1940S

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
• Colossus, the world's first totally electronic computer. See History of computing hardware
• First supersonic flight by Chuck Yeager on October 14, 1947

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 (Holocaust)
• Beginning of the Cold War
• Independence for some former colonies
• 1948 Arab-Israeli War
• The Irish Free State becomes a republic (1948)
• NATO founded in 1949
• The Chinese Civil War ends in victory for the Communists
• Informbiro period in Yugoslavia begins
• Indian independence and partition
• US Air Force civilian auxiliary the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) formed

Economics

• The Marshall Plan is implemented by the United States, giving billions of dollars in aid to reconstruct the war-devastated economies of Europe

Culture, religion

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

Others

People

World leaders

• Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (Canada)
• President Lin Sen (Republic of China)
• President Chiang Kai-shek (Republic of China)
• Marshal Henri Petain (Vichy France}
• 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 (ire)
• 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 Muoz Marn (Commonwealth of Puerto Rico)
• President Getlio Vargas (Brazil)

Sports figures

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

Entertainers

• 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

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1977 1964 2001 1999 1970s 1990s 1980s 20th century infant mortality in the 20th century death rates in the 20th century infectious disease in the 20th century	1040 15th century 16th century 17th century 18th century 19th century 21st century 1950s 1870s 1952 1909	1984 2000s 26 25 etudes op.60 1947 1624 1626 1642 1661 1756 1791	1608 1818 1914 1918 1917 1743 1826 1993 1492 1908 1997