1940s
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st centuryDecades: 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s
Years: 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949
Events and Trends
- World's first working programmable computer
- World War II ends
- The shoa
- First nuclear bomb
- Beginning of the Cold War
- Independence for some former colonies
- 1948 Arab-Israeli War
- Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life
- Mathematics: game theory, cryptology
- The NBA begins play, in 1947.
- The Irish Free State becomes a Republic (1948).
- Informbiro period in Yugoslavia begins.
- President Lin Sen (Republic of China)
- President Chiang Kai-shek (Republic of China)
- Adolf Hitler (Germany)
- Mohandas Gandhi (India)
- Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (India)
- Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (Israel)
- King Victor Emmanuel III (Italy)
- Prime Minister Benito Mussolini (Italy)
- Emperor Hirohito (Japan)
- Pope Pius XII
- Prime Minister J.M Andrews (Northern Ireland)
- Prime Minister Basil Brooke (Northern Ireland)
- Taoiseach Eamon de Valera (Éire)
- Taoiseach John A. Costello (Republic of Ireland)
- Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union)
- King George VI (United Kingdom)
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill (United Kingdom)
- Prime Minister Clement Attlee (United Kingdom)
- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (United States)
- President Harry S. Truman (United States)
- Governor Luis Munoz Marin (Commonwealth of Puerto Rico)
