The Ultimate 1942 - American History Information Guide and Reference

Years: 1939 1940 1941 - 1942 - 1943 1944 1945
Decades: 1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

1942 was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January

January 1 - World War II: The word "United Nations" is first officially used to describe the Allied pact.
January 2 - World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces. The Japanese Admiral stays in Solvec (owned by Charles Henry de Silva), Philippines.
January 5 - Amy Johnson disappears in flight over River Thames estuary - assumed drowned
January 6 - Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to have a flight go around the world.
January 7 - World War II: Siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins
January 11 - World War II: Japan declares war on the Netherlands and invades the Netherlands East Indies.
January 11 - World War II: The Japanese capture Kuala Lumpur.
January 12 - President Franklin Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board .
January 13 - Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile, which is 30% lighter than a regular car
January 19 - World War II: Japanese forces invade Burma.
January 20 - World War II: Nazis at the Wannsee conference in Berlin decide that the "final solution to the Jewish problem" is relocation.
January 25 - World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom
January 26 - World War II: The first American forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.

February

February 9
- World War II: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war.
- Daylight-saving time goes into effect in the United States.
February 15 - World War II: Singapore surrenders to Japanese forces.
February 19
- World War II: About 150 Japanese warplanes attack Darwin, Australia
- World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs executive order 9066 allowing the United States military to define areas as exclusionary zones. These zones affect the Japanese on the West Coast, and Germans and Italians primarily on the East Coast.
February 20 - Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first World War II flying ace
February 22 - World War II: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defense of the nation collapses.
February 23 - Japanese I-boat fires 16 high explosive shells into a Santa Barbara oil refinery, causing little damage
February 24 - Propaganda: The Voice of America begins broadcasting.
February 25 - Princess Elizabeth registers for war service
February 26 - Coal dust explosion in Honkeika mine in China - 1549 dead
February 27 - World War II: the USS Langley, the first United States aircraft carrier, is sunk by Japanese warplanes.

March

March 5 - Felipe González Márquez, Prime Minister of Spain?
March 8 - World War II: The Dutch surrender to Japanese forces on Java.
March 8 - World War II: Japan captures Rangoon, Burma.
March 9 - Effective date of major reorganization of U.S. Army, enhancing status of Army Air Forces.
March 11 - World War II: General Douglas MacArthur abandons Corregidor
March 19 - The Thoroughbred Racing Association is established in Chicago, Illinois.
March 22 - World War II: In the Mediterranean sea, Regia Marina defeats Royal Navy in the Second Battle of Sirte.
March 23 - World War II: In the Indian Ocean, Japanese forces capture the Anadaman Islands.
March 26 - World War II: In Poland, Auschwitz receives its first female prisoners.
March 28 - World War II: In occupied France, United Kingdom naval and commando forces destroy the dry docks at the German-occupied port of St. Nazaire.

April-June

The Japanese aircraft carrier, Hiryu under attack by US aircraft at the Battle of Midway

April 3 - World War II: Japanese forces begin an all-out assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula. Bataan fell on April 9 and the Bataan Death March began.
April 27 - World War II: A national plebiscite is held in Canada on the issue of conscription.
May - first test of an undersea oil pipeline in Operation Pluto
May 6 - World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.
May 8 - World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end. This is the first time in the naval history where two enemy fleets fought without seeing each other's fleets.
1942 - World War II: Second Battle of Kharkov - In the eastern Ukraine, the Soviet Army initiates a major offensive. During the battle the Soviets will capture the city of Kharkov from the German Army, only to be encircled and destroyed.
May 15 - World War II: In the United States, a bill creating the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) is signed into law.
May 20 - First colored seamen taken into US Navy
June 4-7 - World War II: The Battle of Midway.
June 7 - World War II- Japanese forces invade the Aleutian Islands. This is the first invasion of American soil in 128 years.
June 9 - World War II: Nazis burn the Czech village of Lidice as reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich.
June 12 - Holocaust: Future essayist Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday.
June 13 - The United States opens its Office of War Information, a center for production of propaganda.

July

July 1 - July 27 - World War II: the First Battle of El Alamein
July 9 - Holocaust: Anne Frank's family goes into hiding in an attic above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.
July 13 - World War II: German U-Boats sink three more merchant ships in Gulf of St. Lawrence.
July 16 - Holocaust: On order from the Vichy France government headed by Pierre Laval, French police officers round-up 13,000-20,000 Jews and imprison them in the Winter Velodrome .
July 18 - World War II: The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jets for the first time.
July 19 - World War II: Battle of the Atlantic - German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to an effective American convoy system.
July 22 - Holocaust: The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto begins.

August-September

August 7 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal begins - US Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with a landing on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
August 8 - World War II: In Washington, DC, six German would-be saboteurs are executed (two others were cooperative and received life imprisonment instead).
August 8 - Quit India resolution was passed by the Bombay session of the AICC, which led to the start of a historical civil disobidience movement across India
August 9 - Indian leader, Mohandas Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces.
August 13-14 night - In London instruments detect a massive burst of cosmic rays
August 16 - Polish-Jewish teacher Janusz Korczak follows a group of Jewish children into Treblinka death camp
August 19 - World War II: The Dieppe Raid - Allied forces raid Dieppe, France.
August 22 - World War II: Brazil declared war on Germany and Italy.
September 3 - Francisco Franco fires foreign minister Serano Suñerin
September 24 - Andrée Borrel and Lise de Baissac became the first female SOE agents to be parachuted into occupied France.

October

October 2 - British cruiser Curacao collides with the liner Queen Mary off the coast of Donegal and sinks - 338 drowned
October 3 - First successful launch of A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. The rocket flew 147 kilometres wide and reached a height of 84.5 kilometres and was therefore the first man-made object reaching space.
October 9 - Statute of Westminster Adoption Act formalizes Australian autonomy.
October 11 - World War II: Battle of Cape Esperance - On the northwest coast of Guadalcanal, United States Navy ships intercept and defeat a Japanese fleet on their way to reinforce troops on the island.
October 16 - Hurricane and flooding in Bombay - 40.000 dead
October 23 - November 4 - World War II: the Second Battle of El Alamein
October 28 - The Alaska Highway is completed.
October 29 - Holocaust: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews.

November

German troops at the Battle of Stalingrad

November 3 - World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein ends - German forces under Erwin Rommel are forced to retreat during the night.
November 8 - World War II: Operation Torch - United States and United Kingdom forces land in French North Africa.
November 10 - World War II: In violation of a 1940 armistice, Germany invades Vichy France following French Admiral François Darlan agreement to an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.
November 12 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal begins - A naval battle near Guadalcanal starts between Japanese and American forces.
November 13 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal - Aviators from the USS Enterprise sink the Japanese heavy cruiser BB- Hiei.
November 15 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal ends - Although the United States Navy suffered heavy losses, it was able to retain control of Guadalcanal.
November 19 - World War II: Battle of Stalingrad - Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.
November 21 - The completion of the Alaska Highway (also known as the Alcan Highway) is celebrated (the "highway" was not usable by general vehicles until 1943, however).
November 22 - World War II: Battle of Stalingrad - The situation for the German attackers of Stalingrad seems desperate during the Soviet counter-attack Operation Uranus and General Friedrich von Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German 6th army is surrounded.
November 23 - German U-boat sinks SS Ben Lomond off the coast of Brazil. One crewman, Chinese second steward Poon Lim, is separated from the others and spends 130 days adrift until he is rescued April 3 1943
November 28 - In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove night club kills 491 people. The large-scale German "pacification" of Zamojszczyzna begins.

December

December 2 - Manhattan Project: Below the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiate the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (a coded message, "The Italian navigator has landed in the new world" was then sent to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt).
December 4 - Holocaust: In Warsaw, two Christian women, Zofia Kossak and Wanda Filipowicz risk their lives by setting up the Council for the Assistance of the Jews .