Date in year · 1940 · The 1940s

August 20, 1940

On August 20, 1940, in Mexico City, exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day. Susan Howatch, Willie John McBride, Tom Jones would arrive in the same year.

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1940

1940s

Around 1940

The year in brief

1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1940th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 940th year of the 2nd millennium, the 40th year of the 20th century, and the 1st year of the 1940s decade.

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What happened

On August 20, 1940

  1. 1940 In Mexico City, exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day.

    Soviet politician and revolutionary (1879–1940)

    Lev Davidovich Trotsky, better known as Leon Trotsky, was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician and political theorist. He was a key figure in the 1905 Revolution, the October Revolution of 1917, the Russian Civil War, and the establishment of the Soviet Union, from which he was exiled in 1929 before his assassination in 1940. Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin were widely considered the two most prominent figures in the Soviet state from 1917 until Lenin's death in 1924.

  2. 1940 World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line "Never was so much owed by so many to so few".

    1939–1945 global conflict

    World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war.

  3. 1940 World War II: The Eighth Route Army launches the Hundred Regiments Offensive, a successful campaign to disrupt Japanese war infrastructure and logistics in occupied northern China.

    Chinese Communist unit (1937–1947)

    The Eighth Route Army, also known as the 18th Group Army, was a group army nominally under the banner of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Republic of China, established in 1937 as part of the Second United Front against Japan. In practice, the Eighth Route Army was under the exclusive command of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and operated independently of the Kuomintang (KMT) central military command. Unlike most NRA units, which were directly overseen by the Nationalist Government, the Eighth Route Army maintained separate political and operational structures aligned with CCP objectives.

Elsewhere that year

Other moments from 1940

The class of 1940

Others born in 1940

Susan Howatch 1940– English author and academic
Willie John McBride 1940– Northern Irish rugby player who toured with the British Lions five times
Tom Jones 1940– Welsh singer and actor
Ronald Pickup 1940– English actor (died 2021)
James L. Brooks 1940– American director, producer, and screenwriter
Susan Howatch 1940– English author and academic

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