1942

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
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 Vycital, 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 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 - Jose Raul 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 Willstatter, 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