Timeline of World War II (1940) - July 1940

July 1940

1: Channel Islands occupation is completed by German forces.
: French government moves to Vichy.
: Marshal Rodolfo Graziani is named as Balbo's replacement in North Africa.
: The Italian Royal Air Force starts bombing the British Mandate of Palestine.

2: Hitler orders preparation of plans for invasion of Britain, code-named Operation Sea Lion.

2: Alderney surrenders to the Germans.

2: Brighton beach is closed to the public and mines, barbed wire and other defences are put into place.

3: Cardiff is bombed by the Luftwaffe for the first time.

3: The British attack and destroy the French navy, fearing that it would fall into German hands.

4: The destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, Algeria by the Royal Navy; Vichy French government breaks off diplomatic relations with Britain in protest. At Alexandria the French agree to demilitarise the battleship Lorraine and several smaller ships.
The Duke of Windsor (tainted by suspicion of pro-Nazism) is named governor of the Bahamas, putting him some distance from controversy.

4: Sark surrenders to the Germans. The Germans now control all of the British Channel Islands.

4: The German News Bureau released excerpts of the documents captured during the fall of France relating to Operation Pike, an Anglo-French plan to bomb Soviet oil fields. The compromised operation was subsequently aborted.

9: A fairly indecisive naval skirmish happens off the coast of Italy. No lives are lost.

10: The Battle of Britain begins with Luftwaffe raids on channel shipping.
President Roosevelt asks Congress for huge increases in military preparations.

11: RAF raids on enemy emplacements in the Netherlands and on German munitions factories.

12: Luftwaffe attacks on Wales, Scotland and Northen Ireland.

14: Soviets organize rigged elections in the Baltic States. The parliaments will be in the control of the Soviets.

16: Adolf Hitler submits to his military the directive for the invasion of the United Kingdom, Operation Sea Lion.

18: In response to Mers-el-Kébir, the Vichy French Air Force bombs British-held Gibraltar.

19: General Johan Laidoner of Estonia is deported to Siberia.

19: Allied ships clash with two Italian light cruisers, sinking one in the Battle of Cape Spada.

21: Czechoslovakian government in exile arrives in London.
In the Baltic States Soviet controlled parliaments request membership of USSR.

22: The Havana Conference meets; the nations of the Western hemisphere meet to discuss neutrality and economic cooperation.
Fumimaro Konoye is named the Prime Minister of Japan.

23: The British "Home Guard" is officially established, drawing on elderly men and those considered unable to serve in the regular armed forces.

25: All women and children are ordered to evacuate Gibraltar.

26: The United States of America activates the General Headquarters (GHQ), United States Army, which is designed to facilitate mobilization by supervising the organization and training of the army field forces within the continental United States, which is code named the Zone of the Interior.

30: The President of Estonia, Konstantin Päts, is arrested and deported to Russia by the Soviets.