Timeline March 1942

Events in March 1942 12

• 1862 – 1942 William Henry Bragg (1862-1942) Died 12 March 1942, aged 79 William Henry Bragg was a British physicist who, with his son Lawrence, founded the science of X-ray crystallography. The two shared the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics. He served as President of the Royal Society from 1935 to 1940.
• 1871 – 1942 Alexander Zemlinsky (1871-1942) Died 15 March 1942, aged 70 Alexander Zemlinsky was an Austrian composer and conductor and a teacher of Arnold Schoenberg. His works include the Lyric Symphony and the opera Der Zwerg. He fled the Nazis to the United States and died in Larchmont, New York.
• 1888 – 1942 José Raúl Capablanca Cuban chess genius and World Champion José Raúl Capablanca was World Chess Champion from 1921 to 1927 and became famous for his exceptional endgame skill and intuitive positional play.
• 1942 Roald Dahl is sent to Washington as assistant air attaché British Embassy - speeches, parties and intelligence He also passed intelligence to William Stephenson's British Security Coordination and worked alongside Ian Fleming.
• 1942 – 2013 Lou Reed (1942-2013) Died 27 October 2013, aged 71 Lou Reed was an American musician and songwriter, frontman of the Velvet Underground and later a solo artist known for albums including Transformer. He died of liver disease following a liver transplant.
• 1942 Dutch East Indies surrender to Japan Dutch colonial rule in the Indies collapses Dutch and Allied forces on Java capitulated to the Japanese army at Kalijati. The surrender ended organised resistance in the Dutch East Indies and gave Japan the oil fields it had gone to war to secure. The Japanese occupation lasted until 1945.
• 1942 Japanese capture Rangoon Burma's capital falls British forces abandoned Rangoon, and Japanese troops entered the city. Losing the port cut the main supply route to Allied forces in Burma and to China. British and Chinese armies then began a long retreat toward India.
• 1942 Deportations to Belzec begin Operation Reinhard extermination camps start killing Transports of Jews from the Lublin ghetto to the newly built Belzec extermination camp began. Belzec was the first of the three Operation Reinhard camps, followed by Sobibor and Treblinka. Around 430,000 or more people were murdered there by the end of 1942.
• 1942 MacArthur promises "I shall return" US commander pledges to liberate the Philippines Ordered to leave Corregidor, General Douglas MacArthur escaped to Australia. On arrival he made his statement that he would return to the Philippines. The line became one of the best-known pledges of the Pacific War.
• 1942 – 2018 Aretha Franklin (1942-2018) Died 16 August 2018, aged 76 American singer known as the "Queen of Soul", whose hits including "Respect" and "Chain of Fools" made her one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. She was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her voice became closely associated with the civil rights era.
• 1942 Aretha Franklin born in Memphis, Tennessee Daughter of a preacher Daughter of the Baptist minister C. L. Franklin.
• 1942 – 2024 Daniel C. Dennett (1942-2024) Died 19 April 2024, aged 82 American philosopher of mind and prominent figure in the new atheism, author of Consciousness Explained.