Events 1 - 200 of 630
- Jan 1 US & 25 other countries sign a united declaration against the Axis
- Jan 2 German troops in Bardia, Libya surrender
- Jan 2 Japanese troops occupy Manila, Philippines
- Jan 2 World War II: The 28 nations at war with the Axis powers pledge to make no separate peace deals
- Jan 3 American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command forms
Rogers Hornsby
Jan 4 7 x NL batting champion Rogers Hornsby is 14th player selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame
Churchill and Marshall to Florida
Jan 4 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill & US Army Chief of Staff General Marshall fly to Florida
- Jan 5 55 German tanks reach North-Africa
Bob Feller Enters Navy
Jan 6 MLB pitcher Bob Feller reports for duty in Norfolk, Virginia, after enlisting in the US Navy
- Jan 6 Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to complete a flight around the world; the plane "California Clipper" was re-christened "Pacific Clipper" after the feat
- Jan 7 WWII siege of Bataan in the Philippines starts (Americans and Filippino forces surrender in April)
- Jan 8 British Air Marshal Richard Peirse replaced as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Bomber Command
- Jan 9 US Joint Chiefs of Staff created
- Jan 10 Japan invades North Celebes, Dutch East Indies
- Jan 11 -23°F (-31°C), Kingston, Rhode Island (state record)
- Jan 11 Japan conquers Kuala Lumpur, Malaya
- Jan 12 British troops reconquer Sollum, Egypt
- Jan 12 Dutch troops on Tarakan island off North Borneo surrender the island's oil fields to the Japanese
- Jan 12 US National War Labor Board created to mediate labor disputes
- Jan 13 Allied Conference on war trials at St. James's Palace, London
Ford's Plastic Patent
Jan 13 Henry Ford patents a method of constructing plastic auto bodies
- Jan 13 Operation Drumbeat (Paukenschlag): German U-boats begin harassing shipping on North American Atlantic coast (198 ships sunk by April)
- Jan 13 World War II: First use of aircraft ejection seat by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter
- Jan 14 Japanese troops land at oil center Balikpapan in Borneo
- Jan 15 Chicago Cubs drop plans to install lights at Wrigley Field because of military's need for materials; takes 35 years before lights finally installed at the venerable ballpark
The "Green Light Letter"
Jan 15 US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sends his famed "Green Light Letter" to MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, encouraging baseball to continue playing during World War II
- Jan 16 William Knudsen becomes 1st civilian appointed a general in US army
- Jan 18 Nazis arrests Dutch journalist Frans Goedhart who later escapes, and Wiardi Beckman, who dies at Dachau concentration camp
- Jan 19 Dutch Catholic priest and outspoken anti-Nazi Titus Brandsma arrested by German occupiers - later dies at Dachau concentration camp; posthumously canonized by Pope Francis, in 2022
- Jan 19 Japanese forces invade Burma
- Jan 20 Japanese invade Burma
Wannsee Conference
Jan 20 Nazi officials hold the notorious Wannsee Conference in Berlin to organize the "final solution", the extermination of Europe's Jews
- Jan 21 Bronx magistrate rules all pinball machines illegal
"One O'Clock Jump"
Jan 21 Count Basie records the music single and Jazz standard "One O'Clock Jump"
Chetniks Occupy Foca
Jan 21 Serbian Chetniks forces occupy Foca - will massacre thousands of the Muslim population
- Jan 26 1st US force in Europe during WWII go ashore in Northern Ireland
- Jan 26 Italian supreme command demands dismissal of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
- Jan 27 -19°F (-27.4°C) is the coldest day in the Netherlands since 1850
- Jan 28 Revival of George Gershwin's "Porgy & Bess" opens on The Majestic Theatre, NYC, with Anne Brown & Todd Duncan
- Jan 28 Soviet troops under General Semyon Timoshenko's troops move into Ukraine
- Jan 28 WW II Navy flier Don Mason sends message "Sighted sub sank same"
- Jan 29 1st broadcast of Roy Plomley's "Desert Island Discs" on BBC radio
- Jan 29 German & Italian troops occupy Benghazi, Libya
- Jan 29 Peru and Ecuador sign Protocol of Rio (boundary determination)
- Jan 30 Japanese troops land on the island Ambon, part of the Dutch East Indies (Allied forces surrender 3rd Feb)
Quisling Government Forms
Feb 1 Second Norwegian government of Vidkun Quisling forms
- Feb 2 LA Times urges security measures against Japanese-Americans
- Feb 2 US auto factories switch from commercial to war production
- Feb 3 1st Japanese air raid on Java
- Feb 3 Baseball owners agree to permit each club up to 14 night games in 1942
- Feb 4 Clinton Pierce becomes 1st US general wounded in action in WW II
"Woman of the Year"
Feb 5 "Woman of the Year" film directed by George Stevens, starring Katherine Hepburn & Spencer Tracy opens at Radio City Music Hall, NYC
Danses Concertantes
Feb 8 Igor Stravinsky's orchestral piece "Danses Concertantes" premieres in Los Angeles, California
- Feb 8 Japanese armored barges cross Strait of Johore to attack Singapore (WWII)
Hitler Appoints Speer
Feb 8 Nazi architect Albert Speer appointed Minister of Armaments by Adolf Hitler after death of Fritz Todt in a plane crash
- Feb 9 Daylight Savings War Time goes into effect in US
- Feb 9 Japanese troops land near Makassar, South Celebes
- Feb 9 Philadelphia "Phillies" change nickname (temporarily) to "Phils"
Fused Silica
Feb 10 American chemist James Franklin Hyde is granted a patent for fused silica - a glass production breakthrough
First Gold Record
Feb 10 Glenn Miller and his Orchestra awarded the 1st ever gold record for selling 1 million copies of "Chattanooga Choo Choo"
Event of Interest
Feb 13 Operation Sealion, Nazi Germany’s invasion of England, is cancelled by Adolf Hitler
- Feb 14 Japanese parachutists land near oil center Palembang, Sumatra
- Feb 14 Rotterdam's Maas tunnel opens
- Feb 14 The Polish resistance movement, the Home Army, is formed and will eventually become the largest resistance movement in occupied Europe
- Feb 14 World War II: Battle of Pasir Panjang contributes to the fall of Singapore.
- Feb 15 German U-boat shells Antillian oil refinery
- Feb 15 Japanese troops march into Palembang, South Sumatra
- Feb 15 World War II: British ruled Singapore surrenders to the Japanese
- Feb 16 Bangka Island massacre: Japanese soldiers machine-gun 22 Australian Army nurses and 60 Australian and British soldiers and crew members from two sunken ships. Only one nurse and two soldiers survive.
- Feb 16 German submarines attack Aruba oil refinery
- Feb 18 Japanese troop land on Bali
- Feb 19 An estimated 150 Japanese warplanes attack the Australian city of Darwin
- Feb 19 Bill Longson beats Managoff & Sandor Szabo, to become wrestling champ
- Feb 19 Dutch actors protest obligatory membership of Culture Chamber
- Feb 19 FDR orders detention & internment of all west-coast Japanese-Americans
- Feb 19 Japanese troops land on Timor
- Feb 19 NY Yankees announce 5,000 uniformed soldiers admitted free at each of their upcoming home games
Music History
Feb 19 Tommy Dorsey & his orchestra record "I'll Take Tallulah"
- Feb 20 Lt E H O'Hare single-handedly shoots down 5 Japanese heavy bombers, becomes America's first World War II flying ace
'I Shall Return'
Feb 22 World War II: President Franklin Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defenses collapse
- Feb 23 Japanese submarine fires on oil refinery in Ellwood, California
Battle of Los Angeles
Feb 24 The "Battle of Los Angeles" takes place, a series of anti-aircraft engagements over the city in response to a rumored but false Japanese attack. It would last until the morning of the following day.
- Feb 24 Voice of America begins broadcasting (in German)
- Feb 26 German battle cruiser Gneisenau deactivated by bomb
- Feb 26 Radio Orange calls for March 1 day of prayer in Dutch Indies
Event of Interest
Feb 26 Werner Heisenberg, a principal scientist in the German nuclear weapons program, delivers a lecture to Nazi officials about extracting energy from nuclear fission
- Feb 27 1st transport of French Jews to nazi-Germany
- Feb 27 Battle of Java Sea began: 13 US warships sunk and 2 Japanese
- Feb 27 Radio emissions from the Sun first detected by English physicist and radio astronomer James Stanley Hey, working on WWII radar anti-jamming methods
- Feb 28 1st weapon drop on Netherlands
- Feb 28 Japanese land in Java, last Allied bastion in Dutch East Indies
- Feb 28 Race riot at Sojourner Truth Homes, a housing project in Detroit, Michigan
- Feb 28 World War II: German submarine U-578 torpedoes US Navy destroyer USS Jacob Jones (DD130) off Cape May, New Jersey, killing all but 11 of 113 man crew
- Mar 1 3 day Battle of Java Sea ends, US suffers a major naval defeat
- Mar 1 J Milton Cage Jr's "Imaginary Landscape No 3" premieres in Chicago
- Mar 1 Japanese troops occupy Kalidjati airport in Java
- Mar 1 Major League Baseball owners decide not to allow players in the military to play for their clubs when on furlough
- Mar 1 Tito establishes Second Proletarian Brigade to fight Axis occupation in Bosnia and Herzegovina
14th Academy Awards
Mar 2 14th Academy Awards: "How Green was My Valley", Gary Cooper, and Joan Fontaine win
Shostakovich' 7th Symphony
Mar 5 World première of Dmitri Shostakovich' 7th Symphony in Kuybyshev, Russia
- Mar 7 15 Mk-VB Spitfires reach Malta
- Mar 7 1st cadets graduated from flying school at Tuskegee, Alabama
- Mar 8 Japanese forces capture Rangoon, Burma
- Mar 8 KNIL, Dutch colonial army on Java, surrenders to Japanese armies
- Mar 9 Construction of the Alaska Highway begins
- Mar 11 1st deportation train leaves Paris for Auschwitz Concentration Camp
MacArthur Heads for Australia
Mar 11 General MacArthur leaves Corregidor (Bataan) for Australia
- Mar 11 Japanese troops land on North Sumatra
- Mar 12 British troops vacate the Andaman Islands in Gulf of Bengal
- Mar 13 Julia Flikke of the Nurse Corps, becomes 1st woman colonel in US army
- Mar 17 Bełżec Concentration Camp opens with the transport of 30,000 Lublin Polish Jews
- Mar 17 US General Douglas MacArthur arrives in Australia to become supreme commander
Black Players Try Out
Mar 18 2 black players, Jackie Robinson & Nate Moreland, request a tryout with the Chicago White Sox, they are allowed to work out
- Mar 18 Illegal Free Netherlands announces boycott of theaters
- Mar 18 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9102, creating the War Relocation Authority, which was charged with overseeing the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II
- Mar 19 FDR orders men between 45 & 64 to register for non-military duty
- Mar 19 Thoroughbred Racing Association of US formed in Chicago
- Mar 20 Convoy PQ13 departs Reykjavik Iceland to Russia
- Mar 20 General Douglas MacArthur vows "I came through and I shall return" after escaping Japanese-occupied Philippines
- Mar 20 Major German assault on Malta
- Mar 21 Convoy QP9 departs Great Britain to Murmansk
- Mar 23 2,500 Jews of Lublin massacred or deported
- Mar 23 Japanese forces occupy Andaman Islands in Indian Ocean
- Mar 24 US government begins moving native-born citizens with Japanese ancestry into detention centres under Executive Order 9066, with intention of preventing home-grown espionage
- Mar 25 1st 700 Jews from Polish Lvov district reach the Bełżec Concentration camp
- Mar 26 Explosion of 20 tons of gelignite in a stone quarry at Easton, Pennsylvania, kills 21
'The Banality of Evil'
Mar 26 First "Eichmann transport" to Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps
- Mar 26 German offensive in North Africa under General Erwin Rommel
- Mar 27 -28] Allies raid German submarine base in St Nazaire
- Mar 27 Japan forces Java to use "Tokyo time" 1½ hour forward
- Mar 27 Joe Louis KOs Abe Simon in 6 to retain heavyweight boxing title (NYC)
- Mar 28 -29] 234 RAF bombers attack Lubeck
- Mar 28 British naval forces raid Nazi occupied French port of St Nazaire
- Mar 28 St. Nazaire Raid (Operation Chariot): obsolete British destroyer HMS Campbeltown, rigged with explosives and flying German flags, rams gates of German occupied St Nazaire port in France, and self detonates; kills 360 Germans, and disables the dry dock for duration of the war
- Mar 29 Bombing of Lübeck in World War II was the first major success for the RAF Bomber Command against Germany and a German city
- Mar 29 British cruiser HMS Trinidad torpedoes itself in the Barents Sea
- Mar 29 German submarine U-585 sinks
- Mar 30 1st RSHA-transport from France arrives in camp Birkenau
- Mar 30 SS murders 200 inmates of Trawniki concentration camp
- Apr 1 Allied air raid on Japanese occupied harbor city Kupang, Timor, Indonesia
- Apr 1 Mexico changes from 3 time zones to 2
- Apr 2 LPGA Titleholders Championship Women's Golf, Augusta CC: Dorothy Kirby retains title by 5 strokes ahead of Eileen Stulb
USS Hornet
Apr 2 USS Hornet with Jimmy Doolittles B-25 departs from San Francisco
Pillar of Fire
Apr 8 Arnold Schoenberg & Tudor's ballet "Pillar of Fire" premieres in NYC
Gretchaninov's 4th Symphony
Apr 9 Alexander Gretchaninov's 4th Symphony premieres at Carnegie Hall, NYC, with John Barbirolli conducting the New York Philharmonic
- Apr 9 Battle of Bataan; US-Filipino forces overwhelmed by Japanese at Bataan
- Apr 10 Cigarettes & candy rationed in Holland
- Apr 11 US Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal established
- Apr 12 Japan kills about 400 Filipino officers in Bataan
- Apr 14 Destroyer Roper sinks German U-85 of US east coast
- Apr 16 Japanese occupying army on Java installs film censorship
- Apr 17 12 Lancasters bomb MAN factory in Augsburg
- Apr 17 Operations begin to destroy Sobibor Concentration Camp
- Apr 17 POW French General Henri Giraud escapes from his castle prison in Festung Königstein
- Apr 18 "Stars & Stripes" paper for US armed forces starts
- Apr 18 Stanley Cup Final, Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, ON: Toronto Maple Leafs beat Detroit Red Wings, 3-1 for a 4-3 series win; Toronto recovers after losing first 3 games
- Apr 18 The Doolittle Raid: James Doolittle leads the first air raid on mainland Japan, bombing Tokyo & other Japanese cities
- Apr 20 Nazi German occupiers forbid Dutch access to their beach
- Apr 23 1st night Exeter bombed by German Luftwaffe
- Apr 23 4-day allied bombing on Rostock begins
- Apr 24 2nd night Exeter bombed by German Luftwaffe
- Apr 25 Beginning of a 3 night bombing blitz on Bath by German Luftwaffe - 417 killed
- Apr 26 Coal mine explosion kills 1,549 at Honkeiko, Manchuria
- Apr 27 Belgian Jews are forced to wear stars
- Apr 27 Tornado destroys Pryor, Oklahoma, killing 100, injuring 300
- Apr 28 "WW II" titled so, as result of Gallup Poll
- Apr 28 German Luftwaffe estimated to have flown over 11 thousand sorties against Malta since 20th March
- Apr 28 Nightly "dim-out" begins along US East Coast
- Apr 29 Japanese troop march into Lashio, cutting off Burma Road
- Apr 29 Jews forced to wear a Jewish Star in Netherlands & Vichy-France
- Apr 30 1st submarine built on Great Lakes launched, (Peto), Manitowoc, Wisconsin
- May 1 Radio Orange calls to defy order to wear "Jewish star"
- May 2 Japanese troops occupy Mandalay, Burma
- May 3 German Luftwaffe again bombs Exeter, destroying its town centre
- May 3 Japanese troop attack Tulagi, Gavutu & Tanambogo, Solomon Islands during WWII
- May 3 Nazis execute 71 Dutch resistance fighters in reprisal at Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany
- May 3 Nazis require Dutch Jews to wear a Jewish star
- May 4 Battle of Coral Sea begins (1st naval battle fought solely in air) between Japanese, US and Australian navies and air forces
- May 4 Food 1st rationed in US
- May 4 German occupiers imprison 450 prominent Dutch as hostages
- May 4 Pulitzer prize for a Novel awarded to Ellen Glasgow for "In this our Life"
- May 5 British assault on Diego Suarez, Madagascar
- May 5 US begins rationing sugar during WW II
- May 6 Corregidor & Philippines surrender to Japanese Armies
- May 7 Battle of Coral Sea ends stopping Japanese expansion
Admirals
Aviators
Gangsters
Generals
Industrialists
Suffragists