1942

World War II Timeline

January 1, 1942

The Declaration of the United Nations is signed by the leaders of 26 nations.

January 2, 1942

Japan captures Manila in the Philippines.

January 12, 1942

Japan invades Burma.

January 14, 1942

The U.S. and Britain conclude the Arcadia Conference in Washington, DC. Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to establish a Combined Chiefs of Staff and to the make defeating Germany their first priority. Winning the war in Europe would come before winning the war in the Pacific.

January 20, 1942

Germany holds the Wannsee Conference in Berlin to find a "Final Solution" for the Jews.

January 25, 1942

Japan invades the Solomons.

January 26, 1942

The first U.S. troops arrive in Britain.

February 15, 1942

Japan invades Singapore.

March 8, 1942

Japan invades Rangoon in Burma.

April 9, 1942

U.S. troops on Bataan in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese , and the Bataan Death March begins.

April 18, 1942

Doolittle's raiders bomb Toyko.

May 4, 1942

The U.S. Navy repels the Japanese at the Battle of the Coral Sea. This helps save Australia and blocks the Japanese juggernaut in the Pacific.

May 6, 1942

The remaining U.S. troops on Corregidor in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese .

June 4, 1942

The U.S. defeat the Japanese at the Battle of Midway. Together with the Battle of the Coral Sea, this marks the turning point in the war in the Pacific.

June 10, 1942

Germany decimates the Czech village of Lidice after Czech resistance fighters kill SS official Reinhard Heydrich.

June 18, 1942

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers initiates the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb.

June 21, 1942

The German Afrika Korps recaptures Tobruk, Libya, from the British.

July 3, 1942

Japanese troops take Guadalcanal.

July 22, 1942

Germany begins deporting hundreds of thousands of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka concentration camp.

August 7, 1942

U.S. troops land on Guadalcanal.

August 22, 1942

Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy.

October 23, 1942

The battle between German and British troops at El Alamein in North Africa begins.

November 8, 1942

The Allies invade North Africa, beginning Operation Torch. U.S. forces landed in Algeria, Oran, and Casablanca.

November 10, 1942

Vichy French forces stop fighting the Allies. Allied forces begin move into Tunisia.

November 13, 1942

British troops recapture Tobruk, Libya.

December 9, 1942

Australian and U.S. Army forces under MacArthur fight back the Japanese at Gona in New Guinea.