• 5 January:
FM radio is demonstrated for the
Federal Communications Commission in the United States for the first time. • 7 January: The
BBC Forces Programme begins broadcasting in the United Kingdom; it becomes the most popular channel among civilians at home as well as its primary target audience. • 1 February:
Radio Nacional de Colombia is launched as Radiodifusora Nacional de Colombia three years after closure of the country's first state-owned radio station,
HJN. • 25 February:
The Proud Valley is the first known film to have its première on radio when the
BBC broadcasts a 60-minute version. • 23 March:
Antisemitic Member of Parliament (United Kingdom) Archibald Maule Ramsay uses a
Parliamentary question to set out the times and frequency of nightly broadcasts by the 'New British Broadcasting Service', a Nazi propaganda radio station broadcasting from Germany. • 9 April (7.30 pm): During the German invasion of Norway as part of
Operation Weserübung,
Vidkun Quisling proclaims a new
collaborationist regime on the national radio station
NRK. • 10 May (9.00 pm):
Neville Chamberlain makes the first public announcement of his resignation as
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and his replacement by Winston Churchill, on the
BBC Home Service. • 14 May:
BBC reporter Charles Gardner working in
Reims incorporates the live sounds of a German air raid in a broadcast report. • 26 May:
Fireside chat by the
President of the United States:
On National Defense. • 2 June: British
Secretary of State for War Anthony Eden gives a radio address claiming success of the
Dunkirk evacuation. • 5 June: Yorkshire-born novelist and playwright
J. B. Priestley broadcasts his first Sunday evening radio
Postscript, "An excursion to hell", on the BBC Home Service, marking the role of the pleasure steamers in the
Dunkirk evacuation, just completed. • 18 June The bulletin is preceded by a speech by Churchill, "The War of the Unknown Warriorsˮ, and followed by
J. B. Priestley's
Postscript describing the seaside resort of
Margate in wartime. • 19 July:
Adolf Hitler makes a peace appeal ("appeal to reason") to Britain in an address to the
Reichstag, broadcast simultaneously in English translation by
Paul Schmidt. BBC German-language broadcaster
Sefton Delmer unofficially rejects it at once and
Lord Halifax, British foreign minister, flatly rejects peace terms in a broadcast reply on 22 July. • October: The evacuated
BBC Radio Variety Department relocates to
Bangor in north Wales from where it will broadcast until 1943. • 15 October: Seven staff are killed when an attempt to eject a delayed-action German bomb from
Broadcasting House in
London fails. • 30 October:
Marshal Pétain makes a broadcast to the French people stating "I enter, today, into the way of collaboration" ("''J'entre aujourd'hui dans la voie de la collaboration...''"). • 29 December:
Fireside chat:
On National Security. ==Debuts==