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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1933 | |
| 2 | 1935 | - 7 Jun 1935—26 May 1937: Stanley Baldwin, UK Prime Minister (Conservative)
Stanley Baldwin
|
| 3 | 1937 | - 1937: '999' emergency telephone call facility starts in London
- 1937: Billy Butlin opens his first holiday camp
- 12 Apr 1937: Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft
- 12 May 1937: Coronation of King George VI
- 28 May 1937: Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister
- 29 May 1937—10 May 1940: Neville Chamberlain, UK Prime Minister (Conservative)
Neville Chamberlain
- 3 Jun 1937: Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson
- 4 Dec 1937: 'The Dandy' first published
|
| 4 | 1938 | - 1938: Principle of paid holidays established in Britain
- 1938: HMS Rodney first ship to be equipped with radar
- 1938: First practical ball-point pen produced by Hungarian journalist, Lajos Biro
- 12 Mar 1938: Germany invades and annexes Austria
- 3 Jul 1938: 'Mallard' reaches 126 mph (203 km/h); still world record for a steam locomotive
- 27 Sep 1938: Largest ocean liner ever built, Queen Elizabeth launched on Clydebank
- 29 Sep 1938: Chamberlain visits Hitler in Munich
- 30 Oct 1938: Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of HG Wells 'The War of the Worlds', causing panic in the USA
|
| 5 | 1939 | - 1939: Germany annexes Czechoslovakia
- 1939: Start of evacuation of women and children from London
- 1939: Coldest winter in Britain since 1894, though this could not be publicised at the time
- 1 Sep 1939: Germany invades Poland
- 3 Sep 1939: Britain and France declare war on Germany
- 6 Sep 1939: First air-raid on Britain
- 11 Sep 1939: British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sent to France
- 14 Oct 1939: HMS Royal Oak sunk in Scapa Flow with loss of 810 lives
- 7 Dec 1939: 'First flight' of Canadian troops sail for Britain
- 17 Dec 1939: 'Admiral Graf Spee' scuttled outside Montevideo
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| 6 | 1940 | - 1940—1945: Netherlands enters World War II with a surprise attack by a huge force from Germany.
- 1940—1945: In the next five years, Netherlands came to be increasingly under a regime of terror. During the winter of starvation, Netherlands was systematically looted by the Nazis. Tens of thousands of people died from starvation or deprivation.
- 1 Apr 1940: BOAC starts operations, replacing Imperial and British Airways Ltd
- 10 May 1940—26 Jul 1945: Sir Winston Churchill, UK Prime Minister (Conservative)
Sir Winston Churchill
- 11 May 1940: National Government formed under Churchill
- 13 May 1940: Germany invades France
- 27 May 1940: Start of the evacuation of the British Army at Dunkirk (27 May - 4 Jun)
- 25 Jun 1940: Fall of France to Germany
- 7 Sep 1940: Germany launches bombing blitz on Britain, the first of 57 consecutive nights of
bombing
- 15 Sep 1940: Battle of Britain: massive waves of German air attacks decisively repulsed by the
RAF
- 14 Nov 1940: Coventry heavily bombed and the Cathedral almost completely destroyed
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| 7 | 1941 | - 1941: Britain introduces severe rationing
- 1941: First British jet aircraft flies, based on work of Whittle
- 1941: Bailey invents his portable military bridge
- 1941: First use of antibiotics
- 10 May 1941: Rudolf Hess flies to Scotland
- 27 May 1941: 'Bismark' sunk
- 22 Jun 1941: Germany invades Russia (Operation Barbarossa)
- 1 Jul 1941: First Canadian armoured regiments arrive in Britain
- Dec 1941: Canadian forces given operation role in defending south coast of England
- Dec 1941: 'Manhattan Project' of nuclear research begins in America
- 7 Dec 1941: Japan attackes US fleet at Pearl Harbour
- 7 Dec 1941: World War II
- 8 Dec 1941: USA enters WWII
- 24 Dec 1941: Hong Kong falls to the Japanese
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| 8 | 1942 | - 1942: Invention of world's first programmable computer by Alan Turing in co-operation with
Max Neumann
- 1942: Gilbert Murray founds Oxfam
- 30 May 1942: Over 1,000 allied bombers raid Cologne
- 4 Jun 1942: Battle of Midway
- 19 Aug 1942: Abortive raid on Dieppe, largely by Canadian troops
- 6 Sep 1942: Germans defeated at Stalingrad
- 3 Oct 1942: First successful launch of V2 rocket in Germany
- 23 Oct 1942: Battle of El Alamein
- 2 Dec 1942: 'Manhattan Project'
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1937 - 1942 (5 years)
