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World Events

• Nazi leaders attend the Wannsee Conference to coordinate the "final solution to the Jewish question," the systematic genocide of Jews known as the Holocaust.
  
  
• Declaration of United Nations is signed in Washington.
  
  

U.S. Events

• More than 120,000 Japanese and persons of Japanese ancestry living in western U.S. moved to "relocation centers," some for the duration of the war (Executive Order 9066).
  
  
• Coconut Grove nightclub fire in Boston kills 491. Background: Fires and Explosions
  
  
• Women's military services established. Background: Female Military Personnel on Active Duty by Grade, September 1998. See Also: Women's History
  
  
• Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, first health maintenance organization (HMO), begins in Oakland, Calif.
  
  

Economics

Sports

World Series

Stanley Cup

Wimbledon

Kentucky Derby Champion

NCAA Basketball Championship

NCAA Football Champions

World Cup

Entertainment

Events

• Casablanca premieres in theaters.
• Bing Crosby releases "White Christmas," from the film Holiday Inn. The song goes on to be the all-time, top-selling song from a film.
• RCA Victor sprays gold over Glenn Miller's million-copy-seller Chattanooga Choo Choo, creating the first "gold record."

Science

• The first safe self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is accomplished by Erico Fermi, Edward Teller and Leo Szilard at the University of Chicago.
• Harvard University chemist Louis F. Fieser invents napalm, a jelly-like mixture of gasoline and palm oils that sticks to its target until it burns out.
• Radar comes into operational use.
• The U.S. government establishes the Manhattan Project, led by Robert Oppenheimer, to coordinate ongoing American efforts to design and build the atomic bomb.

Year by Year: 1900-2008