The World in 1940 the year of the little ships

In September four teenagers near Montignac in France followed their dog into a hole and found walls painted about 17,000 years ago. Writing was invented about 5,000 years ago, so the art was already ancient before anyone wrote anything down.

Life back then

Ten hard years of the Depression were easing as factories filled orders from Britain. Evenings belonged to the radio in the corner, and Edward R. Murrow broadcasting live from a London rooftop put the sound of air raid sirens into American living rooms. Women queued for the new nylon stockings, which cost less than silk and did not snag as easily. In October the first peacetime draft numbers were pulled from a glass bowl and read out on the air, and young men listened for their own. Out on the highways, drive-ins and hamburger stands were spreading, and two brothers opened one in San Bernardino under the name McDonald's.

The year in 8 events

• ⚔️Apr 9 Germany invades Denmark and Norway. Denmark gives in the same day.
• 🏛️May 10 Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Winston Churchill becomes British prime minister the same day.
• ⛴️Jun 4 The evacuation from Dunkirk ends. About 338,000 soldiers reach England, many aboard small private boats.
• 🕯️Jun 14 German troops march into Paris. France signs an armistice eight days later.
• ✈️Jul 10 German and British planes begin months of fighting over southern England. London is bombed night after night that autumn.
• 🕯️Aug 21 Leon Trotsky dies in Mexico City, a day after a Soviet agent attacks him in his study.
• 🗳️Nov 5 Roosevelt is elected to a third term, which no president had won before.
• 🐫Dec 9 British and Indian troops attack the Italian army in Egypt and drive it back into Libya.

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