Directory

1941 CE

The Attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan brings the United States into World War II; Operation Barbarossa launches Nazi Germany’s massive invasion of the Soviet Union; the Babi Yar massacre sees over 33,000 Jews killed by Nazi Einsatzgruppen near Kyiv; the Siege of Leningrad begins, starting one of history’s deadliest sieges; the Invasion of Yugoslavia leads to rapid Axis occupation; Orson Welles’ film Citizen Kane premieres, revolutionizing cinema; the East African campaign ends with Allied victory over Italian forces; the Anglo-Iraqi War secures British control in Iraq; and the German invasion of Greece results in swift Axis occupation.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 6 – During his State of the Union address, President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt presents his Four Freedoms, as fundamental global human rights.source
  • January 10 – The Lend-Lease Act is introduced into the United States Congress.source
  • January 23 – Aviator Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress, and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.source
  • February 8 – WWII: The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Lend-Lease Act.source
  • March 1 – WWII: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact, thus joining the Axis powers.source
  • April 13 – The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact is signed.source
  • The Independent State of Croatia, a puppet state of the Axis powers, is established with Ustashe leader Ante Pavelić as head (Poglavnik) of the government.source
  • May 19 – The Viet Minh is formed at Pác Bó in Vietnam, to overthrow French rule of the nation, as an alliance between the Indochina Communist party, led by Ho Chi Minh, and the Nationalist party. It will become the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.source
  • June 18 – The German–Turkish Treaty of Friendship is signed between Nazi Germany and Turkey, in Ankara.source
  • June 29 – WWII: Hitler's second-in-command, Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring, is appointed as Hitler's successor in a written decree. The decree will come into effect, should Hitler die in the middle of the war. (The decree becomes void in April 1945, after Göring tries to assume power while Hitler is still alive, leading to Göring's expulsion from the Nazi Party.)source
  • July 1 – Germany and Italy recognize the Japanese-sponsored Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China under Wang Jingwei as the legitimate government of China.source
  • July 29 – The Vichy Regime signs the Protocol Concerning Joint Defense and Joint Military Cooperation with the Empire of Japan, giving the Japanese a total of 8 airfields, allowing them greater troop presence, and the use of the Indochinese financial system, in return for continued French autonomy.source
  • August 9 – Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet on board ship at Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter (released August 14), setting goals for postwar international cooperation, is created as a result.source
  • August 29 – Robert Menzies resigns as Prime Minister of Australia, after losing the support of his party. He will not return to the Prime Ministership until 1949. Arthur Fadden, leader of the Country Party, consequently becomes Prime Minister, while former Prime Minister Billy Hughes replaces Menzies as UAP leader.source
  • August 30 – Germany and Romania sign another treaty, the Tighina Agreement.source
  • September 29 – WWII: The Moscow Conference begins: neutral U.S. representative Averell Harriman and British representative Lord Beaverbrook meet with Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov to arrange urgent assistance for Russia.source
  • October 1 – The New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy becomes the Royal New Zealand Navy.source
  • October 7 – John Curtin becomes the 14th Prime Minister of Australia, following the defeat of Arthur Fadden's Country/UAP Coalition government, on the floor of the House of Representatives.source
  • October 18 – General Hideki Tōjō becomes the 40th Prime Minister of Japan.source
  • November 27 – A group of young men stop traffic on U.S. Highway 99 south of Yreka, California, handing out fliers proclaiming the establishment of the State of Jefferson.source
  • The Hull note (Outline of Proposed Basis for Agreement Between the United States and Japan), named for Secretary of State Cordell Hull, is delivered to the Empire of Japan by the United States.source
  • December 4 – The State of Jefferson is declared in Yreka, California, with a judge, John Childs, as governor.source
  • December 21 – The Holocaust: The Stanisławów Ghetto is established in German-occupied Poland, initially with 20,000 Jews crowded inside; by Spring 1943 it will be pronounced Judenfrei (free of Jews).source
  • December 26 – WWII: Winston Churchill becomes the first British Prime Minister to address a joint session of the United States Congress.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 5 – WWII: Battle of Bardia in Libya: Australian and British troops defeat Italian forces, the first battle of the war in which an Australian Army formation takes part.source
  • February 3 – WWII: The Nazis forcibly restore Pierre Laval to the office of Prime Minister in occupied Vichy France.source
  • The occupied Netherlands starts the first popular uprising in Europe against the Axis powers, the "February strike" against German deportation of Jews in Amsterdam and surroundings.source
  • April 28 – World War II persecution of Serbs: Gudovac massacre – Members of the Croatian nationalist Ustashe movement kill around 190 Bjelovar Serbs in the village of Gudovac, in the Independent State of Croatia.source
  • May 9 – WWII: is captured by the British Royal Navy in the North Atlantic. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine, which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.source
  • May 13 – WWII: Yugoslav General Draža Mihailović and a group of 80 soldiers and officers cross the Drina river in Bosnia and Herzegovina, arrive at Ravna Gora, in western Nazi-occupied Serbia and start fighting with German occupation troops.source
  • May 20 – WWII: The Battle of Crete begins, as Germany launches an airborne invasion of Crete, the first mainly airborne invasion in military history.source
  • May 30 – WWII: Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas tear down the Nazi swastika on the Acropolis in Athens and replace it with the Greek flag.source
  • June 8 – WWII: British and Free French forces invade Syria.source
  • June 22 – WWII: The First Sisak Partisan Brigade, the first anti-fascist armed unit in occupied Europe, is founded by Yugoslav partisans near Sisak, Croatia.source
  • June 22 – WWII: Operation Barbarossa: Nazi Germany (with allies) invades the Soviet Union and declares war on it. Winston Churchill promises all possible British assistance to the Soviet Union in a worldwide broadcast: "Any man or state who fights against Nazidom will have our aid. Any man or state who marches with Hitler is our foe." Italy and Romania declare war on the Soviet Union.source
  • June 25 – WWII: Finland (as a co-belligerent with Germany) attacks the Soviet Union, starting the Continuation War.source
  • July 30 – WWII: Glina massacre of July–August 1941 – The Ustaše brutally kill 200 Serbs inside a Serbian Orthodox church in Glina, Croatia, with a total of 700–1,200 being killed in the area of the next few days.source
  • A German SS unit arrives in Vilnius, Lithuania, and begins the Ponary massacre, the systematic execution of up to 100,000 people over the next three years.source
  • August 16 – The Holocaust: Units of the Wehrmacht and the Einsatzgruppen (as part of Operation Barbarossa) start killing Jewish children, signalling the start of the Jewish Genocide.source
  • August 29 – WWII: The Government of National Salvation, a Serb puppet state of the Axis powers, is established by General Milan Nedić in Nazi-occupied Serbia in Belgrade, under military commander Heinrich Danckelmann; the regime includes 15 Ministers.source
  • August 31 – WWII (Uprising in Serbia): Battle of Loznica: Chetniks capture the town of Loznica in Nazi-occupied Serbia.source
  • September 8 – WWII: Siege of Leningrad – German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad. Stalin orders the Volga Germans deported to Siberia.source
  • October 8 – WWII: In their invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov, with the capture of Mariupol (Ukraine).source
  • October 30 – WWII: Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.source
  • November 30 and December 8 – Rumbula massacre: Nazi forces kill approximately 24,000 Latvian Jews and 1,000 German Jews outside of Riga.source
  • As the Battle of Moscow begins, temperatures around Moscow drop to −12 °C, and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time, against the freezing German forces near the city.source
  • December 23 – WWII: A second Japanese landing attempt on Wake Island is successful, and the American garrison surrenders, after a full night and morning of fighting.source
  • Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. The U.S. responds in kind.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa arrives in Honolulu to study the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, in preparation for a future attack.source
  • April – The Valley of Geysers is discovered on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia, by Tatyana Ustinova.source
  • October 31 – The last day of carving on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.source
  • British submarine is mined off Cephalonia.source
  • Admiral Émile Muselier seizes the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon off Newfoundland, the first part of France to be liberated by the Free French Forces.source

Religion & Belief

  • January 3 – A decree (Normalschrifterlass) promulgated in Germany by Martin Bormann, on behalf of Adolf Hitler, requires replacement of blackletter typefaces by Antiqua.source
  • June 6 – WWII: The Commissar Order is issued by Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, requiring all Soviet political commissars identified in Operation Barbarossa among captured forces to receive summary execution.source
  • July 13 – Clemens August Graf von Galen, Catholic Bishop of Münster in Germany, preaches the first of 3 sermons against Nazi brutality.source

Economy & Finance

  • January 22 – In Sweden, Victor Hasselblad registers the Hasselblad Camera Company.source
  • May 1 – The breakfast cereal Cheerios is introduced as CheeriOats by General Mills in the United States.source
  • May 27 – The Swiss Socialist Federation is banned.source
  • June 14 – All German and Italian assets in the United States are frozen.source
  • July 17 – Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak ends.source
  • Factory Canteen, predecessor of multinational foodservice company Compass Group, is founded in England by Jack Bateman.source
  • Chosun Tire and Rubber Manufacture, predecessor of South Korean tire brand Hankook, is founded in Seoul (at this time part of the Empire of Japan).source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • January 6 – The keel of battleship is laid at the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn.source
  • January 14 – In a BBC radio broadcast from London, Victor de Laveleye asks all Belgians to use the letter "V" as a rallying sign, being the first letter of victoire (victory) in French and of vrijheid (freedom) in Dutch. This is the beginning of the "V campaign" which sees "V" graffities on the walls of Belgium and later all of Europe and introduces the use of the "V sign" for victory and freedom. Winston Churchill adopts the sign soon afterwards, though he sometimes gets it the wrong way around and uses the common insult gesture.source
  • January 15 – John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry describe the workings of the Atanasoff–Berry computer in print.source
  • February 5 – The Air Training Corps is formed in the United Kingdom.source
  • March 22 – Washington state's Grand Coulee Dam begins to generate electricity.source
  • A German Lorenz cipher machine operator sends a 4,000-character message twice, allowing British mathematician Bill Tutte to decipher the machine's coding mechanism.source
  • May 1 – The first Defense Bonds and Defense Savings Stamps go on sale in the United States, to help fund the greatly increased production of military equipment.source
  • May 12 – Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.source
  • May 15 – The first British jet aircraft, the Gloster E.28/39, is flown.source
  • June 13 – TASS, the official Soviet news agency, denies reports of tension between Germany and the Soviet Union.source
  • June 24 – The Soviet Information Bureau, predecessor of RIA Novosti, is founded.source
  • July 1 – Commercial television is authorized by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States.source
  • July 1 – CBS Television begins commercial operation on New York station WCBW (modern-day WCBS-TV), on Channel 2.source
  • July – The British Army's Special Air Service is formed.source
  • August 1 – The Willys MB U.S. Army Jeep is first produced.source
  • August 16 – Royal Navy Signals School and Combined Signals School opens at Leydene, near Petersfield, Hampshire, England.source
  • September 11 – Construction on the Pentagon begins in Washington, D.C.source
  • September 27 – The first liberty ship, the , is launched at Baltimore.source
  • Mid-October – The first P-38E Lightning fighter is produced by Lockheed in the United States.source
  • November 21 – The live blues radio program King Biscuit Time is broadcast for the first time on KFFA in Helena, Arkansas; it will attain its 17,000th broadcast in 2014 making it the longest-running daily American radio broadcast.source
  • December 8 – WWII: President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his "Infamy Speech" to a Joint session of the United States Congress at 12:30 p.m. EST (17.30 GMT). Transmitted live over all four major national networks, it attracts the largest audience ever for an American radio broadcast, over 81% of homes. Within an hour, Congress agrees to the President's request for a United States declaration of war upon Japan, and he signs it at 4:10 p.m.source
  • Mildred Gillars ("Axis Sally") delivers her first propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.source
  • Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol under the authority of the United States Army Air Forces.source

Science & Discovery

  • January 1 – Thailand's Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram decrees January 1 as the official start of the Thai solar calendar new year (thus the previous year that began April 1 had only 9 months).source
  • January 4 – The short subject Elmer's Pet Rabbit is released, marking the second appearance of Bugs Bunny, and also the first to have his name on a title card.source
  • February 23 – Glenn T. Seaborg and associates isolate and discover plutonium, at the University of California, Berkeley.source
  • May 10 – Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland, claiming to be on a peace mission.source
  • May 15 – Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak begins, as the New York Yankees' center fielder goes 1 for 4 against Chicago White Sox pitcher Eddie Smith in baseball.source
  • June 20 – Walt Disney's live-action/animated feature The Reluctant Dragon is released.source
  • July 19 – The Tom and Jerry cartoon short The Midnight Snack is released; it is the second appearance for the duo, and the first in which they are officially named.source
  • The word "Teenager" is first recorded in print as a singular conjoined noun, in Popular Science magazine (U.S.)source
  • October 21 – Comic book superheroine Wonder Woman, created by William Moulton Marston and H. G. Peter, makes her first appearance in All Star Comics #8, "Introducing Wonder Woman", in the US (cover date December 1941).source
  • October 23 – Walt Disney's fourth animated film Dumbo is released in the United States.source
  • A task force of 6 aircraft carriers, commanded by Japanese Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo, leaves Hitokapu Bay for Pearl Harbor, under strict radio silence.source

Health & Medicine

  • January–August – 10,072 men, women and children with mental and physical disabilities are asphyxiated with carbon monoxide in a gas chamber, at Hadamar Euthanasia Centre in Germany, in the first phase of mass killings under the Aktion T4 program here.source
  • February 12 – Reserve Constable Albert Alexander, a patient at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, England, becomes the first person treated with penicillin intravenously, by Howard Florey's team. He reacts positively, but there is insufficient supply of the drug to reverse his terminal infection. A successful treatment is achieved during May.source
  • June 22 – Rapid escalation of the Holocaust in Lithuania: Between now and the end of the year, an estimated 190,000-195,000 out of 210,000 Lithuanian Jews will be massacred, killing an estimated 95% of the nation's Jewish population.source
  • August 6 – Six-year-old Elaine Esposito goes to have an appendix operation in Florida and lapses into a coma, dying 37 years later, still comatose.source
  • September 3 – The Holocaust: SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch first uses the pesticide Zyklon B to execute Soviet prisoners of war en masse at Auschwitz concentration camp; eventually it will be used to kill about 1.2 million people.source
  • November 7 – WWII: The Soviet hospital ship Armenia is sunk by German aircraft while evacuating refugees, wounded military and the staff of several Crimean hospitals. It is estimated that more than 5,000 die in the sinking.source

Crime & Justice

  • March 15 – Berlin-based American journalist Richard C. Hottelet is arrested by the Gestapo on "suspicion of espionage", but eventually released in July as part of a prisoner exchange with the U.S.source
  • June 28–30 – The Holocaust: Iași pogrom – "At least 13,266" Romanian Jews are massacred by local governmental forces.source
  • July 4 – Massacre of Lviv professors: Polish scientists and writers are murdered by Nazi German troops in the occupied Polish city of Lwów.source
  • October 5 – The Holocaust: In Berdychiv (Ukraine), 20–30,000 Jews are shot dead.source
  • October 18 – Film The Maltese Falcon is released in the United States, starring Humphrey Bogart and directed by John Huston.source
  • November 14 – The Holocaust: In Slonim (Byelorussian SSR), German forces engaged in Operation Barbarossa murder 9,000 Jews.source
  • December 8 – The Holocaust: The Nazi German Chełmno extermination camp opens in occupied Poland, near the village of Chełmno nad Nerem (Kulmhof) and the first mass gassing of Jews begins here when the SS use gas vans to murder people from the Łódź Ghetto. Between December 1941–April 1943 and June 1944–January 1945, at least 153,000 Jews will be killed in the camp.source
  • Adolf Hitler makes his Nacht und Nebel decree, declaring that all political prisoners and those involved in both German resistance to Nazism and resistance to Nazism throughout German-occupied Europe are to be apprehended by the Gestapo, Sicherheitsdienst and other security forces under Heinrich Himmler's control.source
  • Raid on Alexandria: Italian Regia Marina divers on human torpedoes place limpet mines on ships of the British Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet in port at Alexandria, Egypt, disabling battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant.source
  • The Classic Comics series is launched in the United States, with a version of The Three Musketeers.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 11 – WWII: The British Royal Navy light cruiser is bombed, catches fire and has to be sunk off Malta, with the loss of 81 crew.source
  • February 27 – WWII: The New Zealand Division cruiser HMS Leander (1931) sinks Italian armed merchant raider Ramb I off the Maldives.source
  • British submarine attacks an Italian convoy, sinking the cruiser Armando Diaz off Tunisia.source
  • May 8 – WWII: The German auxiliary cruiser Pinguin is sunk by British cruiser in the Indian Ocean; 555 are killed.source
  • May 21 – sinks the U.S.-flagged off the west African coast, having allowed the passengers and crew to disembark.source
  • May 27 – WWII: German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic, killing 2,300. It is eventually found in 1989.source
  • In the Mediterranean, British submarine torpedoes and sinks Italian ocean liner , in use as a troopship.source
  • In the North Atlantic, sinks British battlecruiser , killing all but 3 crewmen, from a total of 1,418 aboard the pride of the Royal Navy.source
  • June 5 – Smederevo Fortress explosion: A Serbian ammunition depot explodes at Smederevo on the outskirts of Belgrade, Serbia, killing 2,500 and injuring over 4,500.source
  • June 14 – June deportation: Soviet officials deport about 65,000 people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to Siberia.source
  • June 16 – WWII: British Fleet Air Arm aircraft sink the Vichy French destroyer Chevalier Paul off Syria.source
  • June 16 – All German and Italian consulates in the United States are ordered closed, and their staffs to leave the country by July 10.source
  • July 23 – WWII: Italian aircraft damage the British destroyer which has to be sunk in the Mediterranean.source
  • August 7 – WWII: British submarine sinks an Italian Marconi-class submarine.source
  • August 30 – German troopship Bahia Laura is sunk by British submarine in the North Sea; 450 are killed.source
  • October 11–12 – Fire destroys a Firestone Tire and Rubber Company plant in Fall River, Massachusetts, consuming 15,850 tons of rubber, and causing a setback to the United States military effort.source
  • October 31 – WWII: Destroyer , on convoy escort, is accidentally torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors.source
  • November 14 – WWII: British aircraft carrier sinks under tow off Gibraltar, after being torpedoed the previous day by .source
  • November 19 – WWII: Battle between HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran – Both commerce raiding German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran and Australian cruiser sink following a battle off the coast of Western Australia. There are no survivors from the 645 Australian sailors aboard Sydney.source
  • Dutch submarine HNLMS K XVI is the first Allied ship to sink a Japanese warship, sinking the destroyer Sagiri near Sarawak; K XVI is herself torpedoed the following day by Japanese submarine I-66.source

Climate & Environment

  • September 12 – WWII: The first snowfall is reported on the Russian front.source
  • September 23 – The 1941 Texas hurricane makes landfall near Bay City, Texas, causing extensive damage and flooding in Galveston and Houston.source
  • October 2 – WWII: Operation Typhoon begins, as Germany launches an all-out offensive against Moscow.source
  • December 8 – WWII: The German advance on Moscow (Operation Typhoon) is suspended for the winter.source
  • December 13 – Sweden's low temperature record of −53 °C is set in a village within the Vilhelmina Municipality.source

Culture & Society

  • March 17 – In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.source
  • March 17 – British Minister of Labour Ernest Bevin calls for women to fill vital jobs.source
  • April 23 – The America First Committee holds its first mass rally in New York City, with Charles Lindbergh as keynote speaker.source
  • May 1 – Orson Welles' first film Citizen Kane premieres in New York City; it will be frequently cited as the best film ever made.source
  • May 6 – At California's March Field, entertainer Bob Hope performs his first USO Show.source
  • August 31 – The Great Gildersleeve debuts on NBC Radio in the United States.source

Births

  • January 1 – Martin Evans, British biologist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureatesource
  • January 8 – Graham Chapman, British comedian (Monty Python's Flying Circus) (d. 1989)source
  • January 30 – Dick Cheney, 46th Vice President of the United States (d. 2025)source
  • February 9 – Kermit Gosnell, American abortionist and serial killer (d. 2026)source
  • April 13 – Michael Stuart Brown, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicinesource
  • May 24 – Bob Dylan, American poet, musician and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literaturesource
  • June 22 – Ed Bradley, African-American journalist (60 Minutes) (d. 2006)source
  • July 1 – Alfred G. Gilman, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2015)source
  • July 23 – Sergio Mattarella, Italian lawyer, judge and politician, 12th President of Italysource
  • August 14 – David Crosby, American musician (Crosby, Stills and Nash) (d. 2023)source
  • September 8 – Bernie Sanders, American politician, U.S. Senator (D-Vt.) and 2016 presidential candidatesource
  • October 8 – Jesse Jackson, African-American clergyman, civil rights activist and presidential candidate (d. 2026)source
  • October 13 – Paul Simon, American singer-songwriter (Simon and Garfunkel)source
  • December 31 – Sir Alex Ferguson, Scottish football manager (Manchester United)source

Deaths

  • January 4 – Henri Bergson, French philosopher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (b. 1859)source
  • January 8 – Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, English soldier; founder of the Scouts (b. 1857)source
  • January 9 – Paul Brandon Barringer, American physician and the sixth president of Virginia Tech (b. 1857)source
  • March 8 – Ken "Snakehips" Johnson, British band-leader and dancer (b. 1914)source
  • May 29 – Charles Alderton, American pharmacist and the inventor of Dr Pepper (b. 1857)source
  • June 1 – Sir Hugh Walpole, New Zealand-born British novelist (b. 1884)source
  • June 2 – Lou Gehrig, American baseball player (New York Yankees), MLB Hall of Famer (b. 1903)source
  • July 3 – Mijo Babić, deputy of Ante Pavelić and the first commander of all concentration camps in the Independent State of Croatia(b. 1903)source
  • July 26 – Kazimierz Bartel, Polish mathematician, freemason, scholar, diplomat, and former Prime Minister of Poland (b. 1882)source
  • August 7 – Rabindranath Tagore, Indian author, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1861)source
  • August 12 – Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon, British politician and colonial administrator, 22nd Viceroy of India, 13th Governor General of Canada (b. 1866)source
  • September 11 – Maria Spiridonova, Russian revolutionary, former leader of the Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries (executed) (b. 1884)source
  • September 11 – Christian Rakovsky, Bulgarian revolutionary, Russian Bolshevik and Soviet diplomat, journalist, physician and essayist (executed) (b. 1873)source
  • November 18 – Walther Nernst, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1864)source