July 5, 1941

1941Epeli Nailatikau, Fijian chief, President of Fiji^[†]

Brigadier-General Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, is a Fijian chief who was President of Fiji from 2009 to 2015. He has had a long career in the Military, diplomatic service, and government. From 2001 to 2006 he served as Speaker of the House of Representatives – the lower and more powerful chamber of the Fijian Parliament. He was also the chairman of the Parliamentary Appropriations Committee and of the House Committee. On 8 January 2007, he was appointed the interim Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade; he was moved to the post of interim Minister for Provincial Development and Multi-Ethnic Affairs in September 2008. In October 2008, he became Indigenous Affairs Minister "and effectively Great Council of Chiefs chairman". On 17 April 2009, he was appointed Vice-President by the military government.

1941World War II: Operation Barbarossa: German troops reach the Dnieper river.^[†]

Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along a 2,900-kilometer (1,800 mi) front, with the main goal of capturing territory up to a line between Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan, known as the A–A line. The attack became the largest and costliest military offensive in human history, with around 10 million combatants taking part in the opening phase and over 8 million casualties by the end of the operation on 5 December 1941. It marked a major escalation of World War II, opened the Eastern Front—the largest and deadliest land war in history—and brought the Soviet Union into the Allied powers.