Top News Stories from 1942

World Events

• Nazi leaders attend the Wannsee Conference to coordinate the "final solution to the Jewish question," the systematic genocide of Jews known as the Holocaust.
• Declaration of United Nations is signed in Washington.

U.S. Events

• More than 120,000 Japanese and persons of Japanese ancestry living in western U.S. moved to "relocation centers," some for the duration of the war (Executive Order 9066).
• Coconut Grove nightclub fire in Boston kills 491. Background: Fires and Explosions
• Women's military services established. Background: Female Military Personnel on Active Duty by Grade, September 1998. See Also: Women's History
• Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, first health maintenance organization (HMO), begins in Oakland, Calif.

Economics

Sports

World Series

Stanley Cup

Kentucky Derby Champion

NCAA Basketball Championship

NCAA Football Champions

Entertainment

Events

• Casablanca premieres in theaters.
• Bing Crosby releases "White Christmas," from the film Holiday Inn. The song goes on to be the all-time, top-selling song from a film.
• RCA Victor sprays gold over Glenn Miller's million-copy-seller Chattanooga Choo Choo, creating the first "gold record."

Science

• The first safe self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is accomplished by Erico Fermi, Edward Teller and Leo Szilard at the University of Chicago.
• Harvard University chemist Louis F. Fieser invents napalm, a jelly-like mixture of gasoline and palm oils that sticks to its target until it burns out.
• Radar comes into operational use.
• The U.S. government establishes the Manhattan Project, led by Robert Oppenheimer, to coordinate ongoing American efforts to design and build the atomic bomb.

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