The Siege of Leningrad was a blockade of the Soviet city, now Saint Petersburg, by German and Finnish forces during the Second World War, which lasted almost nine hundred days. The only supply route to the city for much of the siege was across Lake Ladoga, the so-called Road of Life, which was used by trucks on the ice in winter and by boats in summer. During the first winter, extreme cold and starvation killed vast numbers of inhabitants, and hundreds of thousands of civilians died, with some estimates higher than a million. Even so, the city kept up factories and cultural life, and the composer Dmitri Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony was performed there in 1942. The blockade was broken in 1943 and finally lifted in January 1944.
Before and after
- 7 August 1941Death of Rabindranath Tagore
- 14 August 1941The Atlantic Charter
- 20 August 1941Birth of Slobodan Milošević
- from 25 August 1941 to 17 September 1941Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran
- from 8 September 1941 to 27 January 1944Siege of Leningrad
- 8 September 1941Birth of Bernie Sanders
- 9 September 1941Birth of Dennis M. Ritchie
- from 18 October 1941 to 4 July 1942Crimean Campaign
- 23 October 1941Release of Dumbo
More in Wars, politics & history
- from 8 March 1917 to 16 March 1917February Revolution
- 23 August 1939Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
- from 30 November 1939 to 13 March 1940Winter War
- from 22 June 1941 to 7 May 1945Eastern Front
- from 22 June 1941 to 5 December 1941Operation Barbarossa
- 7 December 1941Attack on Pearl Harbor
The era
This moment belongs to the Modern era (1914 CE to 1945 CE), world wars and a changing world. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.