Konrad Zuse created the Z3, the first functioning general-purpose programmable digital computer. He proposed it to the Wehrmacht, requiring two years of development to perfect it. The invention was rejected because “Germany would have already won the war by then.” His prototype was destroyed during the Allied bombing of Berlin.

Libya. The British are driven out of all of Cyrenaica and recross the Egyptian border. Only a large contingent of Australian soldiers remains entrenched in Tobruk.

Libya. British General O’Connor’s unescorted van turns off a sign the Italians have misdirected, and the British are captured by an Italian patrol. The Italian-German advance continues, and British morale is at rock bottom.

Rommel’s reconquest of Benghazi at the head of a mixed Italian-German force was made possible by Rommel’s disobedience to orders from Berlin. They had ordered him to halt, but he, by pressing ahead, caught the British by surprise, having deciphered the Enigma message from Berlin with Ultra.

Libya. A joint Italian-German force reconquers Benghazi.

Milutin Milankovic writes an important scientific book on the ice ages caused by the shift in the Earth’s axis, based on articles he wrote in the 1930s. He delivers the manuscript, which will have considerable, though not immediate, influence to a publishing house in Belgrade, but Yugoslavia is soon afterward occupied by the Germans and the publishing house is destroyed. Part of the work, however, survives and is later published. The first English edition is in 1969: Canon of Insolation of the Earth and its Application to the Problem of the Ice Ages.

The Battle of Cape Matapan was portrayed by the British, even after the war, as a clever move by Admiral Cunningham, who in his memoirs would portray himself as a new Nelson. In reality, the British knew exactly what the Royal Navy’s orders were and where he was, thanks to Ultra intercepts. After the war, the Italian Navy would be searched for the culprit behind the leak. Only decades later would the truth emerge from the monumental history of British intelligence by Professor Francis Harry Hinsley (former Bletchley Park prodigy).

Battle of Cape Matapan. Thanks to interceptions of the Italian Enigma code and the use of radar, the British surprise the Italian fleet off the coast of Greece and sink three cruisers and two destroyers, with over 2,000 sailors aboard, while capturing more than 1,000 others. The mighty battleship Vittorio Veneto (sister ship to the Littorio, Roma, and Impero, and comparable to the USS Missouri, Bismark, or Yamato) is also heavily damaged and must retreat to avoid being sunk.

The Reichsmarine passes, via Enigma (intercepted by Ultra), a communiqué to the Royal Navy that sounds like an ultimatum: the situation in the Mediterranean is more favorable to the Italians than ever before, and the situation is propitious for an intervention in the Crete area. The Italians will dispatch the battleship Vittorio Veneto, six cruisers (Zara, Pola, Fiume, Trento, Trieste, Bolzano), and 18 destroyers, heading for Cape Matapan.

Libya. With all of Cyrenaica in British hands, Salvatore Castagna also surrenders with his two hundred soldiers. He had resisted under siege in the Giarabub oasis since December 1940, until his ammunition ran out.

Roosevelt believed that with the collapse of Great Britain, the entire moral code of the West and the rule of law would disappear, and signed the Lend-Lease Agreement to help the British.

Mars introduces the famous M&M’s chocolate candies in the United States

Teatro Adriano in Rome. Benito Mussolini states: “It’s more likely that the United States will be invaded, before Axis soldiers, by the little-known, but apparently very bellicose, inhabitants of the planet Mars, who will descend from outer space on unimaginable flying fortresses.” (Guzzanti’s “Fascists on Mars” comes to mind…)

Libya. Erwin Rommel arrives by plane in Tripoli with the first men of the Afrika Korps.

Libya. Beda Fomm. Twenty thousand Italians, 216 guns, and 120 tanks fall into British hands. Graziani’s Cyrenaica Army is destroyed forever. At this point, the British pause, because Ultra has intercepted Enigma messages revealing that the Wehrmacht is about to intervene in Greece to support the Italians.

DuPont patents Teflon, which will immediately be used to coat the inside of pipes for the Manhattan Project experiments.

Philosopher Erich Fromm wrote Escape from Freedom, in which he attempts to explain the rise of fascism. He argues that every increase in freedom is also an increase in loneliness: the initial connection with others is lost, and a sense of insecurity, helplessness, doubt, loneliness, and anguish is acquired.

Libya. The British occupy Ajdabia and El Agheila, 340 kilometers south of Benghazi. All of Cyrenaica is in British hands. Only Salvatore Castagna and two hundred soldiers resist until March 23, 1941 (from December 1940) in the Giarabub oasis.

The Mellon family’s Gulf is the world’s leading oil company.

Mauthausen, Austria. Mauthausen was classified by Himmler as a “level III camp” (i.e., the most rigorous), meaning the extermination of prisoners, whether through labor or not. By the end of the year, the camp system held nearly 16,000 prisoners; approximately 8,500 were concentrated in Gusen. By late 1941, the camp’s configuration was as it is today. Three areas can be identified: 1) the main camp, located atop a hill, enclosed on the southern side by a large, four-meter-high granite wall with towers and entrances, supplemented by barbed wire and electrified fences; to the north, the fence was incomplete, and fences prevailed. This area housed the prisoners’ barracks, the roll call square, shower and disinfection rooms, kitchens, and, starting in 1941, the Bunker: a largely underground complex with cells, rooms for medical experiments and executions, a crematorium, and a gas chamber (see below); 2) the granite quarry, 100 meters deep and one kilometer long, accessed by descending a long staircase with uneven and irregular steps. Between 1,000 and 3,000 prisoners worked there, including those assigned to the “punishment detachment” (Strafkommando), forced to carry rocks weighing 50 kilos or more on their shoulders; many prisoners were thrown down the stairs or from the quarry walls; 3) the “hospital camp” (Krankenlager), a rectangular area containing about ten barracks, with a kitchen and toilets, located below the main camp, next to the access road. Surrounded by electrified fences, it was called the “Russian Camp” (from the Italian “Camporosso”) because it was originally intended for Soviet prisoners of war; but from 1943 it was used for the sick and disabled and became a separate facility, while Soviet prisoners were locked up in barracks 16-19 of the main camp (quarantine) or in barrack 20, further isolated with barbed wire, where 500 prisoners, in February 1945, staged a mass escape in which only three people survived.

Yamamoto, disgusted by the seething nationalists, wrote: “If hostilities were to break out between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough to capture Guam and the Philippines, or even Hawaii and San Francisco. To ensure victory, we would have to march on Washington… I wonder if our politicians… are willing to make the necessary sacrifices.”

Libya. The British attack Tobruk, which falls the following day.

Malta. German planes sink the cruiser Southampton and seriously damage the aircraft carrier Illustrious.

Libya. The British will launch an attack with Matilda tanks against Bardia. After three days of fierce fighting, the Italian defense surrenders. O’Connor will then immediately launch the tanks inland to isolate Tobruk, which will indeed fall on January 21st.

Soviet Union. More than 1.5 million Poles taken prisoner by the Red Army were deported to the Gulags: 760,000 would soon die in Russia, mostly children, who accounted for a third of those deported. Another 22,000 were murdered with the express intent of completely eliminating the Polish ruling class, particularly all officers (and the Katyn massacre was part of the same strategy, initially blamed on the Nazis, but later recognized as entirely Soviet in origin). The remaining Poles, on Stalin’s orders (who would regret having eliminated all the officers), a few years later went on to form the Second Polish Army Corps, which, after a thousand vicissitudes, would assemble in the south of the USSR, cross the Caspian Sea on cargo ships, be trained in Iran by the British, be transferred to Palestine, then to Egypt, and finally embark for Italy, where they would fight and win the Battle of Monte Cassino, take the port of Ancona, and finally Bologna. They were then unable to return to Sovietized Poland, ending up mostly in England, but also in the United States, Italy, and so on.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802: there shall be no discrimination of workers in defense industry…” opens doors to blacks in the military

Franklin Delano Roosevelt confirmed for the third term in the White House

The first German military units arrive in Italy. It is the result of the agreement between Mussolini and Hitler. The former renounces his parallel war and requests the help of his German ally, who requests intervention in Greece and Libya, and demands complete freedom to move freely within Italy as well. Albert Kesselring, a former World War I flying ace, also arrives in Italy.

Devastating air raid on London. On the evening of December 29, 1940, the Germans attacked London with a devastating air raid. Hundreds of fires started by the rain of bombs threatened London, but firefighters fought undaunted by the explosions, saving much of the city from destruction. The next day, newspapers published a photo of St. Paul’s Cathedral, miraculously unscathed amid the flames and smoke of the Battle of Britain, a symbol of the capital’s indomitable spirit. Londoners’ ability to maintain composure played a major role in saving the country during the dark years of World War II. As American journalist Edward R. Murrow reported, “Not once did I hear a man, woman, or child suggest that Britain should throw up its hands.”

Emilio Segre’ and Enrico Fermi discuss the possible use of a controlled reaction with Uranium 238 (element 92) to first obtain an isotope of Neptunium 239 (element 93) and then, by radioactive decay (2.3 days), an isotope of Plutonium 239 (element 94). Plutonium could then be used as a nuclear explosive.

Glenn Seaborg synthesizes plutonium, although it is not isolated until 1942.

The U.S. Army and Navy attack Japanese codes, attempting to decipher them. Frank Rowlett, a former mathematics professor, succeeds.

At Sidi Barani (Libya) the English captured 40,000 Italians, 73 tanks, 237 guns and 1,000 vehicles; later the Italians lost Bardia, Tobruk, Derna

The Japanese introduce a new code to encrypt their navy messages. The Americans call it J-25B. Unfortunately for the Japanese, they continue to use the old code, which the Americans had already cracked, so the new one is also cracked almost immediately.

400 Luftwaffe Heinke HE111s destroy Coventry

Ultra intercepts Enigma messages that indicate the Luftwaffe’s current target is not London, but Coventry. At first, it’s thought to be a decryption error, but it turns out to be correct. Save Coventry or save Ultra? Churchill interrupts a Cabinet meeting, retreats to his study, and after several agonizing minutes, pronounces: “Save Ultra.” A few hours later, German bombers devastate Coventry. A specific term will even be coined: koventrisieren, to Coventrize, meaning to raze a city to the ground by aerial bombardment.

Much of the Italian fleet was destroyed by the British at Taranto. Twenty slow-moving biplane torpedo bombers, launched from the aircraft carrier Illustrious, disabled the battleships Duilio, Littorio, and Cavour, which were in Taranto harbor engaged in operations against Greece. The action reassured the depressed British.

Benito Mussolini gives the order to invade Greece from Albania, Greece being in fact the last English ally on the continent.

Libya. The spearhead of the Italian forces reaches Sidi el-Barrani, the first conquest in Egypt. Fascism heavily promotes this, but in reality there has been almost no fighting so far.

Libya. Italian forces move to attack the British in Egypt. They leave the green Gebel of Cyrenaica behind them to venture into the Marmaris Desert. In front is the 23rd Army Corps led by General Annibale Bergonzoli, extremely popular among the soldiers and nicknamed “Electric Beard” for his dynamism.

Benito Mussolini gives the order to invade Egypt from Libya

Mexico City. Ramon Mercader, an agent of Stalin’s Red Aid, kills Leon Trotsky. After associating with him and pretending to share his views, he manages to meet him alone, then strikes him repeatedly in the head with a steel axe. Trotsky, though seriously injured, manages to turn and grab his attacker; the commotion draws people out the door. Trotsky dies the next day in the hospital from severe brain injuries. This is Stalin’s second attempt to kill Trotsky: in the first, he attempted to do so through Carlos Contreras (Vittorio Vidali) and his lover Tina Modotti, again in Mexico City, again involving Modotti and Vidali.

Bletchley Park. The first “Bombe,” featuring the Diagonal Board designed by Gordon Welchman to reduce false alarms, enters service. Finally, the British can attack not only the Kriegsmarine Enigma (navy) but also the Heer (German Army) or Luftwaffe Enigma.

The Signal Intelligence Service under William Friedman cracked the Purple cipher used to communicate with Japanese diplomats from the homeland; the decryption system was called Magic; Friedman suffered a nervous breakdown in December 1940 from overwork over the previous 20 months.

Some Luftwaffe bombers, having lost their route, dropped their load of bombs on London before returning; the accidental episode will unleash a chain of retaliations that will lead to the bombing of civilians throughout Germany, England and then Japan.

Battle of Cape Spada between the Italian Navy and the Royal Navy

Battle of Punta Stilo between the Italian Navy and the Royal Navy

United States. The Export Control Act is passed, with which the United States, at the instigation of President F.D. Roosevelt, seeks both to procure resources and raw materials, in a climate of growing war conflict and international tension, and to cut Japan off from those same resources through an embargo. This initiative will be followed, in March 1941, by the Lend Lease Act, through which the United States significantly finances the procurement of raw materials, food, and goods, and the rearmament of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China. Financing is achieved through loans with repayments deferred for years, and through donations. In July and August 1941, the United States escalates its confrontation with Japan, closing its passage through the Panama Canal and imposing an embargo on Japanese oil and gas. Japan has resources for a maximum of two years and must decide what to do.

Mers-el-Kébir, Algeria. Admiral Somerville faces the most difficult task ever assigned to the Royal Navy. The attack was carried out by the United Kingdom as part of Operation Catapult, a week before the handover of full powers to Philippe Pétain. France and the United Kingdom were not at war at the time of the attack, marking a rupture between the two countries. Article 8 of the armistice of 22 June 1940 provided for the French fleet to be left under French command, imposing strict neutrality on it. Churchill was well aware of this point in the armistice agreement signed a few days earlier. Nevertheless, he decided to undertake this operation. The United Kingdom was then alone against its German and Italian enemies. The attack was preceded by an ultimatum, which Admiral Somerville addressed to Squadron Vice-Admiral Marcel Gensoul, telling him to join the British fleet in keeping French ships out of the Mediterranean, thus putting them out of control. or sink them, with a six-hour time limit to begin the execution. Obviously, the Admiral could not make such a decision, which violated the terms of the armistice. Receiving no positive response, Somerville followed through on his threats. The swift and effective British attack inflicted heavy material and, above all, human losses on the French squadron, killing 1,295 French sailors. The most horrific losses were those of the battleship Bretagne, which capsized and sank in a very short time during the attack on July 3, killing 997. In total, the operation resulted in 1,300 deaths.

Enrico Fermi’s patent number 2206634 on the slow neutron technique was accepted in the United States. The inventors were Fermi, Amaldi, Pontecorvo, Rasetti, and Segrè, while D’Agostino and Trabacchi had been promised shares of any profits if the patent was accepted. The patent would go through a complex process: it was filed by Italians, who during the war were enemies of the United States, so the American government demanded and was granted practically free use of it. However, after the war, Fermi took legal action. After several years, the parties agreed on a lump sum payment of $300,000. After paying $180,000 in legal fees, each party was left with just under $30,000 at the time, enough to each buy a nice apartment in one of Chicago’s best neighborhoods. Obviously, Pontecorvo, having fled to the Soviet Union, did not receive his share. The litigation put Enrico Fermi in an awkward position, and the result is unfair: the patent on slow neutrons remains one of the most important patents in the history of atomic energy, its true value literally incalculable. The Italians accepted it simply because they had no choice (cit. David N. Schwartz, biography of Enrico Fermi, 2017).

The Soviets, following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact with the Nazis, and after having requested and obtained permission to establish military bases in the Baltic countries, militarily occupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, formed pro-Soviet political parties, deported tens of thousands of people and the entire ruling political class to Siberia and then called elections for annexation to the Soviet Union which duly occurred.

The Germans encrypt messages with Enigma and the English decrypt them with Ultra: Godel and Turing actively participate in the English project

The Battle of Britain begins: the RAF loses 1,173 aircraft (including 538 Hurricanes and 342 Spitfires) and 510 pilots and gunners, while the Luftwaffe loses 1,733 aircraft and 3,368 pilots and gunners killed or captured. Hurricanes account for 55% of the losses, Spitfires for 33%.

Libya. Colony governor Italo Balbo, after insistently requesting an order for action against Egypt, where British forces were significantly inferior (40,000 British, albeit with superior planes and tanks, compared to 221,000 Italians). The order arrived on June 28, but Balbo had died half an hour earlier, shot down while returning from a reconnaissance mission in enemy territory. Balbo, a fascist quadrumvir, a dangerous rival of Mussolini, founder of the Regia Aeronautica, and the first formation flyer of the Atlantic, was personally piloting his S79 trimotor, and it would later emerge that he was mistakenly shot down by Italian anti-aircraft fire from the cruiser San Giorgio, which ran aground off Tobruk, mistaking it for a British bomber. Fascism would conceal this inconvenient truth, deeming him shot down by the enemy.

Libya. Two armies are deployed, under the leadership of the colony’s charismatic governor, Marshal and air hero Italo Balbo: the Fifth Army, led by General Gariboldi, on the Tunisian border, and the Tenth Army, led by General Mario Berti, on the Egyptian border.

France. The terms of an armistice are reached (actually, a full-blown French surrender). Germany, through the Wehrmacht, has direct control of much of France, including Paris, and the entire north and west of the country. Petain, with Vichy as his capital, is given control of the Mediterranean portion of the country. The role of Vichy France will be controversial: seen by some (Roosevelt), at least initially, as a potential diplomatic point of contact that would allow for a safe haven by interacting with Nazi Germany without directly doing so; others see it as a puppet government. Petain believes himself independent and in full control of the Mediterranean fleet and the colonies. But Churchill will disagree, and will scuttle the entire French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, off Algiers (Operation Catapult).

The heavy water that the French had procured a few months earlier in Norway was sent to England, while 8 tons of uranium oxide were hidden for the duration of the war in an abandoned mine in Morocco.

In a famous 2-minute speech on the BBC, Winston Churchill declared that “we have become the sole champions now in arms to defend the world cause, we shall fight on until the curse of Hitler is lifted from the brows of mankind”

The Wehrmacht enters Paris

Italy enters the war alongside Germany and against Great Britain and France

Dunkirk. The British lost two encryption machines on the beaches of Dunkirk. The Germans found them. They compared them with their own three-disk Enigma, which they deemed impossible to decrypt. Since the British machine had five disks, they considered it even more impossible, so they didn’t even try. So, despite the terrible mistake of leaving behind two encryption machines, the British actually gained a huge advantage. If the Germans hadn’t known about the five disks, they probably would have tried to decrypt it, and perhaps even succeeded, with tricks similar to those used by the British at Bletchley Park.

Tens of thousands of British and French soldiers massed at Dunkirk under German fire

Rommel breaks through into Belgium and France, and is decorated with the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross

Auschwitz, Poland. Pressed by the spread of partisan warfare in the Governatorate, the occupied territories of Poland, the Nazis decided to create a concentration camp that could house a large number of deportees and a complex infrastructure of businesses and industries to employ the labor. This camp was also intended to facilitate the effective, efficient, and prompt implementation of the “final solution” to the Jewish problem, namely the extermination of European Jews, as mandated by the Wannsee Conference. Near the Polish village of Oswjecim, a large state-owned plot of land surrounding a disused artillery barracks was identified. This complex of 32 buildings could provide the ideal nucleus for the concentration camp. Having reviewed the plans and consulted experts, Himmler himself ordered the construction of a camp with a capacity of at least 100,000 people, which was given the German name Auschwitz. At the same time, it was also decided to build a synthetic rubber plant for IG Farben, which would absorb the first contingents of deportees. Thousands of Russian and Polish prisoners began to flock to Auschwitz to contribute to the construction work, to work in the farms and factories that sprouted like mushrooms around the camp. These businesses were attracted by the low production costs, given that the labor was provided virtually free of charge by the camp. Then there were the lucrative subcontracting contracts, from which the SS administration generously carved out its own share of the profits. The main camp, in short, was no longer sufficient. Next to Auschwitz I, first Birkenau, then Auschwitz II, then Monowitz, then Auschwitz III, arose. But, in addition to these camps, external commands, both permanent and temporary, gradually multiplied as production demands increased.

The German army invades Denmark, where Niel Bohr is staying. He has already donated his gold Nobel medal to charity, but he is keeping the two Nobel medals of his German Jewish colleagues Max von Laue (X-ray diffraction) and James Franck (energy quantization). Any gold object is subject to strict restrictions and cannot leave the Reich. Fearing the Germans might find them, he dissolves them (with difficulty due to the large amount of gold) in white spirit and leaves them in the jar in the laboratory. The Germans search the laboratory but ignore the jar of brown liquid, which remains there for the rest of the war. In 1945, Bohr sends the jar to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, explaining what happened. The gold is recovered, and the Nobel Foundation mints two more medals from it, which are returned to the two Germans.

Mauthausen, Austria. The Gusen subcamp (NebenLager) is built, 4 km from Mauthausen (4,000 prisoners at the end of the year). It is the first of 56 subcamps, distributed throughout the industrial area adjacent to Vienna and the central Upper Austria region. Prisoners are employed in war production (in many cases with machinery placed in tunnels, such as Messerschmidt aircraft, due to Allied bombing raids) and in infrastructure construction (tunnels, plants). In March 1940, the first foreign deportees (i.e., those not from Reich territory) arrive at Mauthausen: 448 Poles. They are followed by Spanish Republican fighters exiled in France (invaded by the Nazis), approximately 8,000 (1,600 survive), Czechs (approximately 4,000), and Dutch Jews (approximately 2,000). Over the years, the majority national group turned out to be Polish, including many Catholic priests. Also in 1940, the first very young people (between 13 and 18 years old) arrived, generally relatives of Spanish Republican fighters. Between the camp and subcamps, the number of prisoners reached approximately 8,200. As we have seen, they were predominantly “political”, destined to grow in number as the war progressed: strikers, resistance fighters of all kinds, partisans, Soviet prisoners of war. In anticipation of the growing number of internees and an increase in mortality (also due to the particularly rigid conditions of discipline and exploitation), the camp was equipped with a crematorium, which was later added to by two more; crematoria would also be provided, later, in the subcamps of Gusen (1941), Ebensee (1944) and Melk (1944).

Germany invades Denmark and Norway