29 Feb 1940
  • Negotiations to end the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union began, but fighting continued. Soviet troops crossed the frozen Gulf of Finland and landed 15 miles west of Viipuri in an attempt to surround the city, but they were defeated by Finnish troops, capturing only Teikari Island. Elsewhere, Finnish troops wiped out the surrounded Soviet troops in the East Lemetti pocket at 0400 hours, capturing 5 field guns, 1 anti-tank gun, 71 tanks, 12 armored cars, 6 anti-aircraft machine guns, 206 trucks, and 70 machine guns. ww2dbase [The Winter War | CPC]
  • German submarine U-20 torpedoed and sank Italian steamer Maria Rosa in the English Channel, killing 12. 17 people were rescued. ww2dbase [CPC]
  • German steamers Heidelberg and Troja left the Dutch island of Aruba in the Caribbean Sea after dark in an attempt to evade Allied patrols. Troja was intercepted 10 miles from Aruba from British cruiser Despatch; her crew set fire to the ship and abandoned her, which sank on the next day. ww2dbase [CPC]
  • Adolf Hitler approved Nikolaus von Falkenhorst's invasion plan for Norway. ww2dbase [Invasion of Denmark and Norway | CPC]
United Kingdom
  • RMS Queen Elizabeth set sail from Scotland, United Kingdom for New York, United States. ww2dbase [Queen Elizabeth | Scotland | CPC]
United States
  • In a ceremony held in Berkeley, California (because of the war) physicist Ernest Lawrence received the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics from Swedish Consul General in San Francisco. ww2dbase [Berkeley, California | CPC]

Timeline Section Founder: Thomas Houlihan
Contributors: Alan Chanter, C. Peter Chen, Thomas Houlihan, Hugh Martyr, David Stubblebine
Special Thanks: Rory Curtis




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WAAF signals officer testing the intercom system in an Avro Lancaster aircraft at a Bomber Command station, United Kingdom, 1942-1945


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"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You win the war by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country!"

George Patton, 31 May 1944


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