1942 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.
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.
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, first health maintenance organization (HMO), begins in Oakland, Calif.
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.
