1941

**1941** (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday in the Gregorian calendar.

## 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 – Hayao Miyazaki, Japanese filmmaker
- 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 21 - Beatrice Kelley, English actress (d. 2018)
- 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 11 — The Pentagon is beig constructed
- 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 (d. 1972)
- 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

- Physics – not awarded
- Chemistry – not awarded
- Medicine – not awarded
- Literature – not awarded
- Peace – not awarded

## Movies released

- _Citizen Kane_