Year by year · 20th century

1942

1942 in world history: 41 events, 15 births, 15 deaths, 2 works, 3 states founded and 1 that came to an end. 712 recorded states existed that year.

Events

  1. 1 January

    Twenty-six Allied nations sign the Declaration by United Nations

    Meeting in Washington, the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, China and others pledged to fight the Axis together and make no separate peace. The term 'United Nations' later named the post-war organisation.

    Italian EmpireUnited NationsUnited StatesSoviet Union

  2. 2 January

    Japanese forces occupy Manila

    Japanese troops entered Manila, declared an open city after American and Filipino forces withdrew to Bataan. The Philippine capital remained under Japanese occupation until its devastating liberation in 1945.

    Manila

  3. 13 January

    Henry Ford patents a plastic car body

    Henry Ford received a patent for a car body built from plastic panels on a tubular frame, part of his experiments with materials derived from soybeans. Wartime restrictions ended the project.

  4. 20 January

    Nazi officials meet at Wannsee to coordinate the Holocaust

    Chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, senior officials met at a villa on the Wannsee in Berlin to organise the 'Final Solution', the deportation and murder of Europe's Jews. The minutes survived the war.

  5. 15 February

    Singapore surrenders to Japan

    General Arthur Percival surrendered Singapore, and some 80,000 British, Indian and Australian troops became prisoners. Churchill called it the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history.

    Singapore

  6. 19 February

    Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066

    The order allowed the military to exclude people from designated areas, leading to the internment of about 120,000 Japanese Americans. Congress apologised and paid reparations in 1988.

  7. 8 March

    Japanese forces occupy Rangoon

    Japanese troops entered Burma's capital, abandoned by the British. The loss cut the Burma Road supply route to China, and by May Japan controlled most of Burma.

    Burma

  8. 14 March

    Penicillin saves its first American patient

    Anne Miller, dying of streptococcal blood poisoning after a miscarriage, was treated at a New Haven hospital with a scarce supply of penicillin. She recovered and lived to the age of 90.

  9. 12 May

    Red Army opens its offensive at Kharkov

    Soviet forces attacked around Kharkov in Ukraine to regain the initiative. German forces encircled the attackers within days, and the disaster cost the Red Army more than 200,000 men.

    Ukraine

  10. 3 June

    Battle of Midway opens with US air attacks

    Bombers from Midway Atoll attacked the approaching Japanese invasion force. The next day US carrier aircraft sank four Japanese carriers, turning the tide of the Pacific war.

    Empire of JapanBattle of Midway

  11. 4 June

    US dive-bombers wreck Japan's carrier force at Midway

    Within minutes American dive-bombers set three Japanese carriers ablaze; a fourth was hit that afternoon. Japan lost its best carriers and many experienced aircrew.

  12. 7 June

    Battle of Midway ends with the sinking of Yorktown

    The damaged carrier USS Yorktown finally sank as the battle closed. Japan's loss of four fleet carriers ended its naval superiority in the Pacific.

    Empire of JapanBattle of Midway

  13. 17 July · Event

    Vel' d'Hiv Roundup

    The Vel' d'Hiv Roundup was a mass arrest of Jews in Paris on 16–17 July 1942, carried out by French police under the Vichy government at German request.

  14. 7 August

    US Marines land on Guadalcanal

    US Marines landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, the first major American offensive of the Pacific war. Six months of fighting ended in a Japanese withdrawal.

    Ethiopian EmpireSolomon

  15. 19 November

    The Red Army launches Operation Uranus at Stalingrad

    Soviet forces attacked the weak Romanian-held flanks north and south of Stalingrad. Within four days they encircled the German Sixth Army, which surrendered in February 1943.

  16. 26 November

    Casablanca premieres in New York

    Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premiered at the Hollywood Theatre weeks after the Allies landed in North Africa. It won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

    New YorkTheatreAllies

  17. 2 December

    Fermi's team achieves the first controlled nuclear chain reaction

    Under the stands of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi's team started a self-sustaining chain reaction in Chicago Pile-1. It opened the way to atomic bombs and nuclear power.

  18. Battle

    Battle of the Java Sea

    The Battle of the Java Sea was a naval battle fought on 27 February 1942 during the Second World War, in which a Japanese fleet defeated an Allied squadron of Dutch, British, Australian and American ships.

  19. Battle

    Fall of Singapore

    The fall of Singapore was the surrender of the British garrison to Japanese forces in February 1942, after a rapid campaign through Malaya.

  20. Battle

    Second Battle of El Alamein

    The Second Battle of El Alamein was fought in Egypt in 1942 between British Commonwealth forces under Bernard Montgomery and the German-Italian army under Erwin Rommel.

  21. Treaty · Peace

    Rio Protocol

    The Rio de Janeiro Protocol was signed on 29 January 1942 by Ecuador and Peru after Peru's victory in the war of 1941, with Argentina, Brazil, Chile and the United States as guarantors.

  22. Campaign

    Operation Torch

    Operation Torch was the Allied invasion of French North Africa in November 1942, with landings around Casablanca, Oran and Algiers.

  23. Event

    Wannsee Conference

    The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior Nazi officials held at a villa on the Wannsee lake in Berlin on 20 January 1942.

  24. Battle

    Battle of Bataan

    The Battle of Bataan was fought from January to April 1942 on the Bataan Peninsula of Luzon, where American and Filipino forces under Douglas MacArthur withdrew after the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.

  25. Battle

    Battle of Bir Hakeim

    The Battle of Bir Hakeim was fought in the Libyan desert from 26 May to 11 June 1942, as part of the Battle of Gazala.

  26. Battle

    Battle of Madagascar

    The Battle of Madagascar was the Allied campaign of 1942 to take Vichy French Madagascar and deny its harbours to Japan.

  27. Campaign

    Kokoda Track campaign

    The Kokoda Track campaign was fought between July and November 1942 in the Owen Stanley Range of Papua, then an Australian territory.

  28. Event

    Quit India Movement

    The Quit India Movement was a mass campaign launched by the Indian National Congress on 8 August 1942, demanding an immediate end to British rule.

  29. Event

    Sook Ching

    Sook Ching, meaning "purge through cleansing", was the mass killing of ethnic Chinese by the Japanese military in Singapore and Malaya after the fall of Singapore in February 1942.

  30. Battle

    Battle of Corregidor (1942)

    The Battle of Corregidor was the last stand of American and Filipino forces in the Philippines in 1942, on the fortified island at the mouth of Manila Bay.

  31. Event

    Cripps Mission

    The Cripps Mission was a British attempt in March and April 1942 to secure Indian cooperation in the Second World War.

ProfileState657 states with a known seat in 1942Open the atlas at 1942 →

In the profiles

Wars and longer events

Born in 1942 15

Died in 1942 15

Works 2

States founded 3

States that came to an end 1

Great speeches

Gandhi: Do or DieMahatma Gandhi

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APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). 1942. In The Epoch Institute, Year by Year. https://the-epoch-institute.org/years/1942
MLA
“1942.” The Epoch Institute, Year by Year, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/years/1942. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “1942.” The Epoch Institute, Year by Year. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/years/1942.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘1942’, The Epoch Institute, Year by Year. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/years/1942 (Accessed: ).