France signs the armistice at Compiègne
1940 · Event
Hitler stages the surrender in the same railway carriage, on the same spot, where Germany signed in 1918 — then has the carriage hauled to Berlin and the site dynamited. France is cut in two, its army interned, its fleet's fate left ominously open. Britain now stands alone.
On these timelines: 1940: Britain's Darkest Hour, World War II, France, Master, Germany
More from 1940: Britain's Darkest Hour
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- Churchill becomes Prime Minister (1940)
- Battle of Britain Day breaks the daylight assault (1940)
- 'We shall fight on the beaches' (1940)
- The panzers cross the Meuse at Sedan (1940)
- Eagle Day opens the Luftwaffe's main assault (1940)
- The Coventry Blitz (1940)
- The Norway Debate topples Chamberlain (1940)
Around 1940
- Berlin Airlift (1948)
- Battle of Stalingrad (1942)
- Apartheid (1948)
- Indian independence and Partition (1947)
- Manhattan Project (1942)
- Korean War (1950)
- Spanish Civil War (1936)
- Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany (1933)
- Chinese Civil War (resumed) (1945)
- World War II (1939)