1942

1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday in the Gregorian calendar.

• January 1 – World War II: The term "United Nations" is first officially used to describe the Allied pact.
• January 2 – World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces. The Japanese Admiral stays in Solvec (owned by Charles Henry de Silva), Philippines.
• January 5 – Amy Johnson disappears in flight over River Thames estuary – assumed drowned.
• January 6 – Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to have a flight go around the world.
• January 7 – World War II: Siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins.
• January 11 – World War II: Japan declares war on the Netherlands and invades the Netherlands East Indies.
• January 11 – World War II: The Japanese capture Kuala Lumpur.
• January 12 – President Franklin Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board.
• January 13 – Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile, which is 30% lighter than a regular car.
• January 16 – Airplane crashes near Las Vegas. Dead include Carole Lombard and her mother.
• January 19 – World War II: Japanese forces invade Burma.
• January 20 – World War II: Nazis at the Wannsee conference in Berlin decide that the "final solution to the Jewish problem" is relocation, and later extermination.
• January 25 – World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.
• January 26 – World War II: The first American forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.
• July 6 - The family of Anne Frank goes into hiding at the secret annex in Amsterdam.
• October 23 - World War II: Battle of El Alamein

• January 8 - Stephen Hawking, British physicist (d. 2018)
• January 17 – Muhammad Ali, American boxer (d. 2016)
• January 23 - Brian Croucher, British actor
• January 25 - Eusebio, Portuguese footballer
• January 27 - Stewart Raffill, British writer and director
• January 31 – Gloria Gebbia, American businesswoman
• February 2 - Graham Nash, British singer-songwriter and guitarist (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
• February 9 - Carole King, American pianist
• February 12 – Huey Newton, Black Panther
• February 13 - Peter Tork, American keyboardist (The Monkees) (d. 2019)
• February 21 - Margarethe von Trotta, German movie director
• February 28 - Dino Zoff, Italian footballer
• March 5 - Felipe Gonzalez, former Prime Minister of Spain
• March 8 – Jan Vyčítal, Czech musician
• March 17 - John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer (d. 1994; executed)
• March 24 - Stephen Yardley, British actor (Howards' Way)
• March 25 - Aretha Franklin, American singer (d. 2018)
• April 1 - Philip Margo, American singer (The Tokens)
• April 16 - Frank Williams, British Formula One team principal
• April 20 - Arto Paasilinna, Finnish writer
• April 24 - Barbra Streisand, American singer
• May 22 - Theodore Kaczynski, American serial bomber (unabomber)
• June 1 - Eric Nagler, Canadian children’s musician
• June 7 - Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan leader (d. 2011)
• June 18 – Roger Ebert, American movie critic (d. 2013)
• June 18 – Sir Paul McCartney, British musician (The Beatles)
• June 20 - Brian Wilson, American singer-songwriter (The Beach Boys)
• July 6 - Izora Armstead, American singer (The Weather Girls) (d. 2004)
• July 9 – Richard Roundtree, American Actor (d. 2023)
• July 13 - Harrison Ford, American actor
• August 1 - Michael Martchenko, Canadian illustrator
• August 2 - Isabel Allende, Chilean novelist
• August 7 – B.J. Thomas, singer
• August 27 - Daryl Dragon, American songwriter (Captain & Tennille) (d. 2019)
• September 29 - Madeline Kahn, American actress (d. 1999)
• October 31 – David Ogden Stiers, American actor
• November 7 – Johnny Rivers, American musician
• November 27 – Jimi Hendrix, American musician (The Jimi Hendrix Experience) (d. 1970)
• December 7 - Harry Chapin, American folk musician (d. 1981)
• December 23 - Quentin Bryce, Governor-General of Australia
• December 26 - Gray Davis, former Governor of California
• December 30 – Michael Nesmith, musician and member of the Monkees
• December 30 – Janko Prunk, Slovenian historian
• December 31 - Andy Summers, English guitarist (The Police)

People who were born in this year but their day of birth is unknown

• Ningali Cullen - Australian activist

• January 6 – Henri de Baillet-Latour, Belgian International Olympic Committee president (b. 1876)
• January 14 – Porfirio Barba-Jacob, Colombian poet and writer (born 1883)
• January 16 – Carole Lombard, actress
• January 26 – Felix Hausdorff, German mathematician (born 1868)
• February 19 – Frank Abbandando, Mafia hitman (executed)
• February 28 – Karel Doorman, Dutch admiral
• March 1 – Cornelius Vanderbilt III, military officer, inventor, engineer
• March 8 – José Raúl Capablanca, Cuban chess player
• April 15 – Robert Musil, Austrian novelist
• April 18 – Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, sculptor and socialite
• May 3 – Thorvald Stauning, Prime Minister of Denmark
• May 7 – Felix Weingartner, Yugoslavian conductor (born 1863)
• May 29 – John Barrymore, actor (born 1882)
• c. June 18 – Elsa Binder, Polish–born Jewish diarist and supposed Holocaust victim (born c. 1920)
• July 13 - Irving Cutler, Airman Aboard a B-24 Bombing Bengazi Libya^[1]
• July 23 – Adam Czerniakow, Polish Jew (suicide)
• August 3 – Richard Willstätter, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1872)
• August 6 – Jonathan Campbell, movie pioneer (born 1875)
• August 25 – Prince Edward, Duke of Kent
• September 17 - Cecilia Beaux, American painter (born 1855)
• November 1 – Hugo Distler, German composer (born 1908)
• November 5 – George M. Cohan, American songwriter and entertainer
• November 19 – Bruno Schulz, Polish writer and painter (shot) (born 1892)
• December 22 – Franz Boas, German anthropologist (born 1858)
• December 25 - Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, British Indian statesman (born 1892)

• Casablanca