British author Christopher Isherwood publishes his novel Goodbye to Berlin, based on his own experiences in the city

The recent fate of Czechoslovakia prompts France and Britain to guarantee the security of Poland

Helped by the results of Polish cryptographers, Bletchley Park begins to gain invaluable access to German military secrets

Britain and France, receiving no answer from Hitler to their ultimatum over his attack on Poland, declare war on Germany

A British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of about 150,000 infantry crosses the Channel to help defend France's border with Belgium

Alan Turing joins the code-breaking team working on Enigma at Bletchley Park

A German U-boat sinks the British aircraft carrier Courageous off the coast of Ireland

A German U-boat sinks the British battleship Royal Oak at anchor in Scapa Flow

T.S. Eliot gives cats a poetic character in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

English potter Bernard Leach publishes an influential manual, A Potter's Book

Richard Addinsell writes the Warsaw Concerto as music for the film Dangerous Moonlight

British biologists Ernst Chain and Howard Florey develop penicillin as a safe and useful antibacterial drug

Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman is rejected by numerous publishers before becoming, decades later, his best-known novel

British actors Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier marry

Radar masts along the coasts of Britain give early warning of German air attacks

Civilian heroism is rewarded in Britain with a new medal, the George Cross

Working as an official war artist, Henry Moore creates an iconic series of drawings of Londoners sleeping at night in underground stations

Lord Craigavon (previously James Craig) dies in office after nineteen years as northern Ireland's prime minister

The ration book is introduced in Britain, at first just for bacon, butter and sugar, but soon also for meat, eggs, tea, milk, cheese, jam, and clothing

Inactivity during the Phoney War prompts Neville Chamberlain to assure the House of Commons that Hitler has 'missed the bus'

After the German invasion of the Netherlands and Belgium, Winston Churchill replaces Chamberlain as the British prime minister

Queen Wilhelmina and the Dutch government escape just in time to Britain

Winston Churchill, in his first speech to the House of Commons as prime minister, offers the nation nothing but 'blood, toil, tears and sweat'

Fishing smacks and private launches are enlisted from southern England's coasts and rivers for a rescue mission across the Channel

Evacuation begins from Dunkirk, and over the next ten days some 860 vessels ferry troops across the Channel