Events Date 1942 June | History by KabAstro

Red Sox Star Enlists

Jun 2 Red Sox star Ted Williams enlists as a US Navy aviator

Mrs Miniver

Jun 4 "Mrs Miniver" based on the novel by Jan Struther, directed by William Wyler and starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon is released in the US (Best Picture 1943)

Jun 4 Battle of Midway begins; Japan's 1st major defeat in WW II
Jun 4 Capitol Record Co opens for business
Jun 5 An explosion at the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant kills 48 people
Jun 5 British offensive in North Africa under General Ritchie
Jun 5 USA declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary & Romania
Jun 6 1st nylon parachute jump is made by Ameican parachute tester Adeline Gray (27-ish), at Brainard Field, an airport near Hartford, Connecticut; Dupont teamed with the Pioneer Parachute Company to develop use of an alternative to silk

74th Belmont

Jun 6 74th Belmont: Eddie Arcaro aboard Shut Out wins in 2:29.2

Jun 6 Japanese forces retreat, ending Battle of Midway
Jun 6 Japanese troop land on Kiska, Aleutians

Battle of Midway ends

Jun 7 Battle of Midway ends: Admiral Chester Nimitz wins 1st World War II naval defeat of Japan

Jun 7 Germany Army marches into Sebastopol, Russia
Jun 7 Japanese troops land on Attu, Aleutian Islands
Jun 7 USS Yorktown sinks near Midway Island

Silent Night

Jun 8 Bing Crosby records "Silent Night"

Jun 9 Adipatie Ario Soejono becomes minister in Gerbrandy government
Jun 9 German-Netherlands press reports, 3 million Dutch sent to East-Europe

Lidice Massacre

Jun 10 Nazis kill all inhabitants of Lidice, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now Czech Republic) which had been implicated in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi controller of Bohemia and Moravia, to “teach the Czechs a final lesson of subservience and humility”; over 170 adult men were executed by firing squad on site, women and children were sent to concentration camp gas chambers, and the village was burned down and plowed under

Jun 11 US and USSR sign Lend-Lease agreement during WW II

Anne Frank – A Light of Inspiration in the Nazi Darkness

Jun 12 Anne Frank gets her diary as a birthday present in Amsterdam

Happy Anne Frank sitting at a schooldesk in 1940, unaware of the horrors to come

Jun 12 Tornado kills 35 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Jun 13 1st V-2 rocket launch, Peenemunde, Germany; reached 1.3 km

Film & TV History

Jun 13 Gene Roddenberry marries Eileen-Anita Rexroat

Screenwriter and Creator of Star Trek Gene Roddenberry

Jun 13 Germany lands 4 saboteurs on Long Island
Jun 13 The United States opens its Office of War Information, with Elmer Davis as head
Jun 13 US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed
Jun 14 1st bazooka rocket gun produced (Bridgeport, Connecticut)
Jun 14 Anne Frank begins writing her diary, in Dutch, two days after her 13th birthday [1]
Jun 14 French government of Reynaud resigns
Jun 18 Bernard W. Robinson, becomes 1st African American ensign in US Navy
Jun 18 Eric Nessler of France stays aloft in a glider for 38h21m
Jun 19 Paul Waner is 7th to get 3,000 baseball hits

Dutch Jews Deported

Jun 20 Adolf Eichmann proclaims deportation of Dutch Jews

Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann sits in the dock at his 1961 trial in Jerusalem

Jun 20 German troops conquer Tobruk, North Africa
Jun 21 129°F (54°C), Tirat Zevi, Israel (Asian record)
Jun 21 Anneliese Seinheuer throws female world record spear (47.24m)

Rommel Takes Torbruk

Jun 21 Germany's Panzer Army led by Erwin Rommel takes Tobruk in Libya, North Africa

Roosevelt Churchill in DC

Jun 21 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British PM Winston Churchill arrive at Hyde Park for the hastily convened Second Washington Conference

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill

Shostakovich's 7th Symphony

Jun 22 European broadcast première of Dmitri Shostakovich's 7th Symphony in London conducted by Sir Henry J. Wood and the London Philharmonic Orchestra

Jun 22 Japanese submarine at the mouth of Columbia River, Oregon
Jun 22 Jewish Brigade attached by British Army in WW II, forms
Jun 23 World War II: Germany's latest fighter, a Focke-Wulf FW190 is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales
Jun 24 German Africa Korps invades Egypt
Jun 24 US Admiral Ernest King orders Tulagi (Solomon Island) reconquered
Jun 24 Village of Ležáky, Czechoslovakia destroyed by Nazis after Gestapo finds a radio transmitter believed to have been involved coordinating the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, 33 adults were executed by firing squad on site, and children were sent to concentration camp gas chambers, and the village was burned down and plowed under
Jun 25 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill travels from US to London
Jun 25 British RAF stages a 1,000 bomb raid on Bremen, Germany (WWII)