Ending secret meetings held on a ship off the coast of Newfoundland, President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill agree on a set of principles for which the war in Europe is being fought, called the Atlantic Charter. First commissioned to sculptor John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum in 1925, Mount Rushmore, depicting the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, is completed. It overlooks the Black Hills of South Dakota. By Dec. 11, Germany and Italy, in a pact with Japan, declare war on the United States as well. Malnourished and exhausted, as many as 10,000 die, many of them killed by their captors along the way.
Allies begin their invasion of North Africa.
The world's first sustained nuclear chain reaction is achieved at the University of Chicago. After seven months of fighting, the United States wins its first major offensive in the Pacific, with victory at Guadalcanal. In New York, race riots result in five deaths and 400 injuries. These follow similar riots in Detroit and Los Angeles in June. On the home front, Americans face rationing of sugar, coffee, cheese, butter and meat, and each person is allotted three pairs of leather shoes a year while nearly every yard shelters a Victory garden.