page_title: Timeline of World War II (1941)
section_title: December
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of World War II (1941) / December
caption_attribution_description: English: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his "Day of Infamy" speech to Congress on December 8, 1941. Behind him are Vice President Henry Wallace (left) and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. To the right, in uniform in front of Rayburn, is Roosevelt's son James, who escorted his father to the Capitol.
context_page_description: This is a timeline of events that stretched over the period of World War II from 1941, marked also by the beginning of Operation Barbarossa on the Eastern Front.
context_section_description: 1: Malta marks its 1,000th bombing raid.
  : Fiorello H. La Guardia publishes Administrative Order 9 creating the Civil Air Patrol for U.S Coastal Patrol and naming its national commander Major General John F. Curry.
  : Approximately 20,000 Stanisławów Jews ordered into the Ghetto area, and non-Jews ordered out.
  : SS officer Karl Jaeger reports "Lithuania clean of Jews" with some exceptions.
  2: Prime Minister Tojo rejects "peace feelers" from the US.
  : A German combat engineer patrol reaches the town of Khimki while scouting for a hole in the Russian defense perimeter around Moscow. It is the closest advance the Germans make to the Russian capital.
  3: Conscription in the United Kingdom now includes all men between 18 and 50. Women will not be neglected since they will serve in fire brigades and in women's auxiliary groups.
  3: General strike begins among native mine-workers in the Belgian Congo.
  3: Vilna Ghetto 'Criminal Aktion' begins, continued the next day. 157 Jews are killed at Ponary.
  4: The temperature on the Moscow front falls to −31 °F (−37 °C). German attacks are failing.
  4: Japanese naval and army forces continue to move toward Pearl Harbor and South-east Asia.
  5: Germans call off the attack on Moscow, now 11 miles away; the USSR counter-attacks during a heavy blizzard.
  6: The United Kingdom declares war on Finland.
  : Vilna Ghetto Gestapo Workers Aktion – 800 Jews and 10 Poles shot at the Ponary massacre death site. Temperatures are minus 23 degrees Celsius.
  7: (December 8, Asian time zones) Japan launches an attack on Pearl Harbor, declares war on the United States and the United Kingdom and invades Thailand and British Malaya and launches aerial attacks against Guam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Shanghai, Singapore and Wake Island. Canada declares war on Japan. Australia declares war on Japan.
  : Adolf Hitler signs the German "Night and Fog decree" dictating the elimination of anti-Nazi resistance activities in Western Europe.
  8: The United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and New Zealand declare war on Japan.
  : Japanese forces take the Gilbert Islands (which include Tarawa). Clark Field in the Philippines is bombed, and many American aircraft are destroyed on the ground.
  : Japanese troops attack Thailand in the Battle of Prachuab Khirikhan.
  : The Battle of Hong Kong begins
  : The Malayan Campaign begins.
  : Kamenka, Krasnaya Polyana, and Kriukovo, are liberated by the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. The Germans are never again within artillery range of Moscow.
  9: China officially declares war on Japan, although a de facto state of war has existed between the two countries since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 7, 1937. China also declares war on Germany and Italy. Australia officially declares war on Japan. South Africa declares war on Japan, regarded as if at war from eight December 1941.
  9: Striking miners of the Union Minière at Elizabethville in the Belgian Congo are fired on by Belgian colonial forces during negotiations, killing an estimated 70 people.
  10: British battlecruiser HMS Repulse and battleship HMS Prince of Wales are sunk in a Japanese air attack in the South China Sea.
  11: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. The United States reciprocates and declares war on Germany and Italy.
  : US forces repel a Japanese landing attempt at Wake Island.
  : Japanese invade Burma.
  12: Japanese landings on the southern Philippine Islands—Samar, Jolo, Mindanao.
  : The United States and the United Kingdom declare war on Romania after It had declared war on both the United States and the United Kingdom; India declares war on Japan.
  : US seizes French ship Normandie.
  13: Bulgaria and Hungary declare war on the United States and the United Kingdom, the United States and the United Kingdom reciprocate and declare war on Bulgaria and Hungary.
  : Japanese under General Yamashita continue their push into Malaya. Under General Homma the Japanese forces are firmly established in the northern Philippines. Hong Kong is threatened.
  14: The British cruiser HMS Galatea is sunk by U-557 off Alexandria, 
caption: FDR delivers his Infamy Speech to Congress.
exif: {}