1942 - What happened in 1942 ?

January 1942

Friday 02:

The United States Navy opens a blimp base at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

Tuesday 06:

Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to have a flight go around the world.

Wednesday 07:

World War II: Siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins.

Tuesday 13:

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

Sunday 25:

Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.

February 1942

Monday 09:

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

Sunday 15:

World War II: The Fall of Singapore. Following an assault by Japanese forces, the British General Arthur Percival surrenders. About 80,000 Indian, United Kingdom and Australian soldiers become prisoners of war, the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history.

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.

Sunday 22:

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

Tuesday 24:

Propaganda: The Voice of America begins broadcasting.

March 1942

Sunday 08:

World War II: Japan captures Rangoon, Burma.

Thursday 19:

The Thoroughbred Racing Association is established in Chicago, Illinois.

Friday 20:

1942 – General Douglas MacArthur, at Terowie, South Australia, makes his famous speech regarding the fall of the Philippines, in which he says: "I came out of Bataan and I shall return".

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

Friday 03:

World War II: Japanese forces begin an all-out assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula. Bataan falls on April 9 and the Bataan Death March began.

Wednesday 08:

Soviet Union forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad.

Thursday 09:

United States forces surrender on the Bataan Peninsula.

Wednesday 15:

its people and defenders" by King George VI.

Thursday 23:

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

May 1942

Monday 04:

World War II: Battle of the Coral Sea – The battle begins with the launch of attack aircraft from American and Japanese aircraft carriers.

Monday 11:

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

Wednesday 27:

assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague.

Saturday 30:

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

Sunday 31:

World War II: The Luftwaffe bombs Coventry, England

June 1942

Thursday 04:

World War II: Battle of Midway begins. Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo orders a strike on Midway Island with much of the Imperial Japanese navy.

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

Monday 13:

World War II: German U-Boats sink three more merchant ships in Gulf of St. Lawrence.

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.

Monday 20:

World War II: Red Army troops take bridgeheads over the Don River near Voronezh.

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

Wednesday 19:

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

Saturday 22:

World War II: Brazil declares war on the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan)

Sunday 23:

World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad

Monday 24:

World War II: The Battle of the East Solomon Islands. Japanese aircraft carrier Ryuho is sunk.

Tuesday 25:

World War II: Battle of Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea

September 1942

Wednesday 09:

World War II: A Japanese floatplane drops an incendiary bomb on Oregon.

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.

Tuesday 15:

World War II: The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Wasp is torpedoed at Guadalcanal.

Friday 18:

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation authorized.

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.

Wednesday 07:

1942 - Salvo Katjoesja-rocket destroys Nazi battalion in Stalingrad.

Friday 23:

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

Wednesday 28:

The Alaska Highway is completed.

Thursday 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 1942

Tuesday 10:

World War II: Germany invades Vichy France following French Admiral François Darlan agreement to an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.

Friday 13:

Aviators from the USS Enterprise sink the Japanese heavy cruiser BB- Hiei.

Thursday 19:

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.

Saturday 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).

Sunday 22:

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.

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.