Schoolboys, out hunting, discover paintings in a cave at Lascaux after their dog falls into a hole

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

William Joyce, broadcasting in English from Germany, becomes notorious in Britain as Lord Haw-Haw

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

303 captured merchant seamen are rescued in a daring British raid on the German supply ship Altmark, in use as a floating prison in a Norwegian fjord

The Treaty of Moscow ends the war between the USSR and Finland, after 200,000 Soviet deaths in the three months of hostilities

More than 4000 Polish officers are massacred at Katyń on Stalin's orders

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

German ships and marines occupy the harbours of neutral Denmark and Norway

The German invasion of Norway includes the world's first airborne assault, with troops arriving by plane to attack the airports of Oslo and Stavanger

Allied ships on patrol in the North Sea, soon followed by troops, rush to the defence of Norway

German tanks cross the borders into neutral Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium

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

German troops force their way into France through the Ardennes, launching the Battle of France

The French rely on the heavily fortified Maginot Line to keep out the Germans, but they outflank it

Only two days after crossing the Netherlands border, a German division reaches the coast near Rotterdam

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'

The caretaker government of the Netherlands surrenders to the German invaders

A German army races west through northern France, aiming to cut off the Allied troops in Belgium

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

German tanks reach the French coast at Abbeville, nine days after crossing the border from Germany

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