Events 
 January 6 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address.
 January 10 – Lend-Lease is introduced into the United States Congress.
 January 19 – British troops attack Italian-held Eritrea.
 January 21 – World War II: Australian and British forces attack Tobruk, Libya.
 January 22 – World War II: British troops capture Tobruk from the Italians.
 January 23 – Charles Lindbergh testifies before the United States Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
 April 6 – World War II: The German army attacked Yugoslavia.
 April 10 – Croatia declares itself independent of Yugoslavia.
 June 22 - Nazi German invasion to the Soviet Union. The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union begins.
 September 11 – Building of The Pentagon starts.
 December 5 - Soviet counteroffensive near Moscow begins.
 December 7 – The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Following this, the U.S. enters World War II.

Births 
 January 3 – Van Dyke Parks, musician, composer 
 January 5 – Miyazaki Hayao, Japanese movie maker
 January 5 – Grady Thomas, singer (P-Funk)
 January 8 – Graham Chapman, British comedian (d. 1989)
 January 9 – Joan Baez, American singer
 January 14 – Faye Dunaway, American actress
 January 14 – Milan Kučan, Slovene politician, statesman
 January 15 – Captain Beefheart, American singer (d. 2010)
 January 18 – David Ruffin, singer (died 1991)
 January 21 – Richie Havens, American musician (d. 2013)
 January 21 – Plácido Domingo, Spanish opera singer
 January 26 – Henry Jaglom, director
 January 26 – Scott Glenn, actor
 January 30 – Dick Cheney, former Vice President of the United States
 January 31 - Eugene Terre'Blanche, South African far-right politician (d. 2010)
 January 31 – Richard Gephardt, American politician
 February 5 – Kaspar Villiger, former member of the Swiss Federal Council
 February 8 – Nick Nolte, actor
 February 10 – Michael Apted, director
 February 11 – Glenn Randall Jr, stuntman
 February 11 – Jeremy Mackenzie, general
 February 13 – Sigmar Polke, German painter (d. 2010)
 February 16 - Kim Jong-il, North Korean supreme commander. (died 2011)
 February 17 – Julia McKenzie, actress
 February 17 – Gene Pitney, American singer (d. 2006)
 February 20 – Buffy Sainte-Marie, singer
 February 27 – Paddy Ashdown, British politician
 March 3 – Jutta Hoffmann, actress
 March 4 – Adrian Lyne, director
 March 6 – Willie Stargell, Baseball Hall of Famer (died 2001)
 March 14 – Wolfgang Petersen, director, Das Boot
 March 15 – Mike Love, musician ("The Beach Boys")
 March 16 – Bernardo Bertolucci, movie director
 March 18 – Wilson Pickett, American singer (d. 2006)
 March 26 – Richard Dawkins, British scientist
 March 30 – Wasim Sajjad, former President of Pakistan
 April 6 – Hans W. Geissendörfer, German movie director
 April 8 – Vivienne Westwood, English fashion designer
 April 14 – Pete Rose, American baseball player
 April 18 - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland
 April 23 – Paavo Lipponen, Prime Minister of Finland
 April 24 - Richard Holbrooke, American diplomat (d. 2010)
 May 13 – Ritchie Valens, singer (died 1959)
 May 13 – Senta Berger, actress
 May 15 – K.T. Oslin, country musician
 May 19 – Nora Ephron, American screenwriter (d. 2012)
 May 24 – Bob Dylan, American poet and musician
 June 5 – Martha Argerich, Argentinian pianist
 June 5 – Spalding Gray, actor, screenwriter, and monologue artist (died 2004)
 June 9 - Jon Lord, British musician (Deep Purple) (d. 2012)
 June 15 - Harry Nilsson, American singer-songwriter (d. 1994)
 June 27 – Krzysztof Kieslowski, movie director
 July 14 – Maulana Karenga, writer and activist
 August 14 - David Crosby, American singer-songwriter and musician (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
 August 22 – Bill Parcells, NFL coach
 September 8 - Bernie Sanders, American politician
 September 9 – Otis Redding, musician (died 1967)
 September 9 – Dennis Ritchie, American computer scientist (d. 2011)
 September 19 – Cass Elliott, singer (The Mamas & the Papas) (died 1974)
 September 28 - Edmund Stoiber, German politician
 October 4 – Anne Rice, horror/fantasy writer
 October 5 – Eduardo Duhalde former President of Argentina
 October 8 - Jesse Jackson, American pastor and civil rights leader
 October 13 – Paul Simon, American musician (Simon & Garfunkel)
 November 5 - Art Garfunkel, American musician (Simon & Garfunkel)
 November 7 - Angelo Scola, Italian archbishop and cardinal
 November 29 – Bill Freehan, baseball player
 December 18 - His Royal Highness Prince William of Gloucester
 December 23 - Nigel Anthony, English actor
 December 31 - Alex Ferguson, Scottish football manager

Deaths 
 January 5 – Amy Johnson, aviator
 January 8 – Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of Scouting 
 January 10 – Joe Penner, comedian, actor
 January 13 – James Joyce, writer
 February 11 – Rudolf Hilferding, German economist, Minister of Finance
 February 28 – King Alfonso XIII of Spain
 March 6 – Gutzon Borglum, sculptor
 March 8 – Sherwood Anderson, writer
 March 15 – Alexej von Jawlensky, Russian impressionist painter
 March 28 – Virginia Woolf, writer
 June 2 – Lou Gehrig, baseball legend (born 1903)
 June 6 – Louis Chevrolet, automobile builder
 July 10 – Jelly Roll Morton – jazz musician & composer (b. 1890)
 July 11 – Arthur Evans, archaeologist
 July 26 – Henri Lebesgue, mathematician
 August 31 – Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet (suicide)
 August 7 – Rabindranath Tagore, writer
 September 13 – Elias Disney, American farmer and father of Walt Disney.
 November 18 – Chris Watson, third Prime Minister of Australia
 December 3 – Christian Sinding, composer

Nobel Prizes 
 Nobel Prize in Physics – not awarded
 Chemistry – not awarded
 Medicine – not awarded
 Literature – not awarded
 Peace – not awarded

Movies released 
 Citizen Kane