- 1940: 'Operation Dynamo', the mass evacuation of encircled British and French troops from Dunkirk, begins.
- 1941: The German battleship 'Bismark' is sunk by the Royal Navy, with only 110 survivors from its 2,192 crew.
- 1942: Reinhard Heydrich, an architect of Nazi genocide, is fatally wounded by Czech partisans in Prague.