The panzers cross the Meuse at Sedan
1940 · Event
The impossible happens where the French least expect it: Guderian's armour comes through the 'impassable' Ardennes and is across the Meuse at Sedan in three days, then races for the Channel behind the Allied armies. The campaign in the west is effectively decided in a week.
On these timelines: 1940: Britain's Darkest Hour, World War II, Master, France, Germany
More from 1940: Britain's Darkest Hour
- Battle of Britain (1940)
- Churchill becomes Prime Minister (1940)
- Battle of Britain Day breaks the daylight assault (1940)
- France signs the armistice at Compiègne (1940)
- 'We shall fight on the beaches' (1940)
- 'Blood, toil, tears and sweat' (1940)
- Eagle Day opens the Luftwaffe's main assault (1940)
- The Coventry Blitz (1940)
Around 1940
- Indian independence and Partition (1947)
- Korean War (1950)
- Battle of Stalingrad (1942)
- The Holocaust (1933)
- Apartheid (1948)
- Chinese Civil War (resumed) (1945)
- Manhattan Project (1942)
- World War II (1939)
- Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany (1933)
- Spanish Civil War (1936)