16 Sep 1940
  • US Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act. ww2dbase [TH]
  • Battleship Bismarck entered the Kiel Canal. ww2dbase [Bismarck | CPC]
  • Italian troops of the 1st Blackshirt Division "23 Marzo" captured Sidi Barrani, Egypt and stopped the advance due to supply problems. This would prove to be the farthest the Italians would go. ww2dbase [Invasion of Egypt | CPC]
  • British bombers attacked German invasion barges in French ports along the English Channel, interrupting an amphibious training exercise and causing many casualties. ww2dbase [CPC]
  • German submarine U-99 sank Norwegian ship Lotos north of Ireland at 0241 hours; the entire crew of 17 survived in two lifeboats. ww2dbase [First Happy Time | CPC]
  • German bombers damaged British troop ship Aska in the Irish Sea, kill 11 British crew and 19 French soldiers. ww2dbase [CPC]
  • French ship Poitiers, sailing from Libreville, French Equatorial Africa to Dakar, was intercepted by British cruiser HMS Cumberland. After taking the entire crew aboard, HMS Cumberland sank Poitiers by gunfire. ww2dbase [CPC]
  • The presence of German troops in Finland, despite the fact that they were ultimately destined for Norway, alarmed the Soviet Union. ww2dbase [CPC]
  • HMS Cumberland intercepted French mercantile Poitiers on passage to Ivory Coast. ww2dbase [Cumberland | DS]
China United Kingdom
  • At 0730 hours, more than 100 German Bf 109 fighters made a raid on Kent, England, United Kingdom to draw British fighters, which never rose to meet them. Overnight, German bombers attacked London, Liverpool, Manchester, Coventry, Birmingham, and Bristol. ww2dbase [Battle of Britain | England | 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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Barricades in the business district of the French Concession Zone, Shanghai, China, mid-1937


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Captain Henry P. Jim Crowe, Guadalcanal, 13 Jan 1943


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