Shnayim Ve'arba'im Umatayim - mi yodeya?

Question

Who knows two hundred forty-two?

Please cite/link your sources, if possible. At some point at least twenty-four hours from now, I will:

• Upvote all interesting answers.

• Accept the best answer.

• Go on to the next number.

It seems that the new site's engine doesn't like the similarity of this question to previous questions in this series. I guess I'll have to get a little more creative ...

Answer 1

In a non-leap year, Shavuot is the 242nd day in the year if Heshvan is Haser (has 29 days) and Kislev is whole (has 30 days):

Tishrei - 30 days each
Heshvan, Kislev - 59 days together
Tevet - 29 days
Shvat - 30 days
Adar - 29 days
Nisan - 30 days
Iyar - 29 days Sivan - 6 days (Shavout is on the 6th day of Sivan)

Answer 2

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242.

Answer 3

To look at the figures another way, for every thousand Soviet citizens attending higher educational institutions in the late 1950s, there were... two-hundred-forty-two Jews.

— Samuel A. Oppenheim, "Jew", in, James S. Olson, editor, An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires, ISBN 0313274975, 1994, page 323.