1939
France bans sale of meat on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays.
1940
Sidi Barrani is surrounded. Italian troops from the camps at Sofafi and Rabia flee west as the 7th Armoured divisions thrust threaten to encircle them.
1941
Karel Richter, a German spy who parachuted into Hertfordshire is executed at Wandsworth Prison.
British forces that had pushed into southern Thailand begin to fall back along with those from northern Malaya after the Japanese capture Kota Bharu airfield.
Due to the RAF’s heavy losses, the British Battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse are attacked and sunk of the north eastern coast of Malaya by Japanese aircraft flying from occupied French Indo-China.
Japanese troops land on and capture Guam. Japanese troops make landings on the northern tip of Luzon and the island of Camiguin in the Philippines.
British enter Tobruk, Libya, relieving 242-day German siege.
First US bombing mission of the war, as B-17s of the 19th Bomb Group attack Japanese ships off Luzon in the Philippines.
1942
The first transport of Jews from Germany arrives at Auschwitz.
Australian troops capture Gona and now control the whole of the Gona area in New Guinea.
1943
Allied forces bomb Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.
Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill that postpones a draft of pre-Pearl Harbor fathers.
In Italy, British Eighth Army takes Vino Ridge in drive for Ortona.
1944
The US Third Army captures Hagenau and Saargemand.
Norwegian paratroopers cut rails to prevent German retreat from northern Norway.
On Leyte in the Philippines,U.S. 77th Infantry Division captures Ormoc, the main supply base, and clears Buri Airfield.
Japanese make their last seaborne reinforcement of Leyte.