1942 - What happened in 1942 ?

January 1942

Wednesday 07:

World War II: Siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins.

Monday 12:

President Franklin Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board.

Tuesday 13:

The United States begins the iternment of Japanese-Americans living on the American west coast.

Monday 19:

World War II: Japanese forces invade Burma.

Tuesday 20:

World War II: Nazis at the Wannsee conference in Berlin decide the "final solution to the Jewish problem".

February 1942

Monday 09:

Daylight-saving time goes into effect in the United States.

Thursday 19:

World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the executive order 9066, allowing the United States military to relocate Japanese-Americans to Japanese internment camps.

Friday 20:

Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first World War II flying ace.

Sunday 22:

World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defense collapses.

Friday 27:

World War II: the USS Langley, the first United States aircraft carrier, is sunk by Japanese warplanes.

March 1942

Sunday 08:

World War II: Japan captures Rangoon, Burma.

Thursday 19:

The Thoroughbred Racing Association is established in Chicago, Illinois.

Sunday 22:

World War II: In the Mediterranean sea, Regia Marina defeats Royal Navy in the Second Battle of Sirte.

Monday 23:

World War II: In the Indian Ocean, Japanese forces capture the Andaman Islands.

Saturday 28:

World War II: In occupied France, British naval forces raid the German-occupied port of St. Nazaire.

April 1942

Wednesday 15:

its people and defenders" by King George VI.

Friday 17:

POW French General Henri Giraud escapes from his castle prison in Festung Königstein.

Saturday 18:

Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of Vichy France.

Thursday 23:

World War II: Baedeker Blitz – German bombers hit Exeter, Bath and York in retaliation for the British raid on Lübeck.

Sunday 26:

The worst-ever mining accident in history kills 1,549 miners in an explosion at the Honkeiko Colliery, Manchuria.

May 1942

Friday 08:

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 fight without visual contact between warring ships.

Monday 11:

William Faulkner's collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, is published.

Friday 15:

World War II: In the United States, a bill creating the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) is signed into law.

Wednesday 27:

assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague.

Saturday 30:

World War II: 1000 British bombers launch a 90-minute attack on Cologne, Germany.

June 1942

Wednesday 10:

World War II: Nazis burn the Czech village of Lidice as reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich.

Friday 12:

Holocaust: Future essayist Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday.

Saturday 13:

The United States opens its Office of War Information, a center for production of propaganda.

Sunday 14:

Anne Frank begins to keep a diary.

Sunday 21:

World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at nearby Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by the Japanese against the U.S. mainland.

July 1942

Thursday 09:

Holocaust: Anne Frank's family goes into hiding in an attic above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.

Saturday 18:

World War II: The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jets for the first time.

Sunday 19:

German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast postions in response to the an effective American convoy system.

Thursday 23:

1942- The Treblinka extermination camp is opened

Tuesday 28:

World War II: USSR leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into Russia. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so will be immediately killed.

August 1942

Friday 07:

US Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with a landing on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

Saturday 08:

1942- Quit India resolution was passed by the Bombay session of the AICC, which leads to the start of a historical civil disobedience movement across India

Saturday 15:

The SS Ohio reaches the island of Malta barely afloat carrying vital fuel supplies for the island defenses.

Sunday 16:

The two-person crew of the U.S. naval blimp L-8 disappear without a trace on a routine anti-submarine patrol over the Pacific Ocean. The blimp drifts without her crew and crashlands in Daly City, California.

Wednesday 19:

The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division leads an allied forces amphibious assault on Dieppe, France.

September 1942

Thursday 10:

The Allies carry out an amphibious landing at Majunga, north-west Madagascar, to re-launch Allied offensive operations in the Madagascar Campaign.

Saturday 12:

RMS Laconia, carrying civilians, Allied soldiers and Italian POWs is torpedoed off the coast of West Africa and sinks.

Friday 18:

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation authorized.

Monday 21:

The B-29 Superfortress makes its debut.

Sunday 27:

Glenn Miller and his Orchestra perform for the last time before Miller enters the US Army.

October 1942

Saturday 03:

First successful launch of A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany: the first man-made object to reach space.

Friday 09:

Statute of Westminster Adoption Act formalizes Australian autonomy.

Sunday 11:

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.

Friday 23:

At El Alamein in Egypt, British forces begin a major offensive against Axis forces.

Wednesday 28:

The Alaska Highway is completed.

November 1942

Tuesday 03:

German forces under Erwin Rommel are forced to retreat during the night.

Wednesday 04:

Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel leads his forces on a five-month retreat.

Sunday 08:

World War II: French resistance coup in Algiers, by which 400 Civil French patriots neutralized Vichyst XIXth Army Corps during 15 hours, arrested vichyst generals (Juin, Darlan, etc.), and so allowed the immediate success of Operation Torch in Algiers, then, from there, to the whole French North Africa.

Wednesday 11:

Road to Morocco, starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour, premieres.

Thursday 12:

World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal, will last for three days.

December 1942

Wednesday 02:

Manhattan Project: A team led by Enrico Fermi initiate the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

Friday 04:

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.

Saturday 12:

A fire in a hostel in St. John's, Newfoundland kills 100 people.

Wednesday 16:

SS Chief Heinrich Himmler orders that the Roma (gypsy) people be sent to Auschwitz for extermination.