1942

**1942** (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday in the Gregorian calendar.

## Events 
* January 1 – World War II: The term "United Nations" is first officially used to describe the Allied pact.
* January 2 – World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces. The Japanese Admiral stays in Solvec (owned by Charles Henry de Silva), Philippines.
* January 5 – Amy Johnson disappears in flight over River Thames estuary – assumed drowned.
* January 6 – Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to have a flight go around the world.
* January 7 – World War II: Siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins.
* January 11 – World War II: Japan declares war on the Netherlands and invades the Netherlands East Indies.
* January 11 – World War II: The Japanese capture Kuala Lumpur.
* January 12 – President Franklin Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board.
* January 13 – Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile, which is 30% lighter than a regular car.
* January 16 – Airplane crashes near Las Vegas. Dead include Carole Lombard and her mother.
* January 19 – World War II: Japanese forces invade Burma.
* January 20 – World War II: Nazis at the Wannsee conference in Berlin decide that the "final solution to the Jewish problem" is relocation, and later extermination.
* January 25 – World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.
* January 26 – World War II: The first American forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.
* July 6 - The family of Anne Frank goes into hiding at the secret annex in Amsterdam.
* October 23 - World War II: Battle of El Alamein

## Births 
* January 8 - Stephen Hawking, British physicist (d. 2018)
* January 17 – Muhammad Ali, American boxer (d. 2016)
* January 23 - Brian Croucher, British actor
* January 25 - Eusebio, Portuguese footballer
* January 27 - Stewart Raffill, British writer and director
* January 31  Gloria Gebbia, American businesswoman
* February 2 - Graham Nash, British singer-songwriter and guitarist (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
* February 9 - Carole King, American pianist
* February 12 – Huey Newton, Black Panther
* February 13 - Peter Tork, American keyboardist (The Monkees) (d. 2019)
* February 21 - Margarethe von Trotta, German movie director
* February 28 - Dino Zoff, Italian footballer
* March 5 - Felipe Gonzalez, former Prime Minister of Spain
* March 8 – Jan Vyčítal, Czech musician
* March 17 - John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer (d. 1994; executed)
* March 24 - Stephen Yardley, British actor (Howards' Way)
* March 25 - Aretha Franklin, American singer (d. 2018)
* April 1 - Philip Margo, American singer (The Tokens)
* April 16 - Frank Williams, British Formula One team principal
* April 20 - Arto Paasilinna, Finnish writer
* April 24 - Barbra Streisand, American singer
* May 22 - Theodore Kaczynski, American serial bomber (unabomber)
* June 1 - Eric Nagler, Canadian children’s musician
* June 7 - Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan leader (d. 2011)
* June 18 – Roger Ebert, American movie critic (d. 2013)
* June 18 – Sir Paul McCartney, British musician (The Beatles)
* June 20 - Brian Wilson, American singer-songwriter (The Beach Boys)
* July 6 - Izora Armstead, American singer (The Weather Girls) (d. 2004)
* July 9 – Richard Roundtree, American Actor (d. 2023)
* July 13 - Harrison Ford, American actor
* August 1 - Michael Martchenko, Canadian illustrator
* August 2 - Isabel Allende, Chilean novelist
* August 7 – B.J. Thomas, singer
* August 27 - Daryl Dragon, American songwriter (Captain & Tennille) (d. 2019)
* September 29 - Madeline Kahn, American actress (d. 1999)
* October 31 – David Ogden Stiers, American actor
* November 7 – Johnny Rivers, American musician
* November 27 – Jimi Hendrix, American musician (The Jimi Hendrix Experience) (d. 1970)
* December 7 - Harry Chapin, American folk musician (d. 1981)
* December 23 - Quentin Bryce, Governor-General of Australia
* December 26 - Gray Davis, former Governor of California
* December 30 – Michael Nesmith, musician and member of the Monkees
* December 30 – Janko Prunk, Slovenian historian
* December 31 - Andy Summers, English guitarist (The Police)

;People who were born in this year but their day of birth is unknown
*Ningali Cullen - Australian activist

## Deaths 
* January 6 – Henri de Baillet-Latour, Belgian International Olympic Committee president (b. 1876)
* January 14 – Porfirio Barba-Jacob, Colombian poet and writer (born 1883)
* January 16 – Carole Lombard, actress
* January 26 – Felix Hausdorff, German mathematician (born 1868)
* February 19 – Frank Abbandando, Mafia hitman (executed)
* February 28 – Karel Doorman, Dutch admiral
* March 1 – Cornelius Vanderbilt III, military officer, inventor, engineer
* March 8 – José Raúl Capablanca, Cuban chess player
* April 15 – Robert Musil, Austrian novelist
* April 18 – Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, sculptor and socialite
* May 3 – Thorvald Stauning, Prime Minister of Denmark
* May 7 – Felix Weingartner, Yugoslavian conductor (born 1863)
* May 29 – John Barrymore, actor (born 1882)
*  June 18 – Elsa Binder, Polish–born Jewish diarist and supposed Holocaust victim (born  1920)
* July 13 - Irving Cutler, Airman Aboard a B-24 Bombing Bengazi Libya
* July 23 – Adam Czerniakow, Polish Jew (suicide)
* August 3 – Richard Willstätter, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1872)
* August 6 – Jonathan Campbell, movie pioneer (born 1875)
* August 25 – Prince Edward, Duke of Kent
* September 17 - Cecilia Beaux, American painter (born 1855)
* November 1 – Hugo Distler, German composer (born 1908)
* November 5 – George M. Cohan, American songwriter and entertainer
* November 19 – Bruno Schulz, Polish writer and painter (shot) (born 1892)
* December 22 – Franz Boas, German anthropologist (born 1858)
* December 25 - Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, British Indian statesman (born 1892)

## Movies released 
* *Casablanca*

## References