WEvents from the year 1942 in the United States.
WThe Big Inch and Little Big Inch, collectively known as the Inch pipelines, are petroleum pipelines extending from Texas to New Jersey, built between 1942 and 1944 as emergency war measures in the U.S. Before World War II, petroleum products were transported from the oil fields of Texas to the north-eastern states by sea by oil tankers. After the United States entered the war on 1 January 1942, this vital link was attacked by German submarines in the Operation Paukenschlag, threatening both the oil supplies to the north-east and its onward transshipment to Great Britain. The Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, championed the pipeline project as a way of transporting petroleum by the more-secure, interior route.
WThe Bracero program was a series of laws and diplomatic agreements, initiated on August 4, 1942, when the United States signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement with Mexico. For these farmworkers, the agreement guaranteed decent living conditions, and a minimum wage of 30 cents an hour, as well as protections from forced military service, and guaranteed part of wages were to be put into a private savings account in Mexico; it also allowed the importation of contract laborers from Guam as a temporary measure during the early phases of World War II.
WChicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1, during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The secret development of the reactor was the first major technical achievement for the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to create atomic bombs during World War II. Developed by the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, it was built under the west viewing stands of the original Stagg Field. Although the project's civilian and military leaders had misgivings about the possibility of a disastrous runaway reaction, they trusted Fermi's safety calculations and decided they could carry out the experiment in a densely populated area. Fermi described the reactor as "a crude pile of black bricks and wooden timbers".
WThe Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 is a United States statute imposing an economic intervention as restrictive measures to control inflationary spiraling and pricing elasticity of goods and services while providing economic efficiency to support the United States national defense and security. The Act of Congress established the Office of Price Administration (OPA) as a federal independent agency being officially created by Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 11, 1941.
WThe Hollywood Victory Caravan was a two-week cross-country railroad journey in 1942 that brought together two dozen film stars to raise money for the Army and Navy Relief Society. It was sponsored by the Hollywood Victory Committee of Stage, Screen and Radio. The Caravan show played in 12 cities and netted over $700,000 for Army and Navy relief funds.
WThe Houston Volunteers were a group of 1,000 men who volunteered for U.S. Navy service to avenge the loss of heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30) after the ship was sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy on 1 March 1942 in the Battle of Sunda Strait.
WThe Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank J. Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chūichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondō near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that rendered their aircraft carriers irreparable. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare", while naval historian Craig Symonds called it "one of the most consequential naval engagements in world history, ranking alongside Salamis, Trafalgar, and Tsushima Strait, as both tactically decisive and strategically influential".
WOperation Pastorius was a failed German intelligence plan for sabotage inside the United States during World War II. The operation was staged in June 1942 and was to be directed against strategic American economic targets. The operation was named by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the German Abwehr, for Francis Daniel Pastorius, the leader of the first organized settlement of Germans in America.
WThe Stabilization Act of 1942, formally entitled "An Act to Amend the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, to Aid in Preventing Inflation, and for Other Purposes," and sometimes referred to as the "Inflation Control Act", was an act of Congress that amended the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942.
WOn June 5, 1942, the United States Congress declared war upon Bulgaria. Bulgaria was neutral during 1939–1941, but on March 1, 1941, Bulgaria signed the Tripartite Pact and officially joined the Axis bloc. Following this, the Bulgarian government declared war on the United Kingdom and the United States on December 13, 1941. The United States officially declared war on Bulgaria on June 5, 1942. The capital of Bulgaria, Sofia, and other Bulgarian cities, were bombed by Allied aircraft in 1943 and 1944.