1942
Leaders of the Zionist movement continue to relocate to the United States. A conference in New York City demands the founding of a Jewish state in all of Palestine and unlimited Jewish immigration.
1942
A public opinion poll in the United States asks the question: "Which groups menace the country most?" Jews are listed third, just behind the Germans and the Japanese. (America and the Holocaust, video)
1942
Cosmo Gordon Lang, archbishop of Canterbury from 1928 until his retirement in 1942, is created Baron Lang of Lambeth and is granted a home for life at Kew by King George VI. Lang was an influential and versatile Anglican priest who, as archbishop of Canterbury, was a close friend and adviser to King George VI. He was also briefly suspected of having conspired to bring about the abdication in 1936 of King Edward VIII, who married the U.S. divorcee Wallis Simpson. Public opinion later acquitted him of any wrongdoing during the intrigue. (Britannica)
1942
The U.S. Justice Department threatens to file suit against a number of black newspapers which it believes are guilty of sedition in their strong criticism of the government's racial policies in the armed
services. The NAACP steps in to suggest guidelines which will satisfy the Justice Department. The clear alternative is suppression of the black press, should it remain unruly.
1942
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a civil rights group dedicated to a nonviolent, direct action is founded in Chicago.
1942
Allen W. Dulles joins Col. William (Wild Bill) Donovan's Office
of Strategic Services (OSS, 1942-45).
1942
Sobibor becomes the first Operation Reinhard
camp to begin exhuming its corpses and burning them. (Apparatus)
1942
Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch is appointed an honorary SS "professor."
1942 Manhattan Project scientists under Italian-born American physicist Enrico Fermi produce the first controlled chain reaction in an atomic pile at the University of Chicago.
1942
The U.S. government confines 110,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps.
1942 January
At a meeting of the War Cabinet, Churchill reports that Roosevelt had said to trust him to the bitter end. The next day he tells the King that he is confident of ultimate victory. (Churchill Center)
1942 January
American and Filipino forces retreat from Manila to the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines.
1942 January 1
On New Year’s Day Churchill returns from Ottawa to Washington where he and Roosevelt are to sign the United Nations Charter.
1942 January 1
Twenty-six nations sign the United Nations Declaration in Washington, D.C. The Atlantic Charter and its eight principles: (1) the renunciation of territorial aggression; (2) territorial changes only with consent of the peoples concerned; (3) restoration of sovereign rights and self-government; (4) access to raw materials for all nations; (5) world economic cooperation; (6) freedom from fear and want; (7) freedom of the seas; and (8) disarmament of aggressors are also endorsed by the signatories at the Arcadia Conference. (See August 9, 1941)
1942 January 2
Japanese forces take Manila and the naval base of Cavite in the Philippines.
1942 January 4
Churchill flies to Pompano Beach, Florida, for what he calls a "vacation."
1942 January 7
The Arcadia Conference comes to an end. During the proceedings each of the 26 signatory nations has agreed to use all of their military and economic resources to defeat the Axis, pledging not to make a separate peace or armistice with the enemy.
1942 January 10
German Jews are ordered to turn in all of their wool and fur clothing. (Persecution)
1942 January 14
Churchill leaves the United States and returns to England. Over the Atlantic he takes over the controls of a Boeing flying boat, even making a couple of banked turns. (Churchill Center)
1942 January 14
Dr. Mennecke, a physician involved in the euthanasia
program, writes in a letter: "The day before yesterday, a large contingent
from our euthanasia program has moved under the leadership of Brack to the
Eastern battle-zone... It consists of doctors, office personnel, and male and
female nurses, from Hadamar and Sonnenstein, in all a group of 20-30 persons."
(Science)
1942 January 16
Donald Nelson is appointed head of the new U.S. War Production Board.
1942 January 17
Field Marshal von Reichenau dies of a stroke while returning to Germany from the Eastern Front.
1942 January 18
The Russian counteroffensive in the Moscow sector reaches a point 70 miles from Smolensk.
1942 January 19
Field Marshal von Bock is appointed to replace von Reichenau.
1942 January 20
The Wansee Conference on the "Final Solution" of the Jewish question is held at Interpol headquarters in Wansee, a quiet Berlin suburb. Reinhard Heydrich presents a plan for the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Problem." These plans provide for the transportation of all of Europe's Jews to extermination camps. Adolf Eichmann will be in charge of the department of the SS responsible for the execution of the plan.
