1941 significant event World War II
October
Mid-October – The first P-38E Lightning fighter is produced by Lockheed in the United States.
October 1
The Holocaust: The Nazi German Majdanek concentration camp (Konzentrationslager Lublin) opens in occupied Poland, on the outskirts of the town of Lublin. Between October 1941 and July 1944, at least 200,000 people will be killed in the camp.
The New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy becomes the Royal New Zealand Navy.
October 2
WWII: Operation Typhoon begins, as Germany launches an all-out offensive against Moscow.
Tudeh Party of Iran is founded.
October 5 – The Holocaust: In Berdychiv, 20–30,000 Jews are shot dead.
October 7 – John Curtin becomes the 14th Prime Minister of Australia, following the defeat of Arthur Fadden's Country/UAP Coalition government, on the floor of the House of Representatives.
October 8 – WWII: In their invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov, with the capture of Mariupol.
October 11 – WWII: Armed insurgents from the People's Liberation Army of Macedonia attack Axis-occupied zones in the city of Prilep, beginning the National Liberation War of Macedonia.
October 11–12 – Fire destroys a Firestone Tire and Rubber Company plant in Fall River, Massachusetts, consuming 15,850 tons of rubber, and causing a setback to the United States military effort.
October 13 – The Holocaust: Heinrich Himmler instructs SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik to begin construction of Bełżec, the first of the Operation Reinhard extermination camps.
October 15 – WWII: British submarine HMS Torbay bombards the port of Apollonia, Cyrenaica in Italian Libya.
October 16 – WWII: The Soviet government moves to Kuibyshev (modern Samara), but Stalin remains in Moscow.
October 17 – WWII: Destroyer USS Kearny is torpedoed and damaged near Iceland, killing 11 sailors (the first American military casualties of the war, in which the US is at this time neutral).
October 18 – General Hideki Tōjō becomes the 40th Prime Minister of Japan.
October 18 – Film The Maltese Falcon is released in the United States, starring Humphrey Bogart and directed by John Huston.
October 21
WWII: Kragujevac massacre – German soldiers and local auxiliaries massacre more than 2,000 civilian men at Kragujevac, in Nazi-occupied Serbia.
Fictional superheroine Wonder Woman, created by William Moulton Marston and H. G. Peter, makes her first appearance in All Star Comics #8, "Introducing Wonder Woman", in the US (cover date December 1941).
October 23 – Walt Disney's fourth animated film Dumbo is released in the United States.
October 25 – WWII: German fighter pilot Franz von Werra disappears during a flight over the North Sea.
October 29 – The Holocaust: Kaunas massacre of October 29, 1941 – Over 9,200 Lithuanian Jews are shot dead.
October 30
WWII: Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.
The Holocaust: 1,500 Jews from Pidhaitsi (in western Ukraine) are sent by the Nazis to the Bełżec extermination camp.
October 31
WWII: Destroyer USS Reuben James, on convoy escort, is accidentally torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors.
The last day of carving on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.