World Radio Day

Radio Douala (Cameroon), broadcasts programmes in support of the Free French.  Negus Haile Selassie I sets up a radio station broadcasting 4 hours a day in Amharic, Arabic and English, independent of colonial control.  Radio Nairobi (Kenya) broadcasts in Hindustani, Urdu and Gujarati. The Geneva Studio (Switzerland) begins broadcasts in support of humanitarian action by the International Red Cross.  August : A commission led by Colonel W. Donovan is set up in the United States to combat Axis radio propaganda worldwide.  The Yugoslav radio network is destroyed. A transmitter is built at Skopje.  A clandestine transmitter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia is established at Zagreb.  Radio starts up in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).

 A law sets up military censorship in Spain.  There are 650 Radio transmitters and 26 million radio receivers in the U.S.A.  30 October: Orson Welles's programme based on H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds's broadcast on CBS and sows panic among thousands of radio listeners .

Number of radio receivers per thousand population  Germany: 122  France: 76  Netherlands: 118  Canada: 122  5 January : A radio transmitter is inaugurated at the Albert I college, Kinshasa (Zaire) on the initiative of the Jesuits. It later becomes "Radio-Leo".  Radio supports within Japan and externally Japan's military campaign against China. A ban is imposed on listening to foreign radio programmes . The United Kingdom has 10 radio transmitters and over 8 million receivers.  The United States adopts a " Radio Code ": information is a social duty and should be in the public interest.   Radio should provide entertainment, education and information that is not subject to censorship and serves objective truth .  October : Roosevelt gives a radio talk against the rise of fascism, terror and international lawlessness. U.S. commercial radio advertising receipts total $70 million.