A Gap Cut by War
The FIFA World Cup was held in 1930, 1934, and 1938. Then, for the first and only time in its history, it stopped. The 1942 and 1946 tournaments simply never took place. The reason is straightforward: the Second World War, which began in 1939 and ended in 1945, made staging a global football tournament impossible. Travel between countries was dangerous or banned, many nations were directly fighting each other, and resources everywhere were focused on the war effort.
What FIFA Did During the War
FIFA, the body that organises the World Cup, had been founded back in 1904. It continued to exist on paper during the war years, but most of its activities ground to a halt. There were no qualifying matches, no agreement on a host, and no way to bring teams together. With dozens of national football associations either disbanded, occupied, or fighting in the war, even talking about the next tournament was beside the point.
Returning in 1950
The World Cup finally returned in 1950, when Brazil hosted the fourth edition of the competition. A full twelve years had passed since the 1938 tournament in France. To this day, 1942 and 1946 remain the only two scheduled World Cups that have never been played. Every edition since 1950 has run on the regular four-year cycle, and the war years stand alone in the record book as the lost chapter of the tournament.
Source
This article was written using information from Wikipedia.