but after war came to Europe, he decided to return to France, arriving there in January, 1940.

The framing scenes, on the other hand, both take place in the late Spring of 1940, just at the moment of the defeat of France in the second great world conflict.

The Plague is in part a historical allegory, in which the plague signifies the German occupation of France from 1940 to 1944 during World War II.

They could not imagine that the Germans, whom they had defeated only twenty years previously, could defeat them in a mere six weeks, as happened when France fell in June 1940.

Weil returned to France via Sweden and the United Kingdom, and was detained at Le Havre in January 1940.

The devices were largely removed when the enemy became used to the noise, after the Battle of France in 1940, bombs sometimes having whistles attached instead.

During the Battle of France in 1940, De Gaulle's 4th Armoured Division and elements of the British Expeditionary Force's 1st Army Tank Brigade both made probing attacks on the German flank, actually pushing into the rear of the advancing armoured columns at times.

( 1990 ) The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940.

( 1969 ) The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Collapse of France in 1940.

Again an Expeditionary Force was sent to France, only to be hastily evacuated as the German forces swept through the Low Countries and across France in 1940.

Félix Éboué in a contemporary World War II cartoonDuring World War II, Chad was the first French colony to rejoin the Allies ( August 26, 1940 ), after the defeat of France by Germany.

In August 1940, the territory responded, with the rest of the AEF, to the call from General Charles de Gaulle to fight for Free France.

A German cavalry patrol in May 1940, during the Battle of France.

In June 1940, during the early stages of World War II, France fell and the colony was then ruled by the pro-Axis Vichy ( French ) government.

" The 1940 celebrations also included a concert at the Tokyo Kabukiza for which new works were commissioned from composers in France, Hungary, England ( Benjamin Britten, Sinfonia da Requiem, ultimately rejected ), and Germany ( Richard Strauss, Japanische Festmusik ).

In late 1939 he brought the Duke of Windsor back from self-impodsed exile in France and in early May 1940, Mountbatten led a British convoy in through the fog to evacuate the Allied forces participating in the Namsos Campaign during the Norwegian Campaign.

Mussolini was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity to carry out a long war with France or the United Kingdom and waited until France was on the verge of imminent collapse and surrender from German invasion before declaring war on France and the United Kingdom on 10 June 1940, on the assumption that the war would be short-lived following France's collapse.

In the wake of Mussolini ’ s declaration of war against France and England on June 10, 1940, he discovered Kafka ’ s The Metamorphosis, Gogol, John Steinbeck and William Faulkner along with French films by Marcel Carné, René Clair, and Julien Duvivier.

Hawks, William Faulkner and Jules Furthman collaborated on the script about a French fishing boat captain and various situations of espionage during the Fall of France in 1940.

At first Germany's military moves were brilliantly successful, as in the " blitzkrieg " invasions of Poland ( 1939 ), Norway ( 1940 ), the Low Countries ( 1940 ), and above all the stunningly successful invasion and quick conquest of France in 1940.

* 1250 – Seventh Crusade: Ayyubids of Egypt capture King Louis IX of France in the Battle of Fariskur.

* 1580 – One of the largest earthquakes recorded in the history of England, Flanders, or Northern France, takes place.

* 1924 – Raymond Barre, French politician, Prime Minister of France ( d. 2007 )

* 1450 – Battle of Formigny: Toward the end of the Hundred Years ' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English forces, ending English domination in Northern France.

* 1803 – Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $ 15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.

* 1245 – Philip III of France ( d. 1285 )

* 1172 – Henry the Young King and Margaret of France are crowned as junior king and queen of England.

* 1593 – Pierre Barrière fails in his attempt to assassinate King Henry IV of France.

* 1810 – Napoleonic Wars: The French Navy defeats the British Royal Navy, preventing them from taking the harbour of Grand Port on Île de France.

* 1644 – Louise de La Vallière, French mistress of Louis XIV of France ( d. 1710 )

* 1516 – The Treaty of Noyon between France and Spain is signed.

* 1792 – King Louis XVI of France is formally arrested by the National Tribunal, and declared an enemy of the people.

* 1960 – The Central African Republic declares independence from France.

* 1962 – Representatives from the Russian Orthodox Church and Vatican City meet in Metz, France, and come to an agreement wherein the Russian church would send observers to the Second Vatican Council and in exchange, the Roman Catholic Church would refuse to condemn Communism.

* 1830 – Charles X of France abdicates the throne in favor of his grandson Henri.

* 2005 – Air France Flight 358, lands at Toronto Pearson International Airport, and runs off the runway causing the plane to burst into flames leaving 12 injuries and no fatalities.

* 1960 – Dahomey ( later renamed Benin ) declares independence from France.

* 881 – Battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu: Louis III of France defeats the Vikings, an event celebrated in the poem Ludwigslied.

* 1914 – World War I: Germany declares war against France.

* 1960 – Niger gains independence from France.

* 1802 – Napoleon Bonaparte signs a general amnesty to allow all but about one thousand of the most notorious émigrés of the French Revolution to return to France, as part of a reconciliary gesture with the factions of the Ancien Regime and to eventually consolidate his own rule.

* 1803 – Thousands of meteor fragments fall from the skies of L ' Aigle, France ; the event convinces European science that meteors exist.

" Everyday Life and the Challenge to History in Postwar France: Braudel, Lefebvre, Certeau ," Diacritics, Volume 33, Number 1, Spring 2003, pp. 23 – 40 in Project Muse

* 1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France.

* 1319 – John II of France ( d. 1364 )