July 1942
- 1: First Battle of El Alamein begins as Rommel begins first assault on British defences.
: Sevastopol falls to the Germans; the end of Red Army resistance in the Crimea. - 2: Churchill survives a censure motion in the House of Commons.
- 3: Guadalcanal is now firmly in the hands of the Japanese.
- 4: First air missions by American Air Force in Europe.
- 11: Rommel's forces are now stalemated before El Alamein, largely because of a lack of ammunition.
- 12: It now becomes clear that Stalingrad is the largest challenge to the invaders.
: A balloon from Operation Outward knocks out a power station near Leipzig. - 15: The only action around El Alamein is light skirmishing.
- 16: Vel' d'Hiv Roundup: On order from the Vichy France government headed by Pierre Laval, French police officers mass arrest 13,152 Jews and hold them at the Winter Velodrome before deportation to Auschwitz.
- 18: The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 V3 third prototype using only its jet engines for the first time.
- 19: Battle of the Atlantic: German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to an increasingly effective American convoy system.
- 20: After landing in the Buna-Gona area, the Japanese in New Guinea move across the Owen Stanley mountain range aiming at Port Moresby in the south-eastern part of the island, close to Australia; a small Australian force begins rearguard action on the Kokoda Track.
- 22: The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins. Treblinka, "a model" concentration camp, is opened in Poland.
- 24: Germans take Rostov-on-the-Don; the Red Army is in a general retreat along the Don River.
- 26: A second attack by the British under Auchinleck fails against Rommel. First Battle of El Alamein may be said to be over.
- 27: Heavy RAF incendiary attack on Hamburg.
- 29: The Japanese take Kokoda, halfway along the Owen Stanley pass to Port Moresby.
- 30: Continuing stalemate at El Alamein between Rommel and Auchinleck.
Read more about this topic: Timeline Of World War II (1942)
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—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)