| 1942-08-26
Holocaust in Chortkiv, western Ukraine: At 2.30 am the German Schutzpolizei starts driving Jews out of their houses, divides them into groups of 120, packs them in freight cars and deports 2000 to Belzec death camp. 500 of the sick and children murdered on the spot.
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| 1942-12-24
World War II: French monarchist, Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle, assassinates Vichy French Admiral François Darlan in Algiers.
|
| 1942-05-04
World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins with an attack by aircraft from the United States aircraft carrier Yorktown on Japanese naval forces at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese forces had invaded Tulagi the day before.
|
| 1942-02-10
Japanese submarine bombards Midway Atoll.
|
| 1942-01-13
Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile, which is 30% lighter than a regular car.
|
| 1942-03-02
World War II: Australia declares war on Thailand.
|
| 1942-01-12
World War II: President Franklin Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board.
|
| 1942-05-08
World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Japanese Imperial Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.
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| 1942-07-16
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 Winter Velodrome in Paris before deportation to Auschwitz.
|
| 1942-10-01
USS Grouper torpedoes Lisbon Maru not knowing she is carrying British PoWs from Hong Kong
|
| 1942-08-25
World War II: Battle of Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea.
|
| 1942-01-11
World War II: The Japanese capture Kuala Lumpur.
|
| 1942-08-22
World War II: Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy.
|
| 1942-07-01
The Australian Federal Government becomes the sole collector of Income Tax in Australia as the State Income Tax is abolished.
|
| 1942-09-15
World War II: U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Wasp is torpedoed at Guadalcanal.
|
| 1942-11-27
World War II: At Toulon, the French navy scuttles its ships and submarines to keep them out of Nazi hands.
|
| 1942-05-31
World War II: Imperial Japanese Navy midget submarines begin a series of attacks on Sydney, Australia.
|
| 1942-03-05
United States Navy Seabees established.
|
| 1942-08-16
World War II: The two-person crew of the U.S. naval blimp L-8 disappears without a trace on a routine anti-submarine patrol over the Pacific Ocean. The blimp drifts without her crew and crash-lands in Daly City, California.
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| 1942-10-29
Holocaust: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews.
|
| 1942-07-18
World War II: the Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jet engines for the first time.
|
| 1942-05-07
During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attack and sink the Japanese Imperial Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.
|
| 1942-06-23
World War II: the first selections for the gas chamber at Auschwitz take place on a train full of Jews from Paris.
|
| 1942-05-26
World War II: The Battle of Bir Hakeim takes place.
|
| 1942-10-09
Statute of Westminster 1931 formalises Australian autonomy.
|
| 1942-09-21
In Dunaivtsi, Ukraine, Nazis murder 2,588 Jews.
|
| 1942-05-22
Mexico enters World War II on the side of the Allies.
|
| 1942-03-14
Orvan Hess and John Bumstead became the first in the world to successfully treat a patient, Anne Miller, using penicillin.
|
| 1942-05-30
World War II: 1000 British bombers launch a 90-minute attack on Cologne, Germany.
|
| 1942-03-18
The War Relocation Authority is established in the United States to take Japanese Americans into custody.
|
| 1942-03-26
World War II: In Poland, the first female prisoners arrive at Auschwitz.
|
| 1942-06-05
World War II: United States declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania.
|
| 1942-02-24
Battle of Los Angeles: a UFO flying over wartime Los Angeles causes a blackout order at 2:25 a.m. and attracts a barrage of anti-aircraft fire, ultimately killing 3 civilians.
|
| 1942-02-19
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.
|
| 1942-08-23
World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad.
|
| 1942-07-01
World War II: first Battle of El Alamein.
|
| 1942-10-23
World War II: The Battle for Henderson Field begins during the Guadalcanal Campaign and ends on October 26.
|
| 1942-09-21
On the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Nazis send over 1,000 Jews of Pidhaytsi (west Ukraine) to Belzec extermination camp.
|
| 1942-10-01
First flight of the Bell XP-59 "Aircomet".
|
| 1942-08-17
U.S. Marines raid the Japanese-held Pacific island of Makin (Butaritari).
|
| 1942-11-28
In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 491 people.
|
| 1942-12-04
World War II: Carlson's patrol during the Guadalcanal Campaign ends.
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| 1942-03-17
Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lviv Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland.
|
| 1942-08-07
World War II: the Battle of Guadalcanal begins – United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.
|
| 1942-12-02
Manhattan Project: A team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
|
| 1942-07-22
The United States government begins compulsory civilian gasoline rationing due to the wartime demands.
|
| 1942-03-29
The Bombing of Lübeck in World War II is the first major success for the RAF Bomber Command against Germany and a German city.
|
| 1942-06-13
The United States establish the Office of Strategic Services.
|
| 1942-01-01
The Declaration by the United Nations is signed by twenty-six nations.
|
| 1942-09-25
World War II: Swiss Police Instruction of September 25, 1942 – this instruction denied entry into Switzerland to Jewish refugees.
|
| 1942-05-10
World War II: The Thai Phayap Army invades the Shan States during the Burma Campaign.
|
| 1942-09-12
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.
|
| 1942-05-09
Holocaust: The SS murder 588 Jewish residents of the Podolian town of Zinkiv (Khmelnytska oblast, Ukraine). The Zoludek Ghetto is destroyed and all its inhabitants murdered or deported.
|
| 1942-09-13
World War II: Second day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge in the Guadalcanal campaign. U.S. Marines successfully defeated attacks by the Imperial Japanese Army with heavy losses for the Japanese forces.
|
| 1942-01-06
Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to schedule a flight around the world.
|
| 1942-05-22
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee disbands, and a new trade union, the United Steelworkers, is formed.
|
| 1942-08-21
World War II: a Nazi flag is installed atop the Mount Elbrus.
|
| 1942-09-07
Holocaust: 8,700 Jews of Kolomyia (western Ukraine) sent by German Gestapo to death camp in Belzec.
|
| 1942-06-22
Erwin Rommel is promoted to Field Marshal after the capture of Tobruk.
|
| 1942-03-16
The first V-2 rocket test launch. It explodes at lift-off.
|
| 1942-04-21
World War II: The most famous (and first international) Aggie Muster is held on the Philippine island of Corregidor, by Brigadier General George F. Moore (with 25 fellow Texas A&M graduates who are under his command), while 1.8 million pounds of shells pounded the island over a 5 hour attack.
|
| 1942-03-23
World War II: In the Indian Ocean, Japanese forces capture the Andaman Islands.
|
| 1942-07-22
Holocaust: the systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins.
|
| 1942-08-19
World War II: Operation Jubilee – the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division leads an amphibious assault by allied forces on Dieppe, France and fails, many Canadians are killed or captured. The operation was doomed to fail, and was intended to develop and try new amphibious landing tactics for the coming full invasion in Normandy.
|
| 1942-06-21
World War II: Tobruk falls to Italian and German forces.
|
| 1942-04-17
French prisoner of war General Henri Giraud escapes from his castle prison in Festung Königstein.
|
| 1942-11-10
World War II: Germany invades Vichy France following French Admiral François Darlan's agreement to an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.
|
| 1942-10-28
The Alaska Highway (Alcan Highway) is completed through Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska.
|
| 1942-02-06
World War II: The United Kingdom declares war on Thailand.
|
| 1942-08-21
World War II: Allied forces involved in the Guadalcanal campaign defeated an attack by Imperial Japanese Army soldiers in the Battle of the Tenaru.
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| 1942-02-15
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. The Sook Ching massacre begins.
|
| 1942-06-06
World War II: Battle of Midway. U.S. Navy dive bombers sink the Japanese cruiser Mikuma and four Japanese carriers.
|
| 1942-11-05
The Second Battle of El Alamein is won by the British in El Alamein, Egypt.
|
| 1942-10-03
Spaceflight: The first successful launch of a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. It is the first man-made object to reach space.
|
| 1942-09-12
World War II: First day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge during the Guadalcanal campaign. U.S. Marines protecting Henderson Field on Guadalcanal are attacked by Imperial Japanese Army forces.
|
| 1942-11-26
World War II: Yugoslav Partisans convene the first meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia at Bihać in northwestern Bosnia.
|
| 1942-06-14
Anne Frank begins to keep a diary.
|
| 1942-02-14
Battle of Pasir Panjang contributes to the fall of Singapore.
|
| 1942-09-23
World War II: First day of the September Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps forces attack Imperial Japanese Army units along the Matanikau River.
|
| 1942-02-28
The heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30) is sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait with 693 crew members killed, along with HMAS Perth (D29) which lost 375 men.
|
| 1942-12-16
Holocaust: Porajmos – Heinrich Himmler orders that Roma candidates for extermination be deported to Auschwitz.
|
| 1942-06-07
World War II: The Battle of Midway ends.
|
| 1942-04-08
World War II: Siege of Leningrad – Soviet forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad.
|
| 1942-10-23
All 12 passengers and crewmen aboard an American Airlines DC-3 airliner are killed when it is struck by a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber near Palm Springs, California. Amongst the victims is award-winning composer and songwriter Ralph Rainger ("Thanks for the Memory", "Love in Bloom", "Blue Hawaii").
|
| 1942-03-11
World War II: General Douglas MacArthur abandons Corregidor.
|
| 1942-01-19
World War II: Japanese forces invade Burma
|
| 1942-08-08
World War II: in Washington, DC, six German would-be saboteurs (Operation Pastorius) are executed.
|
| 1942-11-08
World War II: Operation Torch – United States and United Kingdom forces land in French North Africa.
|
| 1942-06-21
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 United States mainland.
|
| 1942-12-12
A fire in a hostel in St. John's, Newfoundland kills 100 people.
|
| 1942-11-04
World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein – Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel leads his forces on a five-month retreat.
|
| 1942-03-22
World War II: In the Mediterranean Sea, the Royal Navy confronts Italy's Regia Marina in the Second Battle of Sirte.
|
| 1942-11-03
World War II: The Koli Point action begins during the Guadalcanal Campaign and ends on November 12.
|
| 1942-03-08
World War II: The Dutch surrender to Japanese forces on Java.
|
| 1942-08-09
Indian leader, Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement.
|
| 1942-05-29
Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra record Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", the best-selling Christmas single in history, for Decca Records in Los Angeles.
|
| 1942-12-22
World War II: Adolf Hitler signs the order to develop the V-2 rocket as a weapon.
|
| 1942-01-02
World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces
|
| 1942-08-30
World War II: Battle of Alam Halfa begins.
|
| 1942-11-06
World War II: Carlson's patrol during the Guadalcanal Campaign begins.
|
| 1942-05-03
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.
|
| 1942-09-21
In Poland, at the end of Yom Kippur, Germans order Jews to permanently evacuate Konstantynów and move to the Ghetto in Biała Podlaska, established to assemble Jews from seven nearby towns, including Janów Podlaski, Rossosz and Terespol.
|
| 1942-11-13
World War II: Naval Battle of Guadalcanal – U.S. and Japanese ships engage in an intense, close-quarters surface naval engagement during the Battle of Guadalcanal.
|
| 1942-06-12
Holocaust: Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday.
|
| 1942-09-09
World War II: A Japanese floatplane drops an incendiary bomb on Oregon.
|
| 1942-08-06
Queen Wilhelmina becomes the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the United States Congress.
|
| 1942-12-27
The Union of Pioneers of Yugoslavia is founded.
|
| 1942-08-08
The Quit India resolution is passed by the Bombay session of the AICC, leading to the start of a civil disobedience movement across India.
|
| 1942-01-02
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) convicts 33 members of a German spy ring headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne in the largest espionage case in United States history—the Duquesne Spy Ring
|
| 1942-06-13
The United States opens its Office of War Information.
|
| 1942-09-05
World War II: Japanese high command orders withdrawal at Milne Bay, first Japanese defeat in the Pacific War.
|
| 1942-10-26
World War II: In the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands during the Guadalcanal Campaign, one U.S. aircraft carrier, Hornet, is sunk and another aircraft carrier, Enterprise, is heavily damaged.
|
| 1942-07-19
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 the effective American convoy system.
|
| 1942-02-09
World War II: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war.
|
| 1942-02-27
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
|
| 1942-10-09
The last day of the October Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps forces withdraw back across the Matanikau River after destroying most of the Imperial Japanese Army's 4th Infantry Regiment.
|
| 1942-07-28
World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into the Soviet Union. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so were to be immediately executed.
|
| 1942-07-20
World War II: The first unit of the Women's Army Corps begins training in Des Moines, Iowa.
|
| 1942-11-21
The completion of the Alaska Highway (also known as the Alcan Highway) is celebrated (however, the highway is not usable by general vehicles until 1943).
|
| 1942-01-07
World War II: The siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins.
|
| 1942-05-12
Holocaust: 1,500 Jews are sent to gas chambers in Auschwitz.
|
| 1942-05-27
World War II: In Operation Anthropoid, Reinhard Heydrich is assassinated in Prague.
|
| 1942-09-10
World War II: The British Army carries out an amphibious landing on Madagascar to re-launch Allied offensive operations in the Madagascar Campaign.
|
| 1942-04-19
World War II: In Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is established, situated between the Lublin Ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp.
|
| 1942-11-01
Matanikau Offensive begins during the Guadalcanal Campaign and ends on November 4.
|
| 1942-09-18
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is authorized.
|
| 1942-11-22
World War II: Battle of Stalingrad – General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German 6th army is surrounded.
|
| 1942-07-17
World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad commences in modern-day Volgograd.
|
| 1942-10-07
World War II: The October Matanikau action on Guadalcanal begins as United States Marine Corps forces attack Imperial Japanese Army units along the Matanikau River.
|
| 1942-06-23
World War II: Germany's latest fighter, a Focke-Wulf FW190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales.
|
| 1942-05-28
World War II: in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Nazis in Czechoslovakia kill over 1,800 people.
|
| 1942-10-23
World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein: – At El Alamein in northern Egypt, the British Eighth Army under Field Marshal Montgomery begins a critical offensive to expel the Axis armies from Egypt.
|
| 1942-02-19
World War II: nearly 250 Japanese warplanes attack the northern Australian city of Darwin killing 243 people.
|
| 1942-08-23
World War II: The last cavalry charge in history takes place at Izbushensky.
|
| 1942-07-25
Norwegian Manifesto calls for nonviolent resistance to the Nazis.
|
| 1942-09-07
First flight of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator.
|
| 1942-11-08
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 Vichyst generals, allowing the immediate success of Operation Torch in Algiers.
|
| 1942-11-15
World War II: First flight of the Heinkel He 219.
|
| 1942-06-10
World War II: Nazis burn the Czech village of Lidice in reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich.
|
| 1942-11-12
World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal. The battle lasts for three days.
|
| 1942-06-08
World War II: Japanese imperial submarines I-21 and I-24 shell the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle.
|
| 1942-05-11
William Faulkner's collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, is published.
|
| 1942-01-24
World War II: The Allies bombard Bangkok, leading Thailand to the decision of war declaration against the United States and United Kingdom .
|
| 1942-10-11
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.
|
| 1942-03-20
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".
|
| 1942-06-11
World War II: The United States agrees to send Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.
|
| 1942-03-28
World War II: In occupied France, British naval forces raid the German-occupied port of St. Nazaire.
|
| 1942-05-12
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.
|
| 1942-02-01
World War II: Josef Terboven, Reichskommissar of German-occupied Norway, appoints Vidkun Quisling the Minister President of the National Government.
|
| 1942-08-15
World War II: Operation Pedestal – The SS Ohio reaches the island of Malta barely afloat carrying vital fuel supplies for the island's defenses.
|
| 1942-02-22
World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as the Japanese victory becomes inevitable.
|
| 1942-01-11
World War II: Japan declares war on the Netherlands and invades the Netherlands East Indies.
|
| 1942-04-23
World War II: Baedeker Blitz – German bombers hit Exeter, Bath and York in retaliation for the British raid on Lübeck.
|
| 1942-11-15
World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal ends in a decisive Allied victory.
|
| 1942-01-26
World War II: The first United States forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.
|
| 1942-04-05
World War II: The Japanese Navy attacks Colombo in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Royal Navy cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire are sunk southwest of the island.
|
| 1942-11-19
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.
|
| 1942-05-15
World War II: in the United States, a bill creating the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is signed into law.
|
| 1942-12-04
Holocaust: In Warsaw, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz set up the Żegota organization.
|
| 1942-08-17
World War II: The U.S. Eighth Air Force begins regular combat operations in Europe with an attack on the marshalling yards at Rouen-Sotteville.
|
| 1942-08-09
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.
|
| 1942-02-09
Year-round Daylight saving time is re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.
|
| 1942-09-20
Holocaust in Letychiv, Ukraine. In the course of two days German SS murders at least 3,000 Jews.
|
| 1942-06-04
World War II: The Battle of Midway begins. Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo orders a strike on Midway Island by much of the Imperial Japanese navy.
|
| 1942-04-03
World War II: Japanese forces begin an assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.
|
| 1942-08-24
World War II: The Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō is sunk and US carrier Enterprise heavily damaged.
|
| 1942-11-03
World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein ends – German forces under Erwin Rommel are forced to retreat during the night.
|
| 1942-08-25
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, losing one destroyer and one transport sunk, and one light cruiser heavily damaged.
|
| 1942-05-06
World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.
|
| 1942-04-08
World War II: The Japanese take Bataan in the Philippines.
|
| 1942-12-20
World War II: Bombing of Calcutta by the Japanese.
|
| 1942-01-20
World War II: At the Wannsee Conference held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, senior Nazi German officials decided on the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", accelerating The Holocaust.
|
| 1942-02-20
Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first World War II flying ace.
|
| 1942-07-10
Diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and the Soviet Union are established.
|
| 1942-09-03
World War II: In response to news of its coming liquidation, Dov Lopatyn leads an uprising in the Lakhva Ghetto.
|
| 1942-10-10
The Soviet Union establishes diplomatic relations with Australia.
|
| 1942-08-11
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 and Wi-Fi.
|
| 1942-05-08
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.
|
| 1942-04-09
World War II: The Battle of Bataan/Bataan Death March – United States forces surrender on the Bataan Peninsula. The Japanese Navy launches an air raid on Trincomalee in Ceylon (Sri Lanka); Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and Royal Australian Navy Destroyer HMAS Vampire are sunk off the island's east coast.
|
| 1942-01-16
Crash of TWA Flight 3, killing all 22 aboard, including film star Carole Lombard.
|
| 1942-02-11
The Battle of Bukit Timah is fought in Singapore during World War II.
|
| 1942-06-01
World War II: the Warsaw paper Liberty Brigade publishes the first news of the concentration camps.
|
| 1942-09-27
Last day of the September Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps troops barely escape after being surrounded by Japanese forces near the Matanikau River.
|
| 1942-04-15
The George Cross is awarded to "to the island fortress of Malta – its people and defenders" by King George VI.
|
| 1942-01-31
World War II: Allied forces are defeated by the Japanese at the Battle of Malaya and retreat to the island of Singapore.
|
| 1942-04-18
Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of Vichy France.
|
| 1942-07-23
World War II: Operation Edelweiss begins.
|
| 1942-03-03
World War II: Ten Japanese warplanes raid the town of Broome, Western Australia killing more than 100 people.
|
| 1942-07-06
Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the "Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.
|
| 1942-09-19
Holocaust in Brody, western Ukraine: About 2,500 Brody Jews are deported by the German Gestapo to the extermination camp in Belzec.
|
| 1942-09-21
The B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight.
|
| 1942-11-11
World War II: Nazi Germany completes its occupation of France.
|
| 1942-06-26
The first flight of the Grumman F6F Hellcat.
|
| 1942-10-12
World War II: Japanese ships retreat after their defeat in the Battle of Cape Esperance with the Japanese commander, Aritomo Gotō dying from wounds suffered in the battle and two Japanese destroyers sunk by Allied air attack.
|
| 1942-12-15
The Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse begins during the Guadalcanal campaign.
|
| 1942-03-31
World War II: Japanese forces invade Christmas Island, then a British possession.
|
| 1942-01-25
World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.
|
| 1942-07-23
The Holocaust: the Treblinka extermination camp is opened.
|
| 1942-05-22
World War II: Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox enlists in the United States Marine Corps as a flight instructor.
|
| 1942-01-13
World War II: First use of aircraft ejection seat by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter.
|
| 1942-04-18
World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Japan. Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya bombed.
|
| 1942-11-30
World War II: Guadalcanal Campaign: Battle of Tassafaronga — A smaller squadron of Japanese destroyers led by Raizo Tanaka defeats a US cruiser force under Carleton H. Wright.
|
| 1942-06-07
World War II: Japanese soldiers occupy the American islands of Attu and Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands off Alaska.
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