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*