A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January January 4 – WWII: Luftwaffe Colonel Hermann Göring assumes control of most war industries in Germany. January 6 – WWII: Winter War – General Semyon Timoshenko takes command of all Soviet forces. January 7 – WWII: Winter War: Battle of Raate Road – Outnumbered Finnish troops decisively defeat Soviet forces. January 8 WWII: Winter War: Battle of Suomussalmi – Finnish forces destroy the Soviet 44th Rifle Division. WWII: Food rationing in the United Kingdom begins; it will remain in force until 1954. January 9 – WWII: British submarine is sunk in the Heligoland Bight. January 10 – WWII: Mechelen incident – A German plane carrying secret plans for the invasion of Western Europe makes a forced landing in Belgium, leading to mobilization of defense forces in the Low Countries. January 27 – WWII: A peace resolution introduced in the Parliament of South Africa is defeated 81–59. January 29 – Three gasoline-powered trains carrying factory workers crash and explode while approaching Ajikawaguchi Station, Yumesaki Line (Nishinari Line), Osaka, Japan, killing at least 181 people and injuring at least 92. February February 2–11 – Scheduled dates for the 1940 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, cancelled in November 1939 due to WWII (originally allocated to Sapporo, Japan). February 1 – WWII: Winter War – Soviet forces launch a major assault on Finnish troops occupying the Karelian Isthmus. February 2 – Vsevolod Meyerhold is executed in the Soviet Union on charges of treason and espionage. He is cleared of all charges fifteen years later, in the first waves of de-Stalinization. February 16 – WWII: Altmark Incident: British destroyer pursues German tanker Altmark into the neutral waters of Jøssingfjord in southwestern Norway and frees the 290 British seamen held aboard. February 22 – In Tibet, province of Ando, 4-year-old Tenzin Gyatso is proclaimed the tulku (rebirth) of the 13th Dalai Lama. February 27 – Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14. March March 5 – Katyn massacre: Members of the Soviet Politburo (Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Mikhail Kalinin, Kliment Voroshilov and Lavrentiy Beria) sign an order, prepared by Beria, for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs. March 11 – Ed