What Happened in 1942 — Events, Births & Deaths

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) obtains the conviction of 33 members of a German spy ring headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne in the largest espionage case in United States history; Also known as the Duquesne Spy Ring.

World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces, enabling them to control the Philippines.

World War II: Japanese forces capture Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the Federated Malay States.

World War II: Japanese forces attack Tarakan in Borneo, Netherlands Indies (Battle of Tarakan)

World War II: United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board.

Henry Ford patents a soybean car, which is 30% lighter than a regular car.

World War II: First use of an aircraft ejection seat by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter.

The Holocaust: Nazi Germany begins deporting Jews from the Łódź Ghetto to Chełmno extermination camp.

Crash of TWA Flight 3, killing all 22 aboard, including film star Carole Lombard.

World War II: The Japanese conquest of Burma begins.

World War II: At the Wannsee Conference held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, senior Nazi German officials discuss the implementation of the "Final Solution to the Jewish question".

The Jewish resistance organization, Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye, based in the Vilna Ghetto is established.

World War II: The Battle of Rabaul commences Japan's invasion of Australia's Territory of New Guinea.

World War II: The Allies bombard Bangkok, leading Thailand, then under Japanese control, to declare war against the United States and United Kingdom.

World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.

World War II: The first United States forces arrive in Europe, landing in Northern Ireland.

World War II: Japanese forces invade the island of Ambon in the Dutch East Indies. Some 300 captured Allied troops are killed after the surrender. One-quarter of the remaining POWs remain alive at the end of the war.

World War II: Allied forces are defeated by the Japanese at the Battle of Malaya and retreat to Singapore.

World War II: Josef Terboven, Reichskommissar of German-occupied Norway, appoints Vidkun Quisling the Minister President of the National Government.

World War II: U.S. Navy conducts Marshalls–Gilberts raids, the first offensive action by the United States against Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater.

Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States government, begins broadcasting with programs aimed at areas controlled by the Axis powers.

Mao Zedong makes a speech on "Reform in Learning, the Party and Literature", which puts into motion the Yan'an Rectification Movement.

The Osvald Group is responsible for the first, active event of anti-Nazi resistance in Norway, to protest the inauguration of Vidkun Quisling.

World War II: Japan invades Singapore.

Year-round Daylight saving time (aka War Time) is reinstated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.

World War II: Second day of the Battle of Bukit Timah is fought in Singapore.

World War II: Battle of Pasir Panjang contributes to the fall of Singapore.

World War II: 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.

World War II: In Athens, the Greek People's Liberation Army is established

World War II: Attack on Aruba, first World War II German shots fired on a land based object in the Americas.

World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army begins the systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among the Chinese in Singapore.

World War II: Nearly 250 Japanese warplanes attack the northern Australian city of Darwin, killing 243 people.

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

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

World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as the Japanese victory becomes inevitable.

World War II: Japanese submarines fire artillery shells at the coastline near Santa Barbara, California.

Seven hundred ninety-one Romanian Jewish refugees and crew members are killed after the MV Struma is torpedoed by the Soviet Navy.

Voice of America makes its first broadcast.

The Battle of Los Angeles: A false alarm leads to an anti-aircraft barrage that lasts into the early hours of February 25.

World War II: Operation Biting launches its overnight raid on the German coastal radar station at Bruneval to retrieve a Würzburg installation.

World War II: During the Battle of the Java Sea, an Allied strike force is defeated by a Japanese task force in the Java Sea in the Dutch East Indies.

World War II: Japanese forces land on Java, the main island of the Dutch East Indies, at Merak and Banten Bay (Banten), Eretan Wetan (Indramayu) and Kragan (Rembang).

World War II: Ten Japanese warplanes raid Broome, Western Australia, killing more than 100 people.

World War II: Japanese forces capture Batavia, capital of Dutch East Indies, which is left undefended after the withdrawal of the KNIL garrison and Australian Blackforce battalion to Buitenzorg and Bandung.

World War II: The Dutch East Indies surrender Java to the Imperial Japanese Army.

World War II: Imperial Japanese Army forces capture Rangoon, Burma from the British.

World War II: Dutch East Indies unconditionally surrenders to the Japanese forces in Kalijati, Subang, West Java, and the Japanese complete their Dutch East Indies campaign.

The Battle of Java ends with the surrender of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command to the Empire of Japan in Bandung, West Java, Dutch East Indies.

Anne Miller becomes the first American patient to be treated with penicillin, under the care of Orvan Hess and John Bumstead.

Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland.

The War Relocation Authority is established in the United States to take Japanese Americans into custody.

World War II: 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".

World War II: In the Mediterranean Sea, the Royal Navy confronts Italy's Regia Marina in the Second Battle of Sirte.

The Holocaust: The first female prisoners arrive at Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.

The Holocaust: Nazi Germany and Vichy France begin the deportation of 65,000 Jews from Drancy internment camp to German extermination camps.

World War II: A British combined force permanently disables the Louis Joubert Lock in Saint-Nazaire in order to keep the German battleship Tirpitz away from the mid-ocean convoy lanes.

The Bombing of Lübeck in World War II is the first major success for the RAF Bomber Command against Germany and a German city.

World War II: Japanese forces invade Christmas Island, then a British possession.

World War II: Japanese forces begin an assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.

World War II: Adolf Hitler issues Fuhrer Directive No. 41 summarizing Case Blue, including the German Sixth Army's planned assault on Stalingrad.

World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy launches a carrier-based air attack on Colombo, Ceylon during the Indian Ocean raid. Port and civilian facilities are damaged and the Royal Navy cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire are sunk southwest of the island.

World War II: The Battle of Bataan ends and the Bataan Death March begins.

World War II: An Indian Ocean raid by Japan's 1st Air Fleet sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and the Australian destroyer HMAS Vampire.

World War II: The George Cross is awarded "to the island fortress of Malta" by King George VI.

World War II: French prisoner of war General Henri Giraud escapes from his castle prison in Königstein Fortress.

World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Japan: Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya are bombed.

Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of Vichy France.

World War II: In German-occupied Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is established, situated between the Lublin Ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp.

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

Benxihu Colliery accident in Manchukuo leaves 1,549 Chinese miners dead.

World War II: Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo that results in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia.

World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins with an attack by aircraft from the United States aircraft carrier USS Yorktown on Japanese naval forces at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese forces had invaded Tulagi the day before.

World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.

World War II: During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attack and sink the Imperial Japanese Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō; the battle marks the first time in naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.

World War II: The German 11th Army begins Operation Trappenjagd (Bustard Hunt) and destroys the bridgehead of the three Soviet armies defending the Kerch Peninsula.

World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington.

World War II: Gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebel in the Cocos Islands Mutiny. Their mutiny is crushed and three of them are executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War.

The Holocaust in Ukraine: The SS executes 588 Jewish residents of the Podolian town of Zinkiv (Khmelnytska oblast). The Zoludek Ghetto (in Belarus) is destroyed and all its inhabitants executed or deported.

World War II: The Thai Phayap Army invades the Shan States during the Burma Campaign.

World War II: Second Battle of Kharkov: In eastern Ukraine, Red Army forces under Marshal Semyon Timoshenko launch a major offensive from the Izium bridgehead, only to be encircled and destroyed by the troops of Army Group South two weeks later.

World War II: The U.S. tanker SS Virginia is torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German submarine U-507.

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

World War II: In the aftermath of the Battle of the Coral Sea, Task Force 16 heads to Pearl Harbor for repairs.

Mexico enters the Second World War on the side of the Allies.

World War II: The Battle of Gazala begins, in present-day Libya.

World War II: In Operation Anthropoid, Reinhard Heydrich is fatally wounded in Prague; he dies of his injuries eight days later.

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

World War II: Imperial Japanese Navy midget submarines begin a series of attacks on Sydney, Australia.

World War II: Japan begins the Aleutian Islands Campaign by bombing Unalaska Island.

World War II: The Battle of Midway begins. Japanese Admiral Chūichi Nagumo orders a strike on Midway Island by much of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

World War II: Gustaf Mannerheim, the Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Army, is granted the title of Marshal of Finland by the government on his 75th birthday. On the same day, Adolf Hitler arrives in Finland for a surprise visit to meet Mannerheim.

World War II: The United States Navy's victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway is a major turning point in the Pacific Theater. All four Japanese fleet carriers taking part—Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū—are sunk, as is the heavy cruiser Mikuma. The American carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann are also sunk.

World War II: The Battle of Midway ends in American victory.

World War II: Aleutian Islands Campaign: Imperial Japanese soldiers begin occupying the American islands of Attu and Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands off Alaska.

World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy submarines I-21 and I-24 shell the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle.

World War II: The Lidice massacre is perpetrated as a reprisal for the assassination of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich.

World War II: The United States agrees to send Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.

Free French Forces retreat from Bir Hakeim after having successfully delayed the Axis advance.

Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday.

The Holocaust: Kazimierz Piechowski and three others, dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, steal an SS staff car and escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp.

World War II: Tobruk falls to Italian and German forces; 33,000 Allied troops are taken prisoner.

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

World War II: Erwin Rommel is promoted to Field Marshal after the Axis capture of Tobruk.

The Pledge of Allegiance is formally adopted by U.S. Congress.

World War II: Germany's latest fighter aircraft, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales.

The first flight of the Grumman F6F Hellcat.

World War II: Nazi Germany starts its strategic summer offensive against the Soviet Union, codenamed Case Blue.

World War II: The 250-day Siege of Sevastopol in the Crimea ends when the city falls to Axis forces.

Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the "Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.

World War II: An American pilot spots a downed, intact Mitsubishi A6M Zero on Akutan Island (the "Akutan Zero"), which the US Navy then uses to learn the aircraft's flight characteristics.

In the Wardha session of Congress, the "Quit India" resolution is approved, authorising Mahatma Gandhi to campaign for India's independence from Britain.

The Holocaust: Nazi Germany begins the deportation of 100,000 Jews from the occupied Netherlands to extermination camps.

Holocaust: Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv): The government of Vichy France orders the mass arrest of 13,152 Jews who are held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver in Paris before deportation to Auschwitz.

World War II: During the Beisfjord massacre in Norway, 15 Norwegian paramilitary guards help members of the SS to kill 288 political prisoners from Yugoslavia.

The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me 262 using its jet engines for the first time.

World War II: The Second Happy Time of Hitler's submarines comes to an end, as the increasingly effective American convoy system compels them to return to the central Atlantic.

The United States government begins compulsory civilian gasoline rationing due to the wartime demands.

Grossaktion Warsaw: The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto begins.

World War II: The German offensives Operation Edelweiss and Operation Braunschweig begin on the Eastern Front.

Bulgarian poet and communist activist Nikola Vaptsarov is executed by firing squad.

The Norwegian Manifesto calls for nonviolent resistance to the German occupation.

World War II: Allied forces successfully halt the final Axis advance into Egypt.

World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227. In response to alarming German advances, all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so are to be tried in a military court, with punishment ranging from duty in a shtrafbat battalion, imprisonment in a Gulag, or execution.

Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands becomes the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the United States Congress.

World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal begins as the United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

Quit India Movement is launched in India against the British rule in response to Mohandas Gandhi's call for swaraj or complete independence.

World War II: Battle of Savo Island: Allied naval forces protecting their amphibious forces during the initial stages of the Battle of Guadalcanal are surprised and defeated by an Imperial Japanese Navy cruiser force.

Dmitri Shostakovich's 7th symphony premieres in a besieged Leningrad.

Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a Frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones, two-way radio communications, and Wi-Fi.

Major General Eugene Reybold of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities that would house the "Development of Substitute Materials" project, better known as the Manhattan Project.

World War II: US Navy L-class blimp L-8 drifts in from the Pacific and eventually crashes in Daly City, California. The two-man crew cannot be found.

World War II: U.S. Marines raid the Japanese-held Pacific island of Makin.

World War II: Operation Jubilee (The Dieppe Raid): The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division leads an amphibious assault by allied forces on Dieppe, France and fails.

World War II: During the Guadalcanal campaign, American forces defeat an attack by Imperial Japanese Army soldiers in the Battle of the Tenaru.

Brazil declares war on Germany, Japan and Italy.

World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad.

World War II: The Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō is sunk, with the loss of seven officers and 113 crewmen. The US carrier USS Enterprise is heavily damaged.

World War II: Second day of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons; a Japanese naval transport convoy headed towards Guadalcanal is turned back by an Allied air attack.

World War II: Battle of Milne Bay: Japanese marines assault Allied airfields at Milne Bay, New Guinea, initiating the Battle of Milne Bay.

The Holocaust in Ukraine: At Chortkiv, the Ukrainian police and German Schutzpolizei deport two thousand Jews to Bełżec extermination camp. Five hundred of the sick and children are murdered on the spot. This continued until the next day.

The Holocaust: first day of the Sarny Massacre, perpetrated by German military forces.

World War II: The Battle of Alam el Halfa begins.

World War II: In response to news of its coming liquidation, Dov Lopatyn leads an uprising in the Ghetto of Lakhva (present-day Belarus).

World War II: Japanese high command orders withdrawal at Milne Bay, the first major Japanese defeat in land warfare during the Pacific War.

World War II: Japanese marines are forced to withdraw during the Battle of Milne Bay.

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

World War II: The British Army carries out an amphibious landing on Madagascar to re-launch Allied offensive operations in the Madagascar Campaign.

World War II: RMS Laconia, carrying civilians, Allied soldiers and Italian POWs is torpedoed off the coast of West Africa and sinks with a heavy loss of life.

World War II: Second day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge in the Guadalcanal Campaign. U.S. Marines successfully defeat attacks by the Japanese with heavy losses for the Japanese forces.

World War II: U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Wasp is sunk by Japanese torpedoes at Guadalcanal.

The Holocaust in Ukraine: On the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Nazis send over 1,000 Jews from Pidhaitsi to Bełżec extermination camp.

The Holocaust in Ukraine: In Dunaivtsi, Ukraine, Nazis murder 2,588 Jews.

The Holocaust in Poland: At the end of Yom Kippur, Germans order Jews to permanently move from Konstantynów to Biała Podlaska.

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight.

World War II: The Matanikau action on Guadalcanal begins: U.S. Marines attack Japanese units along the Matanikau River.

Holocaust: Senior SS official August Frank issues a memorandum detailing how Jews should be "evacuated".

World War II: Last day of the Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marines barely escape after being surrounded by Japanese forces.

World War II: Ocean Liner RMS Queen Mary accidentally rams and sinks HMS Curacoa, killing over 300 crewmen aboard Curacoa.

A German V-2 rocket reaches a record 85 km (46 nm) in altitude.

World War II: American troops force the Japanese from their positions east of the Matanikau River during the Battle of Guadalcanal.

Australia's Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 receives royal assent.

World War II: Off Guadalcanal, United States Navy ships intercept and defeat a Japanese force.

World War II: The German submarine U-69 sinks the Canadian passenger ferry SS Caribou approximately 20 nautical miles southwest of Port aux Basques, Newfoundland.

World War II: Allied forces commence the Second Battle of El Alamein, which proves to be the key turning point in the North African campaign.

All 12 passengers and crewmen aboard American Airlines Flight 28 are killed when it collides with a U.S. Army Air Force bomber near Palm Springs, California.

World War II: The Battle for Henderson Field begins on Guadalcanal.

World War II: In the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands during the Guadalcanal Campaign, one U.S. aircraft carrier is sunk and another carrier is heavily damaged, while two Japanese carriers and one cruiser are heavily damaged.

The Alaska Highway first connects Alaska to the North American railway network at Dawson Creek in Canada.

World War II: Lt. Tony Fasson and Able Seaman Colin Grazier drown while taking code books from the sinking German submarine U-559.

World War II: Matanikau Offensive begins during the Guadalcanal campaign and ends three days later with an American victory.

World War II: The Koli Point action begins during the Guadalcanal campaign and ends on November 12.

World War II: Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel begins a retreat of his forces after a costly defeat during the Second Battle of El Alamein. The retreat would ultimately last five months.

World War II: French Resistance coup in Algiers, in which 400 civilian French patriots neutralize Vichyist XIXth Army Corps after 15 hours of fighting, and arrest several Vichyist generals, allowing the immediate success of Operation Torch in Algiers.

Battle of Stalingrad: German forces of the 6th Army under general Friedrich Paulus reach the river bank of the Volga, capturing 90% of the ruined city of Stalingrad and splitting the remaining Soviet forces into two narrow pockets.

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

World War II: France's zone libre is occupied by German forces in Case Anton.

The Turkish parliament passes the Varlık Vergisi, a capital tax mostly levied on non-Muslim citizens with the unofficial aim to inflict financial ruin on them and end their prominence in the country's economy.

World War II: Naval Battle of Guadalcanal: U.S. and Japanese ships engage in an intense, close-quarters surface naval engagement during the Guadalcanal campaign.

World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal ends in a decisive Allied victory.

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.

Mutesa II is crowned the 35th and last Kabaka (king) of Buganda, prior to the restoration of the kingdom in 1993.

World War II: Battle of Stalingrad: General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German 6th Army is surrounded.

World War II: Yugoslav Partisans convene the first meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia at Bihać in northwestern Bosnia.

Casablanca, the movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres in New York City.

A riot involving infantrymen, military police, and local law enforcement officers occurs in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, leading to three deaths.

World War II: At Toulon, the French navy scuttles its ships and submarines to keep them out of Nazi hands.

In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 492 people.

World War II: Battle of Tassafaronga; A smaller squadron of Imperial Japanese Navy destroyers led by Raizō Tanaka defeats a U.S. Navy cruiser force under Carleton H. Wright.

World War II: During the Manhattan Project, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

World War II: Carlson's patrol during the Guadalcanal campaign ends.

World War II: British commandos conduct Operation Frankton, a raid on shipping in Bordeaux harbour.

World War II: Government of Poland in exile send Raczyński's Note (the first official report on the Holocaust) to 26 governments who signed the Declaration by United Nations.

An Aeroflot Tupolev ANT-20 crashes near Tashkent, killing all 36 people on board.

World War II: The Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse begins during the Guadalcanal campaign.

The Holocaust: Schutzstaffel chief Heinrich Himmler orders that Roma candidates for extermination be deported to Auschwitz.

World War II: Japanese air forces bomb Calcutta, India.

World War II: Adolf Hitler signs the order to develop the V-2 rocket as a weapon.

World War II: French monarchist, Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle, assassinates Vichy French Admiral François Darlan in Algiers, Algeria.

USS Essex, first aircraft carrier of a 24-ship class, is commissioned.

World War II: The Royal Navy defeats the Kriegsmarine at the Battle of the Barents Sea. This leads to the resignation of Grand Admiral Erich Raeder a month later.