Modern Era
Attack on Mers-el-Kébir (1940): Britain Strikes the French Fleet
The battleship Bretagne was sunk and other ships damaged, with about 1,300 French sailors killed; Anglo-French relations broke down.
Era · c. 1800 – 1945
Modern Era
Industry, science and global conflict: the century and a half that built the modern world.
Modern Era
Bombing of Rotterdam (1940): The Raid That Forced Dutch Surrender
The historic centre of Rotterdam was destroyed by bombing and fire, and the Netherlands capitulated the same evening.
Modern Era
Battles of Narvik (1940): The Fight for Norway's Iron Ore Port
The Royal Navy destroyed the German destroyer force and Allied troops retook Narvik on 28 May, but the Allies withdrew in early June and the town returned to German control.
Modern Era
Battle of Taranto (1940): The Fleet Air Arm Strikes Italy's Navy
British victory; one Italian battleship was sunk for good and two others put out of action for months, for the loss of two aircraft.
Modern Era
Siege of Malta (1940–1942): The George Cross Island Under Fire
Malta held out; the convoys of 1942 and the Allied victory in North Africa lifted the siege, and the island was awarded the George Cross.
Modern Era
Katyn Massacre (1940): The Soviet Killing of Polish Officers
About 22,000 Polish officers, police and members of the elite were executed; the Soviet Union denied responsibility until 1990.
Modern Era
Fall of France (1940): Blitzkrieg Through the Ardennes
German victory; France signed an armistice on 22 June 1940, was partly occupied and came under the Vichy regime.
Modern Era
German Invasion of Norway (1940): Operation Weserübung
German victory; Denmark and Norway were occupied until May 1945, while Norway's king and government continued the war from London.
Modern Era
Auschwitz-Birkenau: History of the Largest Nazi Death Camp
About 1.1 million people, around 1 million of them Jews, were murdered; the camp was liberated by the Red Army on 27 January 1945.
Modern Era
The Blitz (1940–1941): German Bombing of British Cities
Around 43,000 British civilians were killed and over a million homes damaged, but Britain's war production and will to fight were not broken.
Modern Era
Dunkirk Evacuation (1940): Operation Dynamo and the Little Ships
About 338,000 Allied troops were evacuated to Britain, but the British Expeditionary Force lost almost all its heavy equipment.
Modern Era
Battle of Britain (1940): The RAF Against the Luftwaffe
British defensive victory; the Luftwaffe failed to gain air superiority and the German invasion of Britain was postponed indefinitely.