Timeline Monday 8 December 1941

Events on Monday 8 December 1941 8

• 1941 Rumbula massacre About 25,000 Jews shot in a forest near Riga German Einsatzgruppe A and Latvian auxiliaries marched the Jews of the Riga ghetto to Rumbula forest and shot them over two days. Around 25,000 people were killed.
• 1941 Battle of Hong Kong The British colony falls to Japan on Christmas Day Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong hours after Pearl Harbor, took the New Territories and Kowloon, and then landed on Hong Kong Island. The British governor surrendered on 25 December, remembered in Hong Kong as "Black Christmas".
• 1941 Battle of Wake Island US Marines repel the first Japanese landing The American garrison on Wake Island beat off a Japanese landing on 11 December, sinking two destroyers. A larger second assault forced the island's surrender on 23 December.
• 1941 Chełmno extermination camp begins operations The first Nazi camp to kill with poison gas At Chełmno in occupied Poland, the SS began murdering Jews in gas vans. It was the first stationary Nazi extermination site, and at least 150,000 people were killed there.
• 1941 Japanese invasion of Malaya Landings at Kota Bharu open the Pacific War Japanese troops landed at Kota Bharu in northern Malaya and in southern Thailand, shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The campaign ended with the fall of Singapore in February 1942.
• 1941 Japanese invasion of the Philippines begins Air strikes destroy US planes at Clark Field Japanese aircraft struck American air bases in the Philippines hours after Pearl Harbor and destroyed much of the Far East Air Force on the ground. Landings on Luzon followed, and on 22 December the main invasion force came ashore at Lingayen Gulf.
• 1941 USA declares war on Japan Congress votes the day after Pearl Harbor The United States declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, the day after the Pearl Harbor attack. Germany and Italy declared war on the US three days later, bringing America fully into the conflict.
• 1941 United States declares war on Japan Roosevelt's "day of infamy" speech The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan, calling 7 December "a date which will live in infamy". Congress approved the declaration within the hour, with a single dissenting vote.