In 1940, Joe the Hero made his big speech. To read about him >>
January 16
Hitler postpones his European invasion because of bad weather.
March
A census reports there are 13 million Americans.
April 1
Charles Lindbergh and others urge the U.S. to stay out of the war.
April 9
The Nazis invade Scandinavia.
June 22
France capitulates to Hitler.
July 10
The Battle of Britain begins.
October 29
The first man is conscripted under a peacetime draft.
November 5
Roosevelt reelected.
December 29-30
London bombed. FDR calls the United States the "arsenal of democracy" in a fireside chat.
5/2/40
Joe the hero's big speech
11/16/40
Jane the hero's last stand
Henry Fonda is common man Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath
Charlie Chaplin ridicules Hitler in The Great Dictator
Walt Disney's Fantasia
Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are witty reporters in His Girl Friday
In For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway wrote about the Spanish Civil War of 1937.
Richard Wright's Native Son is about a young black man trying to escape a Chicago slum.
For a Library of Congress recording made March 1940, Woody Guthrie plays "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You," "Dust Bowl Blues," "Do-Re-Mi," and other songs. He later wrote "Pastures of Plenty," "The Grand Coulee Dam," and his most famous number, "This Land Is Your Land."
Charlie Parker meets Dizzy Gillespie and releases First Recordings
 |