December 2, 1942

1942Anna G. Jónasdóttir, Icelandic political scientist and academic^[†]

Anna Guðrún Jónasdóttir is an Icelandic political scientist and gender studies academic. She is Professor Emerita at the Center for Feminist Social Studies at Örebro University and co-director of the GEXcel International Collegium for Advanced Transdisciplinary Gender Studies, established as a centre of excellence in gender studies in 2006. She is the author and editor of several books. Anna Jónasdóttir is known, i.a., for her theory of "love power." Her book Why Women Are Oppressed was described as a "thorough attempt to revitalize one of the most provocative early themes of America's women's liberation movement" by The New York Times Book Review. She "explores the concept of women's interests in participatory democratic political theory."

1942World War II: During the Manhattan Project, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.^[†]

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.