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.

* Facing fascism: the conservative party and the European dictators, 1935 – 1940 / NJ Crowson., 1997

On 19 May 1940 Ribbentrop met the new Italian Ambassador Dino Alfieri, who described the meeting as follows :" He commented at length on the " dazzling " successes of the German armies, extolling the military genius of the Führer ... who had " revealed himself as the greatest military genius since Napoleon "... He spoke of the inevitable clash between the young nations and the old ; of the necessity of breaking the ring with which the Judaeo-democratic-plutocratic powers were trying to encircle Germany and Italy ; and of the need to create a new European civilization.

* 1940 – The President of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, is executed by the Spanish dictatorship of Francisco Franco, making him the only European president to have been executed.

On 30 December 1875 this seat was again abolished, but only for a few years as it was reinstated on 8 April 1879, and remained the single parliamentary representation from Africa anywhere in a European legislature until the fall of the third republic in 1940.

The truth was that between September and November 1940 less than twenty five agents arrived in the country ; mostly of Eastern European extraction, badly trained and poorly motivated.

The European services moved permanently into Bush House towards the end of 1940, completing the move in 1941, with the Overseas services joining them in 1958.

On 5 January 1990, addressing Conservatives in Liverpool, Powell claimed that if the Conservatives played the " British card " at the next general election, they could win ; the new mood in Britain for " self-determination " had given the newly independent nations of Eastern Europe a " beacon ", adding that Britain should stand alone, if necessary, for European freedom, adding: " We are taunted –- by the French, by the Italians, by the Spaniards -– for refusing to worship at the shrine of a common government superimposed upon them all ... where were the European unity merchants in 1940?

Taft's outspoken isolationism and opposition to any American involvement in the European war convinced many Republican leaders that he could not win a general election, particularly as France fell to the Nazis in May 1940 and Germany threatened Britain.

See, for instance, position expressed by European Parliament, which condemned " the fact that the occupation of these formerly independent and neutral States by the Soviet Union occurred in 1940 following the Molotov / Ribbentrop pact, and continues.

* Jehan Alain ( 1911 – 1940 ), composer of European classical music

Before 1940, numerous children aged 5 – 14 worked in Europe, the United States and various colonies of European powers.

In 1940, he directed Carole Lombard in Vigil in the Night, and the film has an alternate ending for European audiences in recognition of World War II, which the US had not yet entered.

For his own safety, he left the European continent and lived from 1940 to 1944 in Washington, D. C.

Besides US-led regime changes there were numerous regime changes produced by the Soviet Union, such as in Outer Mongolia, in Tannu Tuva in 1921, in the independent republics in the Caucasus during the Russian civil war, in the Baltic states in 1940, and in all of the East European countries that fell under Soviet rule due to the Yalta agreements of 1943.

In 1940, the Emergency Rescue Committee ( ERC ) was formed to aid European refugees trapped in Vichy France.

An early opponent of American involvement in World War II, Shriver was a founding member of the America First Committee, an organization started in 1940 by a group of Yale law students, also including future U. S. President Gerald Ford and Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, that tried to keep the United States out of the European war.

In November 1939, IAL was restructured into three separate companies: British European Airways, British Overseas Airways Corporation ( BOAC ), and British South American Airways ( which merged with BOAC in 1949 ), with the change being made official in 1 April 1940.

Princess Virginia ( Ira ) of Fürstenberg ( German: Ira Prinzessin zu Fürstenberg ) ( born 18 April 1940 ) is a European socialite, actress, jewelry designer, and a former public relations manager for the fashion designer Valentino Garavani.

Jacques Rancière ( born Algiers, 1940 ) is a French philosopher, Professor of Philosophy at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris ( St. Denis ) who came to prominence when he co-authored Reading Capital ( 1968 ), with the structural Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser.

Wolf published a number of important books, including France, 1815 to the Present ( 1940 ), The Emergence of the Great Powers ( 1685 – 1715 ) ( 1951 ), Toward a European Balance of Power ( 1640 – 1720 ) ( 1969 ) and his most important study, Louis XIV ( 1968 ).

In the 20th century many Jews arrived in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Harbin during those cities ' periods of economic expansion in the first decades of the century, as well as for the purpose of seeking refuge from anti-Semitic pogroms in Russian Empire ( the early 1900s ), the communist revolution and civic war in Russia ( 1917 – 1918 ), and anti-Semitic Nazi policy in Central Europe, chiefly in Germany and Austria ( 1937 – 1940 ), and the last wave from Poland and other Eastern European countries ( the early 1940s ).

Graham Harry Booth ( 29 March 1940 – 14 December 2011 ) was an English politician, and was a Member of the European Parliament for South West England between 2002 and 2008.

During the 19th century and through the 1940 census, enumeration was accomplished through political districts.

* 2010 – Eugene Victor Wolfenstein, American political scientist ( b. 1940 )

* 1872 – Anton Korošec, Slovenian political leader ( d. 1940 )

His memoir of the first days of World War II, Strange Defeat, written in 1940 but not published until 1946, blamed the French military establishment, along with her social and political culture, for the sudden total military defeat and helped after the war to neutralize the traumatic memory of France's failure and to build a new French identity.

* 1998 – Jules Fontaine Sambwa, Zairean political officeholder and economist ( b. 1940 )

* 1940 – Ruth Messinger, American political activist

He lifted the state of siege, allowed opposition exiles to return, ended press censorship, freed political prisoners, and promised to rewrite the 1940 constitution.

In 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt declined to seek a third term, but allowed his political party to " draft " him as its presidential candidate and was subsequently elected to a third term.

Rechristened the St. Kitts and Nevis Trades and Labour Union in 1940 and under the new leadership of Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw, the union established a political arm, the St. Kitts and Nevis Labour Party, which put Bradshaw in the Legislative Council in 1946.

** Phil Ochs, American folk singer and political activist ( Outside of a Small Circle of Friends ) ( b. 1940 )

* May 12 – Anton Korošec, Slovenian political leader ( d. 1940 )

Antonescu nevertheless rose to political prominence during the political crisis of 1940, and established the National Legionary State, an uneasy partnership with the Iron Guard's leader Horia Sima.

He also earned a master's degree from Louisiana State University in 1940, serving as an assistant instructor of political science there.

Although he was defeated, Dewey's surprisingly strong showing against Lehman ( he lost by only 1. 4 %) brought him national political attention and made him a frontrunner for the 1940 Republican presidential nomination.

Tracy did not believe actors should publicize their political views, but in 1940 lent his name to the " Hollywood for Roosevelt " committee.

In 1940, he became director of the Institute of Genetics within the USSR's Academy of Sciences, and Lysenko's anti-Mendelian doctrines were further secured in Soviet science and education by the exercise of political influence and power.

While out of jail in 1940, he met Elena Petrescu, whom he married in 1946 and who would play an increasing role in his political life over the years.

* Leon Trotsky, a personal political enemy of Stalin and his most bitter international critic, killed in Mexico City in 1940 ;

* Hatch Act of 1939, tightened in 1940, United States federal legislation aimed at corrupt political practices, prevented federal civil servants from campaigning

The Political Consultative Committee ( Polityczny Komitet Porozumiewawczy ) was formed in 1940 after an agreement by representatives of several major political parties ( Socialist Party, People's Party, National Party and Labor Party ); renamed to Home Political Representation ( Krajowa Reprezentacja Polityczna ) in 1943 and to Council of National Unity ( Rada Jedności Politycznej ) in 1944.

Although over half of the refugees had been repatriated to Spain ( or elsewhere ) by the time Pétain proclaimed the Vichy Regime in 1940, the 120, 000 to 150, 000 who remained became political prisoners, and the foreign equivalent to the Service du Travail Obligatoire, the Compagnies de Travailleurs Etrangers ( Companies of Foreign Workers ) or CTE, began to pursue them as slave laborers.

In November 1940, Wang's government signed the " Sino-Japanese Treaty " with the Japanese, a document that has been compared with Japan's Twenty-one Demands for its broad political, military, and economic concessions.