force pummeled London with 71 major raids between September 1940 and May 1941, destroying 1 million homes and killing 40,000 civilians.

1941

• Japanese Attack Pearl Harbor
  The U.S. fleet in Hawaii is caught off
  guard when the Japanese attack the main American naval base in the Pacific.
  The United States declares war on the Japanese and enters WWII.

• Germany Invades Soviet Union
  Hitler launches Operation Barbarossa and invades
  Russia with largest force in history
  
  
• In August 1939, German-born physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt explaining the potential of building "extremely powerful bombs of a new type," which led to Roosevelt's authorization of the Manhattan Project in 1942. On July 16, 1945, the first atomic explosion was detonated in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Three weeks later, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, hastening the end of World War

1942

• U.S. Wins Pivotal Battle
  American forces, long on the ropes against the Japanese, defeat them at the Battle of
  Midway, shifting the Pacific advantage to the Allies
• Nazis Decide on "Final Solution"
  At a secret conference in Berlin, top Nazi leaders decide on a policy to liquidate all European Jews.
  

1943

• German Army Crumbles
  Soviets defeat Germans at the Battle of Stalingrad; The German army never really recovers.
  

1944

• Allies Hit French Beaches
  American-led Allies land in Normandy on D-Day and sweep through Europe, liberating Paris. The Soviet Red Army closes in from the east.
  

1945

• Vice President Harry S. Truman takes the presidential oath of office on April 12, 1945, hours after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. During his brief vice presidency, Truman had been told nothing about the development of the atomic bomb or tensions with the United States' ostensive ally in World War II, the Soviet Union. Suddenly, these and many other wartime problems were his to solve. "I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me," he told reporters.

• Germany Surrenders
  Germany surrenders to Allied forces after Hitler
  commits suicide in his bunker.
  

1946

• Dr. J.P.Z. Eckert, chief engineer of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) - the first general-purpose electronic digital computer - prepares the device for a demonstration, February 2, 1946. ENIAC, built at the University of Pennsylvania, weighed about 60,000 pounds and contained over 18,000 vacuum tubes, 2,000 of which had to be replaced every month. It had to be laboriously reprogrammed for each task. Still, it was 1,000 times faster than its electromechanical predecessors.

1947

• Gandhi was a practicing lawyer when he began a career of activism in South Africa in the 1890s. After returning to India in 1913, he led a series of nonviolent protests against British rule that eventually led to Indian independence in 1947 and that continue to be a model for civil disobedience strategies. He was assassinated by a Hindu extremist on January 30, 1948.
• 
  The first instant camera was developed by Edwin Land (1909-1991), founder of the Polaroid Corporation. Land got the idea when his 3-year-old daughter asked why she couldn't see a photo he'd just taken. The Land camera, with its built-in darkroom, hit the market in 1948. It took black-and-white photos, each of which required about a minute to develop. Later Polaroid cameras, like the one shown here, became widely popular. Land eventually patented more than 500 items, second only to Thomas Edison.

• Sound Barrier Shattered
  U.S. pilot Chuck Yaeger breaks the sound barrier.
  1948

1948

• An RCA lab technician inspects a new transistor, the revolutionary electronic amplifier. In late 1947, scientists John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented the transistor while working at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. The small device generated electronic signals and allowed them to be amplified far more efficiently, and at a much lower temperature, than the bulky glass vacuum tubes in use at the time. Within a decade, the transistor had revolutionized electronics.

• Israel Is Born
  Jewish leaders declare the Jewish state of Israel and fight to maintain their homeland despite stiff Arab resistance.
  

1949

• Chairman Mao Zedong (1893-1976) of China proclaims the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, after his Communist forces had defeated those of Chiang Kai-shek. The two factions had been embattled in a civil war since 1945. During his rule, Mao helped China recover from the war and modernized the nation, but at the price of economic chaos, cultism, and devastating civil-rights abuses. His reign ended with his death in 1976.

• Small Transistor Delivers Big Punch
  Bell Telephone Laboratories introduces the
  transistor, a powerful electrode technology
  that will make miniaturization of electronics
  like computers, radios and TVs possible.