At Pác Bó, Hồ Chí Minh presides over the founding of the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Việt Minh).
Nationalist leader Phan Bội Châu dies in Huế after years under French house arrest.
Japanese forces attack Lạng Sơn and land near Haiphong, compelling the French administration to accept Japanese bases in Tonkin.
British forces in Singapore surrender to Japan, the largest capitulation in British military history, beginning the Japanese occupation of Malaya.
A famine in northern Vietnam under French and Japanese rule kills an estimated 400,000 to 2 million people.
Japan overthrows the French administration in Indochina; Bảo Đại then proclaims the Empire of Vietnam with Trần Trọng Kim as prime minister.
Bảo Đại, the last Nguyễn emperor, abdicates and hands the imperial seal and sword to the revolutionary government at Huế, ending the monarchy.