1941

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1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1941st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 941st year of the 2nd millennium, the 41st year of the 20th century, and the 2nd year of the 1940s decade.

Events

• January 6 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address.
• January 10 – Lend-Lease is introduced into the United States Congress.
• January 19 – British troops attack Italian-held Eritrea.
• January 21 – World War II: Australian and British forces attack Tobruk, Libya.
• January 22 – World War II: British troops capture Tobruk from the Italians.
• January 23 – Charles Lindbergh testifies before the United States Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
• April 6 – World War II: The German army attacked Yugoslavia.
• April 10 – Croatia declares itself independent of Yugoslavia.
• June 22 - Nazi German invasion to the Soviet Union. The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union begins.
• September 11 – Building of The Pentagon starts.
• December 5 - Soviet counteroffensive near Moscow begins.
• December 7 – The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Following this, the U.S. enters World War II.

Births

• January 3 – Van Dyke Parks, musician, composer
• January 5 – Hayao Miyazaki, Japanese filmmaker
• January 5 – Grady Thomas, singer (P-Funk)
• January 8 – Graham Chapman, British comedian (d. 1989)
• January 9 – Joan Baez, American singer
• January 14 – Faye Dunaway, American actress
• January 14 – Milan Kučan, Slovene politician, statesman
• January 15 – Captain Beefheart, American singer (d. 2010)
• January 18 – David Ruffin, singer (died 1991)
• January 21 – Richie Havens, American musician (d. 2013)
• January 21 – Plácido Domingo, Spanish opera singer
• January 26 – Henry Jaglom, director
• January 26 – Scott Glenn, actor
• January 30 – Dick Cheney, former Vice President of the United States
• January 31 - Eugene Terre'Blanche, South African far-right politician (d. 2010)
• January 31 – Richard Gephardt, American politician
• February 5 – Kaspar Villiger, former member of the Swiss Federal Council
• February 8 – Nick Nolte, actor
• February 10 – Michael Apted, director
• February 11 – Glenn Randall Jr, stuntman
• February 11 – Jeremy Mackenzie, general
• February 13 – Sigmar Polke, German painter (d. 2010)
• February 16 - Kim Jong-il, North Korean supreme commander. (died 2011)
• February 17 – Julia McKenzie, actress
• February 17 – Gene Pitney, American singer (d. 2006)
• February 20 – Buffy Sainte-Marie, singer
• February 27 – Paddy Ashdown, British politician
• March 3 – Jutta Hoffmann, actress
• March 4 – Adrian Lyne, director
• March 6 – Willie Stargell, Baseball Hall of Famer (died 2001)
• March 14 – Wolfgang Petersen, director, Das Boot
• March 15 – Mike Love, musician ("The Beach Boys")
• March 16 – Bernardo Bertolucci, movie director
• March 18 – Wilson Pickett, American singer (d. 2006)
• March 26 – Richard Dawkins, British scientist
• March 30 – Wasim Sajjad, former President of Pakistan
• April 6 – Hans W. Geissendörfer, German movie director
• April 8 – Vivienne Westwood, English fashion designer
• April 14 – Pete Rose, American baseball player
• April 18 - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland
• April 23 – Paavo Lipponen, Prime Minister of Finland
• April 24 - Richard Holbrooke, American diplomat (d. 2010)
• May 13 – Ritchie Valens, singer (died 1959)
• May 13 – Senta Berger, actress
• May 15 – K.T. Oslin, country musician
• May 19 – Nora Ephron, American screenwriter (d. 2012)
• May 24 – Bob Dylan, American poet and musician
• June 5 – Martha Argerich, Argentinian pianist
• June 5 – Spalding Gray, actor, screenwriter, and monologue artist (died 2004)
• June 9 - Jon Lord, British musician (Deep Purple) (d. 2012)
• June 15 - Harry Nilsson, American singer-songwriter (d. 1994)
• June 21 - Beatrice Kelley, English actress (d. 2018)
• June 27 – Krzysztof Kieslowski, movie director
• July 14 – Maulana Karenga, writer and activist
• August 14 - David Crosby, American singer-songwriter and musician (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
• August 22 – Bill Parcells, NFL coach
• September 8 - Bernie Sanders, American politician
• September 9 – Otis Redding, musician (died 1967)
• September 9 – Dennis Ritchie, American computer scientist (d. 2011)
• September 11 — The Pentagon is beig constructed
• September 19 – Cass Elliott, singer (The Mamas & the Papas) (died 1974)
• September 28 - Edmund Stoiber, German politician
• October 4 – Anne Rice, horror/fantasy writer
• October 5 – Eduardo Duhalde former President of Argentina
• October 8 - Jesse Jackson, American pastor and civil rights leader
• October 13 – Paul Simon, American musician (Simon & Garfunkel)
• November 5 - Art Garfunkel, American musician (Simon & Garfunkel)
• November 7 - Angelo Scola, Italian archbishop and cardinal
• November 29 – Bill Freehan, baseball player
• December 18 - His Royal Highness Prince William of Gloucester (d. 1972)
• December 23 - Nigel Anthony, English actor
• December 31 - Alex Ferguson, Scottish football manager

Deaths

• January 5 – Amy Johnson, aviator
• January 8 – Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of Scouting
• January 10 – Joe Penner, comedian, actor
• January 13 – James Joyce, writer
• February 11 – Rudolf Hilferding, German economist, Minister of Finance
• February 28 – King Alfonso XIII of Spain
• March 6 – Gutzon Borglum, sculptor
• March 8 – Sherwood Anderson, writer
• March 15 – Alexej von Jawlensky, Russian impressionist painter
• March 28 – Virginia Woolf, writer
• June 2 – Lou Gehrig, baseball legend (born 1903)
• June 6 – Louis Chevrolet, automobile builder
• July 10 – Jelly Roll Morton – jazz musician & composer (b. 1890)
• July 11 – Arthur Evans, archaeologist
• July 26 – Henri Lebesgue, mathematician
• August 31 – Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet (suicide)
• August 7 – Rabindranath Tagore, writer
• September 13 – Elias Disney, American farmer and father of Walt Disney.
• November 18 – Chris Watson, third Prime Minister of Australia
• December 3 – Christian Sinding, composer

Nobel Prizes

• Physics – not awarded
• Chemistry – not awarded
• Medicine – not awarded
• Literature – not awarded
• Peace – not awarded

Movies released

• Citizen Kane