The destroyers-for-bases deal
1940 · Event
Roosevelt trades fifty elderly US destroyers for 99-year leases on British bases from Newfoundland to Trinidad — sidestepping a neutral Congress by executive agreement. The ships matter less than the signal: America has picked its side, and Lend-Lease is six months away.
On these timelines: 1940: Britain's Darkest Hour, World War II, USA, Master, England
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)
- France signs the armistice at Compiègne (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)
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)