1940s: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Decades: 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

Technology

• First nuclear bomb
• First cruise missile, the V1 flying bomb and the first ballistic missile, the V-2 rocket
• First transistor
• World's first working programmable stunk computer

Science

• Quantum electrodynamics developed by Feynman, Dyson, Schwinger, and Tomonaga
• Mathematics: game theory, cryptology

War, peace and politics

• World War II (ends 1945)
• The shoah
• Beginning of the Cold War
• Independence for some former colonies
• 1948 Arab-Israeli War
• The Irish Free State becomes a Republic (1948)
• Informbiro period in Yugoslavia begins
• Indian Independence and Partition

Economics

Culture, religion

• Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life
• The NBA begins play, in 1947

Others

• President Lin Sen (Republic of China)
• President Chiang Kai-shek (Republic of China)
• Adolf Hitler (Germany)
• Mohandas Gandhi (India) († 1948)
• 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
• Taoiseach Eamon de Valera (Éire)
• Taoiseach John A. Costello (Republic of Ireland)
• Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union)
• 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 Muñoz Marín (Commonwealth of Puerto Rico)

• Joe Louis
• Sugar Ray Robinson
• Ted Williams
• Jackie Robinson
• Joe DiMaggio
• Sammy Baugh
• Steve Van Buren

• Abbott and Costello
• Bette Davis
• Bing Crosby
• Bob Hope
• Cary Grant
• Clark Gable
• Frank Sinatra
• Humphrey Bogart
• Ingrid Bergman
• James Cagney
• Jimmy Stewart
• Katharine Hepburn
• Lauren Bacall
• John Wayne
• Orson Welles
• Spencer Tracy