1940

Four hundred prisoners in Chicago are infected with Malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust.

Rockefeller Foundation supports work to improve the design of the Van de Graaff accelerator and makes a grant to Dr. Ernest Lawrence for research on a 154-inch cyclotron-two tools of physics used to study the nuclei of atoms.

Japan. While flying over Japan, Wing Commander D.J. Blakeslee sighted an object he described as having red, green and white lights. The craft moved rapidly to escape detection. Blakeslee was guided by ground radar. He was reported to be stable and reliable. The Air Force officially ruled the sighting to be Jupiter, although it was tracked by radar.

Roosevelt authorized the FBI to engage in electronic eavesdropping against activities judged by Hoover to be potentially detrimental to the internal security of the United States.