Historic Event
Feb 1 Second Norwegian government of Vidkun Quisling forms
- Feb 2 LA Times urges security measures against Japanese-Americans
- Feb 2 US auto factories switch from commercial to war production
- Feb 3 1st Japanese air raid on Java
- Feb 3 Baseball owners agree to permit each club up to 14 night games in 1942
- Feb 4 Clinton Pierce becomes 1st US general wounded in action in WW II
Film Release
Feb 5 "Woman of the Year" film directed by George Stevens, starring Katherine Hepburn & Spencer Tracy opens at Radio City Music Hall, NYC
Plane Crash
Feb 8 Nazi architect Albert Speer appointed Minister of Armaments by Adolf Hitler after death of Fritz Todt in a plane crash
1st Ever Gold Record
Feb 10 Glenn Miller awarded 1st ever gold record for selling 1 million copies of "Chattanooga Choo Choo"
Historic Invention
Feb 10 American chemist James Franklin Hyde is granted a patent for fused silica
- Feb 14 Japanese parachutists land near oil center Palembang, Sumatra
- Feb 14 Rotterdam's Maas tunnel opens
- Feb 14 The Polish resistance movement, the Home Army, is formed and will eventually become the largest resistance movement in occupied Europe
- Feb 14 World War II: Battle of Pasir Panjang contributes to the fall of Singapore.
- Feb 15 German U-boat shells Antillian oil refinery
- Feb 15 Japanese troops march into Palembang, South Sumatra
- Feb 15 World War II: British ruled Singapore surrenders to the Japanese
- Feb 16 German submarines attack Aruba oil refinery
- Feb 16 Bangka Island massacre: Japanese soldiers machine-gun 22 Australian Army nurses and 60 Australian and British soldiers and crew members from two sunken ships. Only one nurse and two soldiers survive.
- Feb 18 Japanese troop land on Bali
- Feb 19 About 150 Japanese warplanes attack the Australian city of Darwin
- Feb 19 Bill Longson beats Managoff & Sandor Szabo, to become wrestling champ
- Feb 19 Dutch actors protest obligatory membership of Culture Chamber
- Feb 19 FDR orders detention & internment of all west-coast Japanese-Americans
- Feb 19 Japanese troops land on Timor
Music History
Feb 19 Tommy Dorsey & his orchestra record "I'll Take Tallulah"
'I Shall Return'
Feb 22 World War II: President Franklin Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defenses collapse
Battle of Los Angeles
Feb 24 The "Battle of Los Angeles" takes place, a series of anti-aircraft engagements over the city in response to a rumored but false Japanese attack. It would last until the morning of the following day.
- Feb 26 German battle cruiser Gneisenau deactivated by bomb
- Feb 26 Radio Orange calls for March 1 day of prayer in Dutch Indies
- Feb 26 Werner Heisenberg, a principal scientist in the German nuclear weapons program, delivers a lecture to Nazi officials about extracting energy from nuclear fission
- Feb 27 1st transport of French Jews to nazi-Germany
- Feb 27 Battle of Java Sea began: 13 US warships sunk and 2 Japanese
- Feb 27 J S Hey discovers radio emissions from Sun
- Feb 28 1st weapon drop on Netherlands
- Feb 28 Japanese land in Java, last Allied bastion in Dutch East Indies
- Feb 28 Race riot at Sojourner Truth Homes, a housing project in Detroit, Michigan