June 23, 1942

1942Martin Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, English cosmologist and astrophysicist^[†]

Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He was the fifteenth Astronomer Royal from 1995 to 2025, and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 2004 to 2012 and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010. He has received various physics awards including the Wolf Prize in Physics in 2024 for fundamental contributions to high-energy astrophysics, galaxies and structure formation, and cosmology.

1942World War II: Germany's latest fighter aircraft, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales.^[†]

World War II or the Second World War was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.