1940s

The following events occurred in the 1940s:

Events

1940: Rubeus Hagrid starts at Hogwarts.^{[citation needed]}
1940 to 1945: Grindelwald's Revolution.^{[citation needed]}
1942: Tom Riddle opens the Chamber of Secrets. Several students get injured, Moaning Myrtle gets killed by the Basilisk. Hagrid is framed for the attacks by Riddle and is expelled. ^{[citation needed]}
1943: Tom Riddle murders his father, Tom Riddle Sr. and his grandparents, for the abandoning of his late mother, Merope Gaunt. His uncle, Morfin Gaunt is framed for the attacks by Riddle and is sent to Azkaban. ^{[citation needed]}
1945: Tom Riddle graduates from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.^{[citation needed]}
1945: Albus Dumbledore defeats Gellert Grindelwald, who is sentenced to life in Nurmengard.^{[citation needed]}
1946: Tom Riddle murders Hepzibah Smith, stealing artefacts of Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin ^{[citation needed]}
1947: The Werewolf Register is introduced.^{[citation needed]}
1947: A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot is first published.^{[citation needed]}
1949: A hippocampus is caught by Merpeople off the coast of Scotland.^{[citation needed]}

1942: Mike Newell, director of the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was born on 28 March.^{[citation needed]}
1942: Gemma Jones, who plays Hogwarts' Nurse Poppy Pomfrey, was born on 4 December.^{[citation needed]}
1945: Andrew Burt, a British actor who provided voices in the video game adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, was born on 23 May.^{[citation needed]}
1946: Alan Rickman, the actor who portrays Severus Snape, was born on 21 February.^{[citation needed]}
According to the mini-adventure The Queen's Handbag, Augusta Longbottom, grandmother of Neville Longbottom, was the victim of a prank by her husband involving her handbag and a fanged gerbil in 1947, leading her to booby-trap her handbags from then on (leading to some pain for Ron Weasley). The Queen's Handbag breaks from canon in several places (not least of which by being set in 2006), so therefore whether anything included in the adventure actually counts as continuity is a matter of debate. This piece of information regarding Longbottom is listed here, however, as the only piece of new Potter Universe backstory offered in the mini-adventure.

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