World Happenings: 1942
Jan. 7-FDR submits the biggest-ever budget: $59 billion; $52 billion for war.Jan. 20-Nazis announce the "final solution": all Jews are killed or forced into hard labor.
Feb. 20-FDR authorizes intern
ment of Japanese Americans on the West Coast.
March 8-Allies capitulate to the Japanese at Java, surrender 100,000 troops.
April 14-Ford develops a tire with only 1/16 of the rubber formerly used.
May 12-An Axis submarine sinks an American cargo ship at the mouth of the Mississippi River, killing 27.
June 26-Eight German saboteurs aboard submarines are seized by the Coast Guard as they attempt to land in Florida and Long Island.
Nov. 25-Russians surround 300,000 German troops occupying Stalingrad, breaking through defenses in the west and south.
Dec. 2-A group of physicists led by Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago achieves the first controlled nuclear chain reaction, opening the way to both an atomic bomb and nuclear energy.
World Happenings: 1943
Jan. 20-Washington reports 2,600 planes have been shipped to the U.S.S.R. to date.Jan. 31-German occupiers of Stalingrad surrender; nearly 200,000 are killed in fighting or die from starvation.
Feb. 9-Japanese forces withdraw from Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
March 10-Germany's Field Marshal Rommel withdraws from Africa.
April 1-Meat, fats, and cheese are rationed, following rationing of gas, shoes and canned food.
July 28-U.S. Flying Fortresses raze seven square miles of Hamburg, leaving 30,000 dead.
Sept. 3-American forces invade Italy's mainland; Italy surrenders; German and American troops battle fiercely around Naples.
Oct. 12-U.S. air fleet attacks Rabaul, wrecking 177 axis planes and 124 ships; half of Germany's cities have been seriously damaged in recent months' raids.
World Happenings: 1944
April 3-U.S. Supreme Court rules that Negroes could not be prevented from voting in Texas Democratic primaries; Southern members of Congress express fear that the ruling could be extended to other Southern states.June 6-D-Day, the long-awaited Allied invasion of Europe, begins. The Allied naval force is 5,000 battleships strong.
June 22-FDR signs the G. I. Bill of Rights, granting unemployment benefits, loan guarantees and grants for education.
July-The Allies achieve stunning successes as they clear Nazis out of Normandy and begin to liberate France.
Aug. 25-Paris is liberated from
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the Nazis as the Allies move swiftly through Southern France-from Marseilles to Niece in 14 days.
Aug. 27-Reporters view the Maidenak concentration camp, where officials estimate 1.5 million perished.
Sept. 8-The Nazis' newer, deadlier V2 rockets, which travel at the speed of sound and are impossible to detect, pound London and Antwerp.
Oct. 25-General Douglas MacArthur, fulfilling his famous promise, returns to the Philippines with 225,000 men, destroying two divisions of Japan's fleet.
Nov. 7-FDR wins an unprecedented fourth term, defeating Thomas Dewey of New York.
Dec. 16-In a bold move to counter recent losses, Hitler counterattacks in the Ardennes, hoping to drive through Brussels to Antwerp.
World Happenings: 1945
Feb. 14-Dresden, "the Florence of Germany," is devastated after two days of bombings, leaving 130,000 dead.March 10-300 B29s pound Tokyo, killing 100,000.
April 12-FDR dies of a cerebral hemorrhage; Harry Truman assumes the presidency.
April 28-Mussolini is executed following his trial.
April 30-Hitler commits suicide.
May 7-Germans surrender unconditionally.
June 21-The battle of Okinawa-the bloodiest land battle in the Pacific-ends with an American victory after several months of fighting.
Aug. 6-An atomic bomb ravishes Hiroshima; an atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki three days later.
Aug. 15-Japan formally surrenders; war ends around the world.
Sept. 4-A report indicates 100 people per day are dying from atomic bombs' fallout, after an initial death toll estimated at 190,000.
Sept. 8-Korea partitioned at the 38th parallel by Russia and the U.S.
World Happenings: 1946
Jan.-800,000 workers strike U.S. Steel Corp.; millions now on strike, including workers at GM and GE.Feb. 14-IBM introduces an electronic calculator that's 1,000 times faster than any other.
Mar. 6-Ho Chi Minh strikes an agreement with the French to recognize Vietnam as a state within the Indochinese Federation and the French Union.
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July 20-After 64 years, the British flag is lowered for the last time in Cairo.
Aug. 19-Communist leader Mao Tse-Tung orders all-out war against Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek.
Oct. 16-Nine Nazis are hanged for war crimes.
Dec. 28-The French proclaim martial law in Vietnam; Ho Chi Minh orders all citizens to take up arms.
World Happenings: 1947
Feb. 3-Congress hears a report that the Soviet Union has obtained American secrets about the atomic bomb.April 7-Henry Ford dies.
June 5-Secretary of State George Marshall unveils his plan for the economic recovery of Europe.
Aug. 15-Britain grants independence to India and Pakistan.
Oct. 14-Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound.
Nov. 11-A Soviet deputy foreign minister implies the Soviet Union has developed an atomic bomb.
Dec. 18-Arabs attack a Jewish settlement following the partitioning of Palestine by the U.N.
