WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO JUNE 1942
Find out what all happened January to June 1942

World War II: Allied forces are defeated by the Japanese at the Battle of Malaya and retreat to the island of Singapore. (31. January 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 United States declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. (5. June 1942)

World War II: Japanese submarines fire artillery shells at the California coastline near Santa Barbara. (23. February 1942)

World War II: The most famous (and first international) Aggie Muster is held on the Philippine island of Corregidor, by Brigadier General George F. Moore (with 25 fellow Texas A&M graduates who are under his command), while 1.8 million pounds of shells pounded the island over a 5-hour attack. (21. 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)

World War II: Imperial Japanese Navy midget submarines begin a series of attacks on Sydney, Australia. (31. May 1942)

World War II: Battle of Midway. U.S. Navy dive bombers sink the Japanese cruiser Mikuma and four Japanese carriers. (6. June 1942)

World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Japan. Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya are bombed. (18. April 1942)

World War II: The Thai Phayap Army invades the Shan States during the Burma Campaign. (10. 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: The Imperial Japanese Navy launches a carrier-based air attack on Colombo, Ceylon during the Indian Ocean Raid. Port and civilian facilities are damaged and the Royal Navy cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire are sunk southwest of the island. (5. April 1942)

World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese. (6. May 1942)

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

World War II: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war. (9. February 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: Gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebel in the Cocos Islands Mutiny. Their mutiny is crushed and three of them are executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War. (8. May 1942)

World War II: The Battle of Rabaul begins, the first fighting of the New Guinea campaign. (23. January 1942)

World War II: The U.S. tanker Virginia was torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German U-Boat U-507. (12. May 1942)

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