On this day
Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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In mid-January, 1942, the Japanese first appeared among the islands on the eastern fringe of the Malay Barrier. By July the flag of the Rising Sun flew over the volcano-locked harbor of Tulagi and over an airfield hacked from the coconut groves of Guadalcanal, in the Solomons.
Union Elec Co devises system to re-use copper wire; illus
Benefit ball plans
Cox on TWI Job Methods Training program for foremen and supervisors
subcom approves substitute bill with safeguards on freedom of alien movements; Air Transport Command difficulties in landing Allied reprs at certain airports and head tax cited by Biddle, hearing
1942Guion Bluford, American astronaut[†]
Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. is an American aerospace engineer, retired United States Air Force (USAF) officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut, in which capacity he became the first African American to go to space. While assigned to NASA, he remained a USAF officer rising to the rank of colonel. He participated in four Space Shuttle flights between 1983 and 1992. In 1983, as a member of the crew of the Orbiter Challenger on the mission STS-8, he became the first African American in space as well as the second black person in space, after Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez.
1942Floyd Sneed, Canadian drummer (died 2023)[†]
Floyd Chester Sneed was a Canadian drummer, best known for his work with the band Three Dog Night.
1942World War II: Battle of Stalingrad: General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German 6th Army is surrounded.[†]
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, beginning when Nazi Germany and its Axis allies attacked and became locked in a protracted struggle with the Soviet Union for control over the Soviet city of Stalingrad in southern Russia. The battle was characterized by fierce close-quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians in aerial raids; the battle epitomized urban warfare, and it was the single largest and costliest urban battle in military history. It was the bloodiest and fiercest battle of the entirety of World War II—and arguably in all of human history—as both sides suffered tremendous casualties amidst ferocious fighting in and around the city. The battle is commonly regarded as the turning point in the European theatre of World War II, as Germany's Oberkommando der Wehrmacht was forced to withdraw a considerable amount of military forces from other regions to replace losses on the Eastern Front. By the time the hostilities ended, the German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army had been destroyed and Army Group B was routed. The Soviets' victory at Stalingrad shifted the Eastern Front's balance of power in their favour, while also boosting the morale of the Red Army.