February 12, 1941. General Erwin Rommel arrives in North Africa (Tripoli, Libya) with German troops to reinforce the Italians who have suffered a series of defeats by the British.
April, 1941. Greece and Yugoslavia surrender to the German army invading their countries. British troops stationed in Greece retreat to Crete and North Africa. Yugoslavian Communist Joseph Broz Tito vows to continue fighting Hitler and his Nazis to the end.
May, 1941. The Blitz, heavy German bombing of London and other British cities, comes to an end as Hitler turns his attention to Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.
May 19, 1941. Italian Fascist troops surrender to the British in Ethiopia, and Emperor Haile Selassie has returned to the throne of Ethiopia after having been forced into exile by the Fascists.
June 30, 1941. The Germans invade the Soviet Union, breaking their non-aggression pact with Stalin.
August, 1941. Churchill and FDR meet aboard the American cruiser Augusta and issue a joint declaration later known as the Atlantic Charter. The agreement brings the United States one step closer to war in alliance with Britain.
September, 1941. All Jews in Germany over the age of six are required to wear the Star of David in public as a “mark of shame.”
September, 1941. 21-year old Mohammed Reza Pahlevi is the new Shah of Iran. He promises to be a “completely constitutional monarch.”
November, 1941. The Russian winter slows the German advance into Russia and towards Moscow. The German Blitzkrieg may be frozen in place.
December 7, 1941. A day which will live in infamy. Japanese aircraft attack the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Eight U.S. battleships are sunk or disabled and more than 2400 people are killed. Following the attack the U.S. and Britain both declare war on Japan. Italy and Germany declare war on the U.S., and President Roosevelt returns the favor.
April 9, 1940. Germany invades Denmark and Norway, claiming that the invasion is purely defensive.
May 10, 1940. German forces invade Holland and Belgium with their Blitzkrieg or “lightning war”. Both countries have no choice but to surrender. The Germans continue on to France.
May 10, 1940. Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain, following Neville Chamberlain’s resignation. On May 13, Churchill makes a famous speech in which he tells the House of Commons and the British people:
I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal.
June 4, 1940. British forces trapped in France flee from Dunkirk. Under constant German bombardment, warships of the Royal Navy and hundreds of smaller vessels manned by volunteers from the coastal villages of Britain rescue nearly 300,000 British, French, and Belgian soldiers from the beaches and ferry them to safety in England.
June 10, 1940. Mussolini announces that Italy will join forces with Germany; Roosevelt calls the announcement a stab in the back.
June 22, 1940. The French surrender to the German Blitzkrieg invasion. German troops entered Paris on June 14th, and now Hitler demands that the French sign an armistice in the same railroad car in which the Germans surrendered to the Allies in November 1918.
July 10, 1940. French Marshall Henri Petain establishes a fascist and authoritarian government answering to the Nazis in Vichy, France. France is no longer a republic.
July-September, 1940. The Battle of Britain. The German Luftwaffe sends 1000 planes daily to bomb British ports, shipping, RAF bases, and British radar installations. The Royal Air Force effectively counters the German raids in the air with the help of warnings from the British radar system. Churchill says of the Battle of Britain and the brave RAF pilots, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
August 21, 1941. Exiled Bolshevik Leon Trotsky is assassinated with an ice pick by Ramon Mercader in Mexico City.
September 24-27, 1940. Japanese aircraft from aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin attack French positions on the coast of French Indochina (Vietnam and Cambodia). The United States, Britain, and the Dutch government in exile respond to Japanese expansionism by placing an oil, iron ore, and steel embargo on Japan.
September 27, 1940. The Tripartite Pact is signed in Berlin, Germany, establishing the Axis Powers of World War II. The pact was signed by representatives of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. The three nations agree to a ten-year alliance. Later, other countries sign the pact, including Hungary, Rumania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Croatia, and Thailand.
October-November, 1940. Seventy people are dying every day, mainly from starvation, in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland. Occupying Nazi troops continue to herd all Jewish Poles into the 1.3 square mile area; eventually over 400,000 Jews will be contained in the Warsaw ghetto. The Nazis close the Warsaw Ghetto to the outside world on November 16, 1940 by building a wall topped with barbed wire, and deploying armed guards. Leon Uris’s novel Mila 18 tells the story (in fiction)of the Warsaw Ghetto and its inhabitants and their resistance to the Nazi persecution.
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel:
John Steinbeck for The Grapes of Wrath.
Published in 1940: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene. Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss. Over my Dead Body and Where There’s a Will by Rex Stout. Sad Cypress and One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie. Native Son by Richard Wright. The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis.
Set in 1940: The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico. Semicolon review here. Against the Wind by Brock and Bodie Thoene. Reviewed by Beth at Weavings. Blackout by Connie Willis. Partially set in 1940. Semicolon review here. While We Still Live by Helen MacInnes. Sheila Matthews, a young Englishwoman is visiting in Warsaw when the Nazis invade. She stays and joins the Polish underground to fight against the German occupation. The Winds of War by Herman Wouk. Atonement by Ian McEwen. Semicolon review here.
““A book, too, can be a star, ‘explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly’, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.†~~Madeleine L’Engle
Madeleine L’Engle has a birthday this week, November 29th. In fact November 29 is also the birthday of two other favorite authors: C.S. Lewis and Louisa May Alcott. Will you be celebrating the Triple Threat birth anniversary of these wonderful authors by reading one of their many books? If so, which one?
If you’re not familiar with and linking to and perusing the Saturday Review of Books here at Semicolon, you’re missing out. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can just write your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.
Then on Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.
After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.
January 26, 1939. Franco’s Spanish Nationalist troops, aided by Italy, take Barcelona.
January 28, 1939. German physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman find a way to bombard uranium atoms with neutrons until the atoms split, releasing huge amounts of energy in the process. Hahn calls the discovery “nuclear fission”. It may be possible to use the energy produced by this process to make a bomb that will have immense destructive power.
March, 1939. Swiss company Nestle launches a new product in the United Kingdom, instant coffee.
March 15, 1939. Hitler enters Prague, Czechoslovakia as the German army takes over the remainder of the country.
August 23, 1939. Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin sign a non-aggression pact and agree to divide Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, eastern Poland and Bessarabia (today Moldova), and the northeast province of Romania are to go to the Soviet Union; Lithuania and western Poland are to belong to Germany.
September 1, 1939. Germany invades Poland. Norway, Finland, Sweden, Spain and Ireland declare their neutrality. Later in September U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt announces that the U.S. will also remain neutral in the war.
September 3, 1939. The United Kingdom, France, New Zealand and Australia declare war on Germany.
September 17, 1939. The Soviet Union invades Poland and then occupies eastern Polish territories.
September 28-29, 1939. Poland surrenders to Germany.
October 11, 1939. Manhattan Project. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt is presented a letter signed by Albert Einstein, urging the United States to rapidly develop the atomic bomb.
November 30, 1939. Soviet forces of over a million troops attack Finland and reach the Mannerheim Line, starting the war with Finland.
Superhero trainees Extraordinary Ernie and and his sidekick, Marvelous Maud the sheep, are headed for the National Superheroes Conference to meet with superheroes from all over the country. However, when super villain Chicken George disrupts the conference by stealing President Stupendous Sue’s speech right out of her hands, the superheroes are all shocked and “more stupefied than stupendous.”
Marvelous Maud has her own worries in addition to Chicken George’s villainy. No one can name even one heroic sheep from history, and Maud isn’t sure anymore that sheep can be heroes. (Can you name a sheep hero?)
How will the superheroes stop Chicken George?
Can a sheep be a hero?
What will Extraordinary Ernie write about for his school research project on heroes?
Will Super Whiz be able to make his speech for the convention without interruptions?
will Extraordinary Ernie be able to meet his favorite superhero, The Daring Dynamo?
I thought this third book in the series was a good lesson on the meaning of true heroism encapsulated in a fun story. The first two books in this series from Eerdmans Books for Young Readers are:
Extraordinary Ernie and Marvelous Maud. Ernie wins a superhero contest but discovers, to his dismay, that his sidekick is a sheep. The Middle Sheep. Ernie and Maud learn the value of teamwork when Ernie must deal with an unusually grumpy Maud.
*This book is nominated for a Cybils Award, and I am a judge for the first round thereof. However, no one paid me any money, and nobody knows which books will get to be finalists or which ones will get the awards. In other words, this review reflects my opinion and Z-baby’s and nothing else.
I happen to have a 10 year old, Z-baby, and she’s also a reluctant reader. I would suggest the following series for the 8, 9, and 10 year olds in your life, especially for the baby of the family, the reader who needs a little “push”, or the precocious six or seven year old.
Clementine books by Sara Pennypacker. I love Clementine, and there’s a new book in the series, Clementine and the Family Meeting. In this fifth book in the series, Clementine’s family is experiencing some changes. But according to Clementine’s Awesome Dad, who reminds me a little bit of Engineer Husband, “It will be fine, we’ll adapt. Because this how we roll, Clementine, this is how we roll.” (I’m going to start using that phrase with my urchins and see how they like it.) Semicolon review of Clementine’s Letter.
Dyamonde Daniel books by Nikki Grimes.Semicolon review of the third book in the series, Almost Zero. Dyamonde is growing up in a lower middle class single parent family in the city, and she’s learning how to appreciate what she has and share with others. This series is the perfect antidote to Christmas (or anytime) greed and consumerism.
Ruby Lu books by Lenore Look.Semicolon review of Ruby Lu, Star of the Show. Ruby Lu is a star—a Chinese American, Spanish-learning, Haiku Heroine, dog training, hair cutting, hard working, list making, washing machine wearing, self-sacrificing center of attention and activity.
Ramona books by Beverly Cleary. These stories still hold up quite well after, what, 30 years? You can get The Complete Ramona Collection, beginning with Beezus and Ramona, for $23.78 at Amazon.
The Boxcar Children books by Gertrude Chandler Warner. Not the new books added to the series, but the old ones that Ms. Warner wrote more than thirty years ago. The idea of children living on their own and solving mysteries by themselves is irresistible to a certain type of child.
This second book in the series Stanley Park Tales comes from Canada and takes place in Vancouver. Sammy and Rodney leave the safety of their home in the park to brave the dangers of the big city, all for the sake of a friend. Judy Crow has been crow-napped, and Rodney and Sammy feel they must try to rescue her, no matter how unqualified they might feel for the task.
The animals in the story all have alliterative names, and each has his or her own special personality characteristics. Rodney is always hungry. Sammy is a reader and user of big words like “serendipity.” Judy Crow, who prefers to be called Judith Raven, is a bit uppity and proud, but as Sammy says, “No one’s perfect” and ‘Isn’t it important for an animal to stand up for a friend and do the right thing?” And so they do.
The drawings that illustrate this simple story of friendship are lovely, as you can see from the cover illustration. Illustrator Gordon Clover certainly deserves some of the credit for making this book work as a gentle tale of woodland wonder. It won’t be right for everyone; the pace and plot are not movie-style exciting. But for those children, and adults, who enjoy a slower pace, meandering through the woods rather than rushing breathlessly through non-stop adventures, Sammy Squirrel and Rodney Raccoon will be a welcome breath of fresh Canadian air.
*This book is nominated for a Cybils Award, and I am a judge for the first round thereof. However, no one paid me any money, and nobody knows which books will get to be finalists or which ones will get the awards. In other words, this review reflects my opinion and Z-baby’s and nothing else.
1939 was the Year of Great Movies. In fact, motion picture historians and fans often call 1939 “the greatest year in the history of Hollywood.”
August: The Wizard of Oz premiers at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California. The movie, based on L. Frank Baum’s book, stars Judy Garland as Dorothy. The film studio MGM almost deleted Ms. Garland’s famous song, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from the movie because they thought it was too long and that it was degrading for her to be singing in a barnyard. The song went on to win many awards, including an Academy Award for Best Song in 1939.
October: Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, starring my favorite actor, Jimmy Stewart, premiers in Washington, D.C. The movie tells the story of a young man from the midwest who accidentally gets appointed to the U.S. Senate. There he comes into conflict with a bunch of cynical and crooked politicians, and he heroically sustains a filibuster (back when a filibuster was real) in the Senate to fight for the cause of honesty and the rule of law.
December: Gone with the Wind premiers in Atlanta, Georgia, of course. What a movie! If you’ve never watched Gone With the Wind, you’ve missed about the best movie Hollywood ever made. Gone With the Wind won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The music in this video of clips from the movie is called Tara’s Theme.
Other films of 1939: Ninotchka with Greta Garbo, Dark Victory starring Bette Davis, Stagecoach, directed by Jon Ford and starring John Wayne, Wuthering Heights with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon.
to find out the answers to these and many more superhero questions, such as Ideal Cape Length, Below the Knee or Above the Knee?
, beginning with Beezus and Ramona, for $23.78 at Amazon. 