1942

1845–1958	Germany [earth sciences]	German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion.
1940–1944	USA [everyday life]	A large-scale migration of people from rural areas of the USA to the cities creates major urban problems.
1940–1949	USA [statistics and demography]	Immigration into the USA for the period 1940–49 stands at 856,608.
5 December 1941 - 5 January 1942	USSR, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	Soviet armies of the Northwest, Volkhov, and Kalinin fronts, reinforced by units from Siberia, launch a counteroffensive north and south of Moscow to relieve pressure from the German Army Group Centre's advance on the Soviet capital.
1942–1945	USA [World War II (1939–45)]	During the war, US women are recruited on a large scale for the war effort; between 1942 and 1945 the number of working women increases by 50%.
1942	USA [painting]	The US artist Edward Hopper paints Nighthawks.
1942	France [painting]	The French artist Georges Braque paints Kitchen Table.
1942	USA [philosophy]	The US philosopher Susanne Langer publishes Philosophy in a New Key.
1942	USA [poetry]	The US writer Wallace Stevens publishes two collections of poetry: Notes towards a Supreme Fiction and Parts of a World.
1942	USA [clothing and fashion]	The T-shirt is produced, designed specifically for the US Navy to allow freedom of movement and to absorb sweat.
1942	England [fiction]	The English writer Enid Blyton publishes the first of her Famous Five children's novels.
1942	USA [art]	The US photographer Gordon Parks takes American Gothic, Washington, DC.
1942	UK [charities]	A group of university academics in Oxford, England, concerned at the plight of children in occupied Greece, form the aid agency OXFAM (Oxford Committee for Famine Relief). They are headed by the classicist Gilbert Murray.
1942	USA [cinema and film]	The film Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz, is released in the USA. It stars Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Dooley Wilson, and Sydney Greenstreet.
1942	UK [cinema and film]	Twentieth Century Fox insure the legs of film star and war pin-up girl Betty Grable with Lloyds of London for $1 million.
1942	USA [World War II (1939–45)]	Civilian automobile production is halted in the USA for the duration of the war to allow for war production; petrol (gasoline) is also rationed from September.
January 1942	USA [legislation]	The US Office of Production Management bans retail sales of new cars and passenger trucks to shift the focus of the auto industry to the production of military vehicles.
January 1942	Philippines, USA, Japan [World War II (1939–45)]	Japanese troops seize Manila, the capital of the Philippines, forcing the US general Douglas MacArthur to retreat to the Battan peninsula on the island of Luzon.
8 January 1942	England [births and deaths]	Stephen Hawking, English theoretical physicist known for his theory of expanding black holes, born in Oxford, England.
17 January 1942	USA [births and deaths]	Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay), US professional boxer, born in Louisville, Kentucky.
9 February 1942	USA [World War II (1939–45)]	Clocks in the USA turn ahead one hour for daylight savings time, where they will remain for the duration of World War II.
15 February 1942	Malaya, Japan, UK [World War II (1939–45)]	The strategic British colony and naval base of Singapore surrenders to Japanese forces, together with over 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers and airmen. British prime minister Winston Churchill later describes the event as ‘the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history’.
28 March 1942	Wales [births and deaths]	Neil Kinnock, British politician, leader of the Labour Party 1983–92, born in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, Wales.
April 1942	Japan, Burma, China [World War II (1939–45)]	Japanese forces overrun Burma, seize the town of Lashio near Mandalay, and close the Burma Road, the main supply route for China's war effort running from Lashio, Burma, to Kunming, China.
23 April - 30 April 1942	UK, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	In the Baedeker raids, named after the German tourist guidebooks, German aircraft bomb Exeter, Bath, and other historic cities in Britain in reprisal for British raids on Cologne and Lübeck.
May 1942 - November 1943	Siam, Burma [World War II (1939–45)]	Japan constructs the Kwai Railway between Bangkok in Siam (modern Thailand) and Moulmein in Burma. Over 15,000 Allied prisoners of war and 90,000 native labourers die during its construction.
4 May - 8 May 1942	USA, Japan [World War II (1939–45)]	US naval forces narrowly succeed in preventing a Japanese attempt to take the Allied base at Port Moresby, Papua, in the first great carrier battle of the Pacific War, the Battle of the Coral Sea.
14 May 1942	USA [World War II (1939–45)]	In the USA, women's military involvement in the war begins when Congress founds WAAC (Women's Auxiliary Army Corps).
3 June - 6 June 1942	USA, Japan [World War II (1939–45)]	US carrier planes sink the Japanese aircraft carriers Hiryu, Soryu, Kaga, and Akagi for the loss of the US carrier Yorktown in the Battle of Midway, off Midway Island in the Pacific. The naval balance in the Pacific war swings in the Allied favour.
10 June 1942	Czechoslovakia, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	The German Gestapo (secret police) destroys the village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, in reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi ‘protector’ of Bohemia and Moravia, by Czech resistance fighters; 198 men are shot, 184 women sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, and 98 children deported.
13 June 1942	USA [World War II (1939–45)]	The Office of War Information in the USA is created to manage the government's information activities.
July 1942	Germany [aircraft]	The German Messerschmidt Me 262 makes its first flight; it is the first operational jet aeroplane.
1 July - 4 July 1942	Egypt [World War II (1939–45)]	The British 8th Army under General Claude Auchinleck halts the advance of German troops under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel into British-held Egypt at the First Battle of El Alamein.
3 October 1942	Germany [technology]	The V2 rocket, the ancestor of modern space rockets, is first launched, in Germany; weighing 40 tons it is 12 m/40 ft long, burns an alcohol-liquid oxygen mixture, can reach a distance of 200 km/125 mi, a height of 97 km/60 mi, and travels at 5,300kph/3,300 mph.
24 October - 26 October 1942	Pacific [World War II (1939–45)]	Two US aircraft carrier task forces engage the Japanese South Seas fleet under Vice-Admiral Nobutaki Kondo off the Santa Cruz Islands, near Guadalcanal. The Japanese aircraft carriers Zuiho and Shokaku are damaged, but the US carrier Hornet is sunk, leaving the damaged Enterprise the only operational Allied aircraft carrier in the Pacific.
17 November 1942	USA [births and deaths]	Martin Scorsese, US film writer and director, born in Flushing, Long Island.
27 November 1942	USA [births and deaths]	Jimi Hendrix, US rock singer and influential guitarist, born in Seattle, Washington (–1970).
2 December 1942	USA [energy]	Italian physicist Enrico Fermi and his colleagues at the University of Chicago, Illinois, use thin layers of uranium oxide and graphite to create the first nuclear pile and initiate a controlled chain-reaction – the first nuclear reactor.