WHAT ALL HAPPENED APRIL TO DECEMBER 1942
Find out what all happened April to December 1942

World War II: The Battle of Midway begins. The Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo orders a strike on Midway Island by much of the Imperial Japanese navy. (4. June 1942)

Diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and the Soviet Union are established. (10. July 1942)

During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attack and sink the Japanese Imperial Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships. (7. May 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 Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal. The battle lasts for three days and ends with an American victory. (12. November 1942)

Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement. (9. August 1942)

The Union of Pioneers of Yugoslavia is founded. (27. December 1942)

World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins with an attack by aircraft from the United States aircraft carrier USS Yorktown on Japanese naval forces at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese forces had invaded Tulagi the day before. (4. May 1942)

All 12 passengers and crewmen aboard an American Airlines DC-3 airliner are killed when it is struck by a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber near Palm Springs, California. Amongst the victims is award-winning composer and songwriter Ralph Rainger ("Thanks for the Memory", "Love in Bloom", "Blue Hawaii"). (23. October 1942)

The George Cross is awarded to "to the island fortress of Malta – its people and defenders" by King George VI. (15. April 1942)

Spaceflight: The first successful launch of a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. It is the first man-made object to reach space. (3. October 1942)

Mutesa II is crowned the 35th and last Kabaka (king) of Buganda. (19. November 1942)

The Holocaust: 1,500 Jews are sent to gas chambers in Auschwitz. (12. May 1942)

World War II: Tobruk falls to Italian and German forces. (21. June 1942)

The Steel Workers Organizing Committee disbands, and a new trade union, the United Steelworkers, is formed. (22. May 1942)

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

USS Grouper torpedoes Lisbon Maru not knowing she is carrying British PoWs from Hong Kong (1. October 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)

World War II: The British Army carries out an amphibious landing on Madagascar to re-launch Allied offensive operations in the Madagascar Campaign. (10. September 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)