May 14 – The Battle of the Netherlands ends with the surrender of the main Dutch forces to Nazi German invaders. This evening, the gay Dutch Jewish writer Jacob Hiegentlich takes poison, dying four days later aged 33.
June 5 – The English novelist J. B. Priestley broadcasts his first Sunday evening radio Postscript, "An excursion to hell", on the BBC Home Service in the U.K., marking the role of pleasure steamers in the Dunkirk evacuation, which ended the day before.
October 4 – Brian O'Nolan's first "Cruiskeen Lawn" humorous column is published in The Irish Times (Dublin). In the second column he assumes the pseudonym Myles na gCopaleen. The original columns are composed in Irish. He continues the column until the year of his death in 1966.
December – Penguin Books launches its Puffin Books children's imprint in the United Kingdom with War on Land by James Holland.[5]
The Russian poet Anna Akhmatova's collection From Six Books appears in the Soviet Union, but distribution is soon suspended, copies pulped and remaining issues prohibited.[9]
Wills & Hepworth of Loughborough begins publishing Ladybird Books in the United Kingdom in a new format,[10] with Bunnykin's Picnic Party: a story in verse for children with illustrations in colour.[11]
↑ Sutherland, John; Fender, Stephen (2011). "29 December". Love, Sex, Death & Words: Surprising Tales from a Year in Literature. London: Icon. ISBN978-184831-247-0.
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