Selma Lagerlöf died on 16 March 1940 in Östra Ämtervik church parish, aged 81. A Swedish writer, Lagerlöf grew up on the family estate of Mårbacka in Värmland, worked as a teacher, and became famous with her first novel, The Saga of Gösta Berling, which draws on the folklore and landscape of her home region. Her best-known work abroad is The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, written as a geography reader for Swedish schoolchildren, in which a boy travels across the country on the back of a goose. In 1909 she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and in 1914 she was the first woman elected to the Swedish Academy. She used her fame to support the women's suffrage movement and later helped refugees from Nazi Germany.
Before and after
- 19 February 1940Birth of Saparmyrat Nyýazow
- 23 February 1940Release of Pinocchio
- 10 March 1940Birth of Chuck Norris
- 12 March 1940Moscow Peace Treaty
- 16 March 1940Death of Selma Lagerlöf
- 1 April 1940Birth of Wangari Muta Maathai
- from 9 April 1940 to 10 June 1940Operation Weserübung
- 13 April 1940Birth of Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
- 16 April 1940Birth of Margrethe II of Denmark
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