WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO AUGUST 1942
Find out what all happened January to August 1942

World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Japanese Imperial Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships. (8. May 1942)

Holocaust: The SS murders 588 Jewish residents of the Podolian town of Zinkiv (Khmelnytska oblast, Ukraine). The Zoludek Ghetto (in Belarus) is destroyed and all its inhabitants murdered or deported. (9. May 1942)

World War II: Battle of Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea. (25. August 1942)

Holocaust in Chortkiav, western Ukraine: At 2.30 am the German Schutzpolizei starts driving Jews out of their houses, divides them into groups of 120, packs them in freight cars and deports 2000 to Belzec death camp. 500 of the sick and children are murdered on the spot. (26. August 1942)

Crash of TWA Flight 3, killing all 22 aboard, including film star Carole Lombard. (16. January 1942)

The first V-2 rocket test launch. It exploded at lift-off. (16. March 1942)

World War II: In the aftermath of the Battle of the Coral Sea, Task Force 16 heads to Pearl Harbor. (19. May 1942)

World War II: In occupied France, British naval forces successfully raid the German-occupied port of St. Nazaire. (28. March 1942)

World War II: Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox enlists in the United States Marine Corps as a flight instructor. (22. May 1942)

World War II: The Japanese take Bataan in the Philippines. (8. April 1942)

Orvan Hess and John Bumstead became the first in the United States successfully to treat a patient, Anne Miller, using penicillin. (14. March 1942)

Benxihu Colliery accident in Manchukuo leaves 1549 Chinese miners dead. (26. April 1942)

World War II: General Douglas MacArthur leaves Corregidor. (11. March 1942)

World War II: Aleutian Islands Campaign: Japanese soldiers began occupying the American islands of Attu and Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands off Alaska. (7. June 1942)

World War II: In the Mediterranean Sea, the Royal Navy confronts Italy's Regia Marina in the Second Battle of Sirte. (22. March 1942)

The first flight of the Grumman F6F Hellcat. (26. June 1942)

World War II: The Battle of Midway ended. (7. June 1942)

World War II: The Battle of Bataan/Bataan Death March – United States forces surrender on the Bataan Peninsula. The Japanese Navy launches an air raid on Trincomalee in Ceylon (Sri Lanka); Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and Royal Australian Navy Destroyer HMAS Vampire are sunk off the island's east coast. (9. April 1942)

William Faulkner's collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, is published. (11. May 1942)

Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of Vichy France. (18. April 1942)