However, his next films, The Great Dictator ( 1940 ), a parody on Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini that ended in a dramatic speech criticising the blind following patriotic nationalism, and Monsieur Verdoux ( 1947 ), which criticised war and capitalism, as well as his first European film A King in New York ( 1957 ), which ridiculed the U. S. House Un-American Activities Committee, were more clearly political and caused controversy.

In 1940, the U. S. Army gave Cessna their largest order to date, when they ordered 33 specially equipped Cessna T-50s.

Following the 1940 release of Republic Pictures ' serial adaptation of Drums of Fu Manchu, the U. S. State Department requested the studio make no further films with the character as China was an ally against Japan.

* John Anson Ford ( 1883 – 1983 ), American local-level legislator who served on Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for 24 years ( 1934 – 58 ); Democratic nominee for U. S. Senator ( 1940 )

* 1940 – World War II: U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt denounces Italy's actions with his " Stab in the Back " speech at the graduation ceremonies of the University of Virginia.

* 1940 – The United States ' Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles issues a declaration on the U. S. non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

For Pare Lorentz's U. S. Film Service, in the year 1940, he made a poetic documentary film on rural electrification called Power and the Land.

* John M. Walker, Jr. ( born 1940 ), former chief judge of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

* 1940 – Armistice Day Blizzard: An unexpected blizzard kills 144 in the U. S. Midwest.

* 1940 – Connie Mack, U. S. Senator

* 1940 – Bruce Vento, American politician and former member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Minnesota ( d. 2000 )

Charlie Chaplin once again joined the U. S. war effort, creating The Great Dictator ( 1940 ), in which he played the Hitler-like character of ' Adenoid Hynkel.

Their three sons, including actor Leslie Vincent, continued as the owners afterwards, except for the period of administration by the U. S. Navy during World War II ( 1940 – 1945 ).

The origin of the obsolete term plastique dates back to the Nobel 808 explosive introduced to the U. S. by the British in 1940.

In April 1940, Popular Science showed an example of a radar unit using the Watson-Watt patent in an article on air defence, but not knowing that the U. S. Army and U. S. Navy were working on radars with the same principle, stated under the illustration, " This is not U. S. Army equipment.

Britain formed close bonds with the Soviet Union ( starting in 1941 ) and the United States ( starting in 1940 ), with the U. S. giving $ 40 billion in munitions through Lend Lease ; Canada also gave aid.

Average annual growth in U. S. employment, by top income tax bracket rate, 1940 – 2011

King linked Canada more and more closely to the United States, signing an agreement with Roosevelt at Ogdensburg, New York in August 1940 that provided for the close cooperation of Canadian and American forces, despite the fact that the U. S. remained officially neutral until the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

** Mary Jo Kopechne, American campaign aide to U. S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy ( b. 1940 )

* September 16 – WWII: The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 is signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt, creating the first peacetime draft in U. S. history.

* March 4 – David W. Taylor, U. S. Navy architect ( d. 1940 )

The doctrine was also invoked by U. S. Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles in a declaration of July 23, 1940, that announced non-recognition of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of the three Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — and remained the official U. S. position until the Baltic states gained formal international recognition as independent states in 1991.

As for progress, the `` backward South '' can boast of Baton Rouge, which increased its population between 1940 and 1950 by two hundred and sixty-two percent, to 126,000, the second largest growth of the period for all cities over 25,000.

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

In June, 1940, Sergeant Helion, with a company of reserve troops waiting to go into battle, was sketching the hills south of the Loire River, when the war suddenly rolled in upon him.

By September 1940 the Suite had developed into a collection of six songs, `` four spirituals, a dream, and a lullaby ''.

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 program was instituted in 1940, and releases are available only from the Recording Laboratory of the Library of Congress, Washington 25, D.C..

The state presently owns 389 passenger vehicles in comparison to approximately 200 in 1940.

Few records are available concerning the subject prior to 1940.

Whether there were too few automobiles in 1940 or too many now is problematical.

He was elected to the National Academy of Design as an Associate in the oil class in 1931 ( after receiving his first Ranger Fund Purchase Prize at the Academy in 1930 ), and elevated to Academicianship in 1940.

Carl Kauffeld has written to me of sexual activity in February 1943 of young born in March 1940.

The sections were mounted on cold slides smeared with Haupts' adhesive ( Johansen, 1940 ) in earlier experiments, and in later experiments with a different mixture of the same components reported by Schramm and Rottger ( 1959 ).

But the continuing charm of the other children -- Sally in 1940 and Jack in 1944 -- and all John's success at his work only made Edythe's dizziness and general uselessness more glaring.

After the War, he decided to remain in the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1940.

The element was first produced by Dale R. Corson, Kenneth Ross MacKenzie, and Emilio Segrè at the University of California, Berkeley in 1940.

By 1940 the Third Reich had occupied many of the Alpine countries.

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.

Christie wrote a concluding novel to her Marple series, Sleeping Murder, in 1940.

* 1874 – William B. Bankhead, American politician ( d. 1940 )

* 1892 – Johnny Dodds, American jazz clarinetist and saxophonist ( d. 1940 )

* 1857 – Eugen Bleuler, Swiss psychiatrist ( d. 1940 )

* 1874 – Carl Bosch, German chemist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate ( d. 1940 )