- Italy declared war on Britain

- Germans started bombing England

- U.S. gave Britain 50 destroyers

- Japan, Italy, and Germany signed 10-year Axis Pact

- British defeated Italians in North Africa

- I'll Never Smile Again (Tommy Dorsey)

- Tuxedo Junction (Glenn Miller)

- Frenesi (Artie Shaw)

- Ferryboat Serenade (Andrews Sisters)

- Pompton Turnpike (Charlie Barnett)

- I Hear a Rhapsody (Jimmy Dorsey)

- All the Things You Are (Tommy Dorsey)

- Darn That Dream (Benny Goodman)

- Indian Summer (Tommy Dorsey)

- The Woodpecker Song (Glenn Miller)

- Jeep

- Air-raid shelter

- Synthetic rubber tires (B.F. Goodrich)

- Bugs Bunny

- M&Ms

- Nylon stockings

- Fully air-conditioned store

- "Brenda Starr"

- Commercial flight with pressurized cabin (TWA)

- Office of Production Management

- Jack Demsey retired

- Cincinnati Redlegs won the World Series

- Cincinnati Redleg Frank McCormick was the National League MVP

- Chicago Bears were NFL champs

- University of Minnesota was college football champ

- Indiana University won NCAA basketball title

- Tom Harmon of Michigan won the Heisman Trophy

- Donald McNeill won the men's U.S. Open tennis title

- Alice Marble won the women's U.S. Open tennis title

- W. Lawson Little, Jr. won the U.S. Open golf tournament

- Jimmy Demaret won the Masters golf tournament

- Gene Autry's Melody Ranch

- Truth or Consequences

- Captain Midnight

- The Adventures of Superman

- Jack Benny

- Fibber McGee and Molly

- Bob Hope

- Aldrich Family

- First Social Security checks were issued

- The Jeep was designed

- First color TV broadcast took place from CBS transmitter in New York

- First network TV program was broadcast by NBC

- Harry James formed his own band and hired Frank Sinatra

- An estimated 30 million American homes had radios

- 33% of all farms were wired for electricity

- First successful helicopter flight

- The U.S. census listed nearly 10 million adults as virtually illiterate

- Americans owned an estimated 69% of the world's automobiles

- Nickel juke boxes appeared in many public places

- Rebecca

- The Great Dictator

- The Philadelphia Story

- Abe Lincoln in Illinois

- Fantasia

- Boom Town

- Road to Singapore

- The Letter

- Best Director: John Ford (The Grapes of Wrath)

- Best Actress: Ginger Rogers (Kitty Foyle)

- Kitty Foyle, Christopher Morley

- Mrs. Miniver, Jan Struther

- For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway

- The Nazarene, Sholem Asch

- Stars on the Sea, F. van Wyck Mason

- Oliver Wiswell, Kenneth Roberts

- The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

- Night in Bombay, Louis Bromfield