| Dates of events specific to North Carolina are marked with * and are in bold. |
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| February 12 |
General Erwin Rommel assumes command of the German Afrika Korps. |
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March 11 |
President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act to supply war goods to the Allied nations. |
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*March 31 |
Lieutenant Colonel William C. Lee of Dunn, Harnett County, is transferred to the Provisional Parachute Group at Fort Benning, Georgia. Lee later becomes known as the father of the United States airborne. |
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June 22 |
German chancellor Adolf Hitler launches a massive invasion of the Soviet Union. |
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August 12 |
President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sign the Atlantic Charter. |
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*December 6 |
The North Carolina Shipyard at Wilmington launches its first liberty ship, the Zebulon B. Vance. Liberty ships will carry much of the cargo essential for Allied victory. |
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*December 7 |
Japan launches a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Hundreds of Americans, including servicemen from North Carolina, are killed or wounded. Mildred Irene Clark, a young army nurse from Bladen County, survives the assault. As a career army nurse, Clark rises to the rank of colonel and in the 1960s commands the Army Nurse Corps. |
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December 8 |
President Franklin Roosevelt addresses Congress and asks for a declaration of war. Both the United States and Great Britain declare war on Japan. |
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December 11 |
Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. |
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December 23 |
Japan seizes the American base on Wake Island. |
