* 1942 – Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands becomes the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the United States Congress.

* 1942 – World War II: the Battle of Guadalcanal begins – United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

* 1942 – World War II: The Battle of Bataan / Bataan Death March – United States forces surrender on the Bataan Peninsula.

* 1942 – World War II: Japanese forces begin an assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.

After joining them in 1942, their son, Péter Bartók, enlisted in the United States Navy where he served in the Pacific during the remainder of the war and later settled in Florida where he became a recording and sound engineer.

He was created a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath by King George VI of the United Kingdom in 1942.

The Civilian Conservation Corps ( CCC ) was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 17 – 23.

The CCC disbanded one year earlier than planned, as the 77th United States Congress ceased funding, causing it to conclude operations formally at the end of the federal fiscal year on June 30, 1942.

Frank Capra's Why We Fight ( 1942 – 1944 ) series was a newsreel series in the United States, commissioned by the government to convince the U. S. public that it was time to go to war.

He had previously been a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II, and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe ; he had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942 – 43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944 – 45, from the Western Front.

United States Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones.

* Compton, A. H. " Establishing Site X: Letter, Arthur H. Compton to Enrico Fermi, September 14, 1942 ", United States Department of Energy ( through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission, ( September 1942 ).

* 1942 – World War II: U. S. Navy conducts Marshalls-Gilberts raids, the first offensive action by the United States against Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater.

* 1942 – Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States government, begins broadcasting with programs aimed at areas controlled by the Axis powers.

* 1942 – World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the executive order 9066, allowing the United States military to relocate Japanese-Americans to Japanese internment camps.

* 1942 – World War II: The United Kingdom declares war on Thailand.

* 1942 – World War II: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war.

* 1942 – Year-round Daylight saving time is re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.

However, the post still ultimately represented the government of the United Kingdom until, after continually decreasing involvement by the British government, the passage in 1942 of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 ( see Statute of Westminster ) and the Australia Act 1986, whereafter the governor became the direct, personal representative of the uniquely Australian sovereign.

By July 1942, the British and Indian forces in Burma had completed their fighting retreat back into India, and Alexander, having yet again been mentioned in despatches for his Burma service, was recalled to the United Kingdom.

* 1942 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) convicts 33 members of a German spy ring headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne in the largest espionage case in United States history — the Duquesne Spy Ring.

* 1942 – Dennis Hastert, 59th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

* 1942 – World War II: The first United States forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.

* 1942 – World War II: The United States agrees to send Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.

* 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 the Japanese against the United States mainland.

* 1942 – World War II: United States declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania.

* 1942 – World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.

From June, 1942, until December, 1945, Pfaff served in the Army Air Corps.

* 1942 – Major General Eugene Reybold of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities that would house the " Development of Substitute Materials " project, better known as the Manhattan Project.

A medal awarded to women who served in the Women Army Auxiliary Corps from 10 July 1942 to 31 August 1943, and to the Women Army Corps from 1 September 1943 to 2 September 1945 featured Athena on the front.

* 1942 – World War II: the Guadalcanal Campaign: American forces defeat an attack by Imperial Japanese Army soldiers in the Battle of the Tenaru.

He saw action in the First World War, where he was seriously wounded, and during the Second World War he commanded the Eighth Army from August 1942 in the Western Desert until the final Allied victory in Tunisia.

In 1942, a new field commander was required in the Middle East, where Auchinleck was fulfilling both the role of commander-in-chief Middle East Command and commander Eighth Army.

He had stabilised the Allied position at the First Battle of El Alamein, but after a visit in August 1942, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, replaced him as C-in-C with Alexander and William Gott as commander of the Eighth Army in the Western Desert.

Rommel attempted to turn the left flank of the Eighth Army at the Battle of Alam Halfa from 31 August 1942.

In late 1942 after several band members had left the group, and as World War II raged, Wills joined the Army, but received a medical discharge in 1943.

Irving Berlin's " This is the Army, Mr. Jones " performed by men dressed as women in 1942

The U. S. Army's last horse cavalry actions were fought during World War II: a ) by the 26th Cavalry Regiment ( PS ) in World War II — a small mounted regiment of Philippine Scouts which fought the Japanese during the retreat down the Bataan peninsula, until it was effectively destroyed by January 1942 ; and b ) on captured German horses by the mounted reconnaissance section of the U. S. 10th Mountain Division in a spearhead pursuit of the German Army across the Po Valley in Italy in April 1945.

All British Army cavalry regiments had been mechanised since 1 March 1942 when the Queen's Own Yorkshire Dragoons ( Yeomanry ) was converted to a motorised role, following mounted service against the Vichy French in Syria the previous year.

After graduating in 1942, Brubeck was drafted into the army and served overseas in George Patton's Third Army.

At the end of May 1942, Eisenhower accompanied Lt. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces, to London to assess the effectiveness of the theater commander in England, Maj. Gen. James E. Chaney.

* 1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army begins the systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among the Chinese in Singapore.

He attended the University of California at Berkeley for a year ( 1934 – 1935 ), worked as a movie projectionist, and spent three years in the U. S. Army after enlisting on August 15, 1942.

The First Battle of El Alamein ( 1 – 27 July 1942 ) was a battle of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, fought between Axis forces ( Germany and Italy ) of the Panzer Army Africa ( Panzerarmee Afrika ) commanded by Field Marshal ( Generalfeldmarschall ) Erwin Rommel, and Allied ( specifically, British Imperial ) forces ( Britain, British India, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand ) of the British Eighth Army commanded by General Claude Auchinleck.

Following its defeat at the Battle of Gazala in June 1942, the British Eighth Army had retreated from the Gazala line to Mersa Matruh, roughly inside the Egyptian border.

* 1942 September – A small group of Gibraltarians, who remained in the town serving in the British Army, joined a mechanic official, Albert Risso, to create ' The Gibraltarians Association ', the starting point of what became the Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights ( officially established in December that year ), the first political party in Gibraltar.

Whale shot the film, called Personnel Placement in the Army, in February 1942.

* Personnel Placement in the Army ( 1942 )

In 1942, Robinson was drafted and assigned to a segregated Army cavalry unit in Fort Riley, Kansas.