| 1939 |
June 7 |
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth begin a five day visit to the United States.
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September 8 |
President Roosevelt declares limited state of national emergency.
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| 1940 |
June 29 |
President Roosevelt signs bill requiring registration and fingerprinting of all aliens.
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September 16 |
President Roosevelt signs the Selective Service Act.
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October 29 |
Secretary of War Henry Stimson draws numbers for America's first peacetime conscription.
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December 21 |
American oil tanker SS Charles Pratt sunk by a German U-boat off the west coast of Africa.
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| 1941 |
January 23 |
Charles Lindbergh testifies again the Lend Lease Bill in a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
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February 6 |
Lindbergh reiterates his opposition to Lend Lease in testimony before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee: "I'm against appeasement, but I am more opposed to an unnecessary war. I'm opposed to buying time by spending British blood. I oppose aid to England that would weaken us or carry us into war. I don't believe the United States can or should police the world. … I don't believe the Germans think they can come over here, but if they tried, I believe in war to the uttermost."
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February 11 |
Former Republican presidential candidate Wendell Wilkie testifies in behalf of the Lend Lease Bill in an appearance before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Wilkie tells the senators that the United States should send all its bomber save those needed for training and five to ten destroyers a month to Britain.
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March 6 |
The State Department orders closure of Italian consulates in Newark and Detroit.
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March 7 |
The Lend Lease Bill passes the United States Senate by a vote of 60 to 31.
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March 11 |
House of Representatives passes the Lend Lease bill by a vote of 317 to 71. President Roosevelt signs the measure into law.
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The American freighter Cold Harbor arrives in Marseilles with 1500 tons of relief supplies for French children in the unoccupied zone.
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March 30 |
The Coast Guard seizes 28 Italian, 2 German and 35 Danish ships in anchored in American ports following reports that crews are
sabotaging the ship's engines.
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April 9 |
USS North Carolina battleship launched at New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, NY.
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April 10 |
The Danish Minister to the United States, Hendrik Kauffman signs an agreement granting the United States rights to maintain and operate landing fields, seaplane facilities, radio and meteorology stations in Greenland.
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April 23 |
Charles Lindbergh addresses a crowd of 30,000 gathered in New York City for an America First Committee rally: "The British Government has one last desperate play remaining; they hope that they may be able to persuade us to send another American Expeditionary Force to Europe and share with England militarily, as well as financially, the fiasco of this war. We in this country have a right to think of the welfare of America first, just as the people in England thought first of their own country when they encouraged the smaller nations of Europe to fight against hopeless odds."
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April 25 |
President Roosevelt tells a press conference that Lindbergh is a defeatist and an appeaser.
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April 28 |
Lindbergh resigns his commission as a Colonel in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve.
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May 16 |
U 109 is depth charged by a US destroyer (Dunlap-class) escorting two battleships (New York class) 600 miles off Labrador.1
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May 21 |
President Roosevelt declares unlimited state of national emergency.
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The American freighter SS Robin Moor is torpedoed by German submarine 950 miles off the coast of Brazil.
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June 14 |
United States freezes assets of Germany, Italy and all occupied countries.
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June 15 |
Italy freezes American assets in that country.
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June 16 |
State Department orders closure of all German consulates, tourist and news agencies in the United States by July 10.
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June 19 |
Germany and Italy order closure of United States Consulates those countries.
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June 20 |
President Roosevelt issues executive order banning export of petroleum products from east coast ports except to the British Empire, western hemisphere countries, Iceland or Greenland.
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June 21 |
State Department orders closure of Italian consulates in the United States
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June 23 |
United States bans departure of Italian nationals
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June 24 |
Roosevelt pledges to extend American aid to the Soviet Union
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Treasury Department releases $39 million in frozen Soviet assets
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Italy requires exit visas for United States citizens
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July 1 |
United States air base on Bermuda commissioned
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July 7 |
Roosevelt informs Congress that United States troops have occupied Iceland at the request of the Icelandic Government.
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July 17 |
Presidential proclamation bars trade with 1800 Latin American firms deemed to be agents of Germany or Italy.
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Sessa, an American owned ship registered in Panama, sunk by a German submarine between New York and Iceland.
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July 21 |
American troops stationed at 2 bases in British Guiana.
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Transit through the Panama Canal restricted for repair work.
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July 25 |
Roosevelt orders Japanese assets in the United States frozen.
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July 26 |
Japan freezes American assets in that country.
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Roosevelt places the Philippine armed forces under American command.
General MacArthur recalled to serve as commander of American and Philippine forces in the Far East.
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July 30 |
United States extends recognition to the Czech Government in Exile headed by Eduard Benes in London.
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August 4 |
Japanese shipping to the United States suspended.
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September 4 |
German submarine fires torpedoes on American destroyer USS Greer. The Greer, en route to Iceland, responds with depth charges.
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September 5 |
American freighter Steel Seafarer sunk in the Red Sea at entrance to Gulf of Suez by Axis bombers.
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September 6 |
German news reports claim that the USS Greer fired first.
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September 11 |
Roosevelt broadcasts a warning to the Axis, "But let this warning be clear. From now on If German or Italian vessels of war enter the waters, the protection of which is necessary for American defense, they do so at their own peril."
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September 11 |
Roosevelt broadcasts a warning to the Axis: "But let this warning be clear. From now
on if German or Italian vessels of war enter the waters, the protection of which is necessary for American defense, they do so at their own peril."
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Lindbergh speaking to an America First rally in Des Moines, Iowa proclaims that: "The three most important groups which have been pressing this country towards war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration." He professed understanding of Jewish desires to defeat Hitler but went on to say: "Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government."
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September 12 |
SS Montara en route from Wilmington, North Carolina to Iceland with a cargo of
lumber sunk off Greenland.
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September 13 |
The Navy begins mine sweeping operations in New York harbor.
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September 15 |
Navy Secretary Frank Knox tells the American Legion convention in Milwaukee: "Beginning tomorrow the American Navy will provide protection as adequate as we can make it for ships of every flag carrying Lend Lease supplies between the American continent and the waters adjacent to Iceland. These ships are ordered to capture or destroy by every means
at their disposal Axis controlled submarines or surface raiders encountered in these waters. That is our answer to Mr. Hitler's declaration that he will try to sink every ship his vessels encounter on the routes leading from the United States to British ports."
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September 19 |
The Pink Star a freighter owned by the U.S. Maritime Commission and registered in Panama sunk by German submarine off Greenland.
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September 22 |
American owned ship flying the Panamanian flag torpedoed and sunk off Iceland.
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September 27 |
American owned tanker I. C. White registered in Panama sunk in the South Atlantic between Curacao and Capetown, South Africa.
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October 1 |
The United States extends $100 million in Lend Lease credits to Brazil.
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October 3 |
Lindbergh speaking Fort Wayne, Indiana expresses fears that Roosevelt intends to suspend the 1942 Congressional elections.
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October 11 |
U.S. Navy seizes and destroys German weather report transmitter in Greenland.
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October 16 |
American freighter SS Bold Venture sunk in the Atlantic 500 miles south of Iceland.
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October 17 |
American destroyer USS Kearny depth charges submarine attacking convoy 350 miles
south of Iceland. Three torpedoes strike the destroyer killing 11 crewmen.
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October 30 |
Lindbergh and Montana Senator Burton Wheeler address 20,000 at an America First
Rally held in New York City's Madison Square Garden.
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October 31 |
American destroyer USS Reuben James torpedoed and sunk by German submarine west of Iceland 100 of 145 officers and men killed.
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November 4 |
American tanker USS Salinas torpedoed off Iceland.
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British Ambassador, Lord Halifax, attacked by egg and tomato throwing demonstrators as he enters the chancery of Archbishop Edward Mooney in Detroit.
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November 6 |
President Roosevelt pledges $1 Billion in Lend Lease aid to the Soviet Union.
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November 7 |
U. S. Senate votes 50 to 37 to amend Neutrality Act to permit American merchant ships to arm and cross combat zones to deliver supplies to belligerents.
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November 13 |
U. S. House of Representatives approves changes to Neutrality Act by a vote of 312 to 194.
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November 24 |
United States and Brazilian troops stationed in Dutch Guiana (Surinam).
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