1940s Facts for Kids

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1910s 1920s 1930s – 1940s – 1950s 1960s 1970s
Years:	1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949
Categories:	Births – Deaths – Architecture Establishments – Disestablishments

The 1940s was the decade that started on January 1, 1940, and ended on December 31, 1949.

Events

Mahatma Gandhi
Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane (1941)
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman as Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund in the trailer for Casablanca (1942)
Frank Sinatra gained massive popularity during the decade, becoming one of the first teen idols, and one of the pop artists who sold the most records in the 1940s
Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg
Jackie Robinson with the Montreal Royals in July 1946
ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic computer, operated by Betty Jennings and Frances Bilas
Atanasoff–Berry Computer replica at 1st floor of Durham Center, Iowa State University
October 24, 1946: V-2 rocket takes first picture of Earth from outer space
Thor Heyerdahl's raft Kon-Tiki crossed the Pacific Ocean from Peru to Tahiti proving the practical possibility that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times
General Eisenhower who led the Normandy invasion.
Georgy Zhukov who led the Soviet army during the Battle of Berlin.
Erwin Rommel, German Field Marshal who led the North African Campaign.
Mohandas Gandhi during the 1940s
Raoul Wallenberg, c. 1944
Muhammed Ali Jinnah with Gandhi, 1944.
Chiune Sugihara c.1940s
Rita Hayworth as Doña Sol des Muire in Blood and Sand (1941).
Cary Grant
Clark Gable
Carmen Miranda in The Gang's All Here, (1943).
Glenn Miller, 1942
Benny Goodman performing in 1943 Stage Door Canteen
Bing Crosby, 1945
Frank Sinatra, 1947
Édith Piaf