1942
January 20
Nazi leaders met at the Wannsee Conference, held in a Berlin suburb, to determine the "final solution on the Jewish question". They made plans to round up Jews from the vast areas of Nazi-controlled Europe and take them to detention centers known as concentration camps. There, healthy individuals would work as slave laborers until they dropped dead of exhaustion. Most others unable to work would be sent to extermination camps attached to many of the concentration camps, to be executed in massive gas chambers. This dreadful process is what is later known as The Holocaust where the Nazis killed nearly 6 million Jews.
February 15
Singapore surrendered to the Japanese.
June 3 - 7
Battle of Midway stopped Japan's eastward expansion. The US had picked up Admiral Yamamoto transmitting his plans for the Midway attack over the radio with an encryption code the Americans had already cracked. The American Admiral Nimitz had been waiting for the opportunity to ambush the Japanese fleet, so he ordered carriers to take positions near Midway. The Japanese were unaware that they were going into an ambush, and the American victory was clear. This was a turning point in the war. The Japanese lost four of it's largest carriers, and the us had stopped Japan's eastward expansion.
October 23
El Alamein: Allied offensive opened in Egypt. And the British forces finally managed to force The German General Erwin Rommel to a retreat at the battle of El Alamein. General Rommel, nicknamed ''Desert Fox'' was a brilliant leader and a harsh enemy of the Allies.
November 8
American forces landed in N.W. Africa, while British forces pushed westwards from Egypt. Roosevelt and Churchill had decided to attack the German empire at the edges, and the US landed troops in Africa to help the British troops against Rommel. The America army's first meet with the Germans was at the Battle of Kasserine Pass, where they were outmaneuvered and outfought. The Americans suffered 7,000 casualties and lost nearly 200 thanks. Eisenhower answered with firing the American general who led the attack and put Patton in command.