WHAT ALL HAPPENED FEBRUARY TO JULY 1942
Find out what all happened February to July 1942

World War II: Second Battle of Kharkov: in eastern Ukraine, Red Army forces under Marshal Semyon Timoshenko launch a major offensive from the Izium bridgehead, only to be encircled and destroyed by the troops of Army Group South two weeks later. (12. May 1942)

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

The first gold record is presented to Glenn Miller for "Chattanooga Choo Choo". (10. February 1942)

Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra record Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", the best-selling Christmas single in history. (29. 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 Battle of Bukit Timah is fought in Singapore. (11. February 1942)

World War II: Battle of the Atlantic – German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to the effective American convoy system. (19. July 1942)

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

Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the "Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse. (6. July 1942)

World War II: Siege of Leningrad – Soviet forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad. (8. April 1942)

French prisoner of war General Henri Giraud escapes from his castle prison in Festung Königstein. (17. April 1942)

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

Bulgarian poet and Communist leader Nikola Vaptsarov is executed by firing squad. (23. July 1942)

World War II: Nazis burn the Czech village of Lidice in reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich. (10. June 1942)

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

The Holocaust: Kazimierz Piechowski and three others, dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, steal an SS staff car and escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp. (20. June 1942)

World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into the Soviet Union. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so are to be immediately executed. (28. July 1942)

World War II: Japan begins the Aleutian Islands Campaign by bombing Unalaska Island. (3. June 1942)

Norwegian Manifesto calls for nonviolent resistance to the Nazis. (25. July 1942)

World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at nearby Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by Japan against the United States mainland. (21. June 1942)