1943

Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

Events of 1943

(Below, many events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.)

January

January 4 - End of term for Culbert Olson, 29th Governor of California. He is succeeded by Earl Warren.
January 11

The United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China.
General Juanto dies in Argentina - Ramón Castillo succeeds him

January 12 - Dutch journalist and writer Jan Campert, dies in Neuengamme concentration camp
January 13 - Helmut Schenk is the first person to use an ejection seat from an aircraft
January 14 - Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to travel by airplane while in office (Miami, Florida to Morocco to meet with Winston Churchill to discuss World War II).
January 15

WWII: Japanese are driven off Guadalcanal.
The world's largest office building, The Pentagon, is dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.

January 18

WWII: Soviet officials announce they have broken the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad.
Beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

January 23

WWII: British forces capture Tripoli from the Italians.
Duke Ellington plays at New York City's Carnegie Hall for the first time.

Critic and commentator Alexander Woollcott suffers an eventually fatal heart attack during a regular broadcast of the CBS Radio roundtable program "People's Platform".

January 27 - WWII: 50 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany (Wilhelmshaven was the target).
January 29 - German police arrest alleged necrophiliac Bruno Ludke

February

February 2 - WWII: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end with the surrender of the German 6th Army.
February 3 - WWII:

The death of the Four Chaplains when their ship was struck by a torpedo

February 7 - WWII: In the United States, it is announced that shoe rationing will go into effect in two days.
February 8 - WWII: Battle of Guadalcanal - United States forces defeat Japanese troops.
February 10 - March 3 - Mohandas Gandhi keeps a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment
February 11 - General Eisenhower is selected to command the allied armies in Europe.
February 14 - WWII:

Rostov-na-Donu, Russia is liberated.
Battle of the Kasserine Pass - German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia; it is the United States' first major battle defeat of the war.

February 16 - WWII: Soviet Union reconquers Kharkov, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkov
February 18

In a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast German Propagandaminister (Propaganda Minister) Joseph Goebbels declare a "Total War" against the allies
The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement.

February 20

American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
The Mexican volcano Parícutin is born in a farmer's cornfield.

February 22 - Members of White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.
February 23 - A fire breaks out at St Joseph's Orphanage ,Co Cavan , Ireland , killing 36 people (35 of whom were children)
February 27 - The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, United States explodes, killing 74 men.
February 28 - Operation Gunnerside, 6 Norwegians led by Joachim Ronneberg successfully attack the heavy water plant Vemork.

March

March 1 - Heinz Guderian becomes the Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops for the German Army.
March 2 - WWII: Battle of the Bismarck Sea - United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships.
March 3 - 173 people are killed in a crush while trying to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green tube station in London.
March 4 - 15th Academy Awards ceremony
March 8 - WWII: American forces are attacked by Japanese troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville in a battle that will last five days.
March 13

WWII: On Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700.
Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.

March 17 - Éamon de Valera makes the speech "The Ireland That We Dreamed Of", commonly called the "comely maidens" speech
March 19 - Frank Nitti suicides
March 22 - WWII: The entire population of Khatyn in Belarus is burnt alive by the German occupation forces.
March 23- the drug in Vicodin and Lortab is made in Germany.
March 26 - WWII: Battle of Komandorski Islands - In the Aleutian Islands the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska.
March 28 - In Italy a ship full of weapons and ammunitions explode in the port of Naples, over 600 dead
March 31 - Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! opens on Broadway, heralds a new era in "integrated" stage musicals, becomes an instantaneous stage classic, and goes on to be Broadway's longest-running musical up to that time (1948).

April

April 3 - Shipwrecked steward Poon Lim is rescued by Brazilian fishermen after he has been adrift for 130 days
April 13 - WWII: Radio Berlin announces the discovery by Wehrmacht of mass graves of Poles killed by Soviets in the Katyn massacre.
April 19 - Albert Hofmann self administers the drug LSD for the first time in history, and records the details of his trip.
April 19 - A BOAC scheduled passenger flight, a DC-3 with registration: G-AGBB, (formerly KLM PH-ALI, Ibis), enroute between Lisbon and Bristol, is attacked over the Bay of Biscay by German fighters. They manage to escape and land in England. Other attacks on the same aircraft and on the same scheduled route: November 15 1942 and June 1 1943 (fatal).
April 21 - Worst Bombing of Aberdeen in WW2.
April 22 - Albert Hofmann writes his first report about the hallucinogenic properties of LSD, which he first synthesized in 1938.
April 25 - Easter occurs on the latest possible date. Last time 1886 next time 2038.
April 27 - The U.S. Federal Writers' Project is shuttered.

May

May 9-12 - Japanese troops carry out the Changjiao massacre in Changjiao, Hunan, China.
May 11 - WWII: American troops invade Attu in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
May 12 - Trident Conference begins in Washington, D.C. with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill taking part.
May 13 - WWII: German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces.
May 14 - Sinking of the Australian Hospital Ship Centaur off the coast of Queensland, by a Japanese submarine.
May 15 - Comintern is dissolved.
May 16 - WWII: The Dambuster Raids by RAF 617 Sqdn on German dams.
May 16 - Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends.
May 17 - WWII:

Surviving RAF Dam Busters return.
The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.
The Memphis Belle Becomes the first airplane in the 8th Air Force to complete a 25-mission tour of duty.

May 19 - Winston Churchill addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress.
May 24 - Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes Chief Medical Officer in Auschwitz.
May 29 - Norman Rockwell's illustration of "Rosie the Riveter" first appears on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.
May 31 - Rioting between military personnel and Mexican American youths erupts in East Los Angeles and is dubbed the "Zoot Suit Riots".
May 31 - Helmut Kapp has been killed in Jędrzejów

June

June 1 - British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 777, a DC-3 with registration: G-AGBB, (formerly KLM PH-ALI, Ibis), on a scheduled passenger flight, is shot down over the Bay of Biscay by German Junkers Ju 88s, all 17 persons aboard perish, including the actor Leslie Howard. There is speculation that the downing was an attempt to kill British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as the Germans may have had wrong information he was aboard. Previous (for the occupants more fortunate) attacks on the same aircraft and on the same scheduled route happened on November 15 1942 and April 19 1943.
June 4 - Military Coup d'état in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.
June 13 - The Looney Tunes animated short Porky Pig's Feat, is released to theaters in the U.S.
June 22 - U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division land in North Africa prior to training at Arzew, French Morocco while serving in World War II.

July

July 5 - WWII:

Battle of Kursk - The largest tank battle in history begins.
An Allied invasion fleet sails to Sicily.

July 6 - WWII: Americans and Japanese fight the Battle of Kula Gulf off Kolombangara.
July 8 - Sir Harry Oakes is found murdered at his mansion in the Bahamas
July 10 - WWII: The Allied invasion of Sicily marks the beginning allied invasion of Axis-controlled Europe with landings on the island of Sicily, off mainland Italy by the U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division.
July 11 - United States Army forces assault the village of Piano Lupo, just outside of Gela, Sicily.
July 12 - WWII: the Wehrmacht and the Red Army fight the Battle of Prokhorovka.
July 13 - WWII: the invasion of Sicily begins with British landings at Augusta on the island's eastern side and American landings to the south.
July 19 - WWII: Rome is bombed by the Allies for the first time in the war.
July 24 - WWII: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, those of the Americans by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.
July 25 - *In Italy the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo retires its consent to Mussolini; Mussolini is arrested and the power is given to Maresciallo d'Italia Gen. Pietro Badoglio.
July 28 - WWII: Operation Gomorrah - The British bomb Hamburg causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.

August

August 1 - Operation Tidal Wave: 177 B-24 Liberator bombers from the U.S. Army Air Force bomb oil refineries at Ploieşti, Romania.
August 3 - WWII: John F. Kennedy's PT-109 is rammed by a destroyer, the Battle of Vella Gulf will be more successful.
August 4 - WWII: USS Intrepid (CV-11) is launched
August 5 - WWII: John F. Kennedy and crew are found by coastwatcher scouts Solomon Islanders Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana with their dugout canoe.
August 6 - WWII: Americans defeat a Japanese convoy at the Battle of Vella Gulf off Kolombangara as the U.S. Army drives the Japanese out of Munda airfield on New Georgia.
August 13 - WWII: Rome is declared an open city.
August 14 - Quadrant Conference begins in Quebec City. Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King meets with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
August 17 - WWII: The US 7th Army under General George S. Patton arrive in Messina, Sicily followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
August 23 - The Battle of Kursk ends with a serious strategic defeat for the German forces.
August 24 - WWII: Germany - Heinrich Himmler is named Reichminister of the Interior.
August 26 - WWII: Lord Louis Mountbatten is named Supreme Allied Commander for Southeast Asia.
August 28 - WWII: Bulgaria - King Boris III dies under peculiar circumstances. His six-year-old son, Simeon II, ascends to the throne.
August 29 - WWII: Germany dissolves the Danish government after it refuses to deal with a wave of strikes and disturbances to the satisfaction of the German authorities. (See: Occupation of Denmark)

September

September 3 - WWII: Mainland Italy is invaded by Allied forces under Bernard L. Montgomery, for the first time in the war.
September 5 - WWII: The 503rd Parachute Regiment under American General Douglas MacArthur lands and occupies Nadzab, just east of the port city of Lae in northeastern Papua New Guinea.
September 7 - A fire at the Gulf Hotel in Houston, Texas, kills 55 people.
September 8 - WWII:

United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies and the USAAF bombed the German General Headquarter for the Mediterranean zone Frascati bombing raid September 8, 1943.
Julius Fucik is executed by Nazis.

September 8 - First classes commence at Grace University.
September 12 - WWII: German paratroopers rescue Mussolini from imprisonment, in "Operation Oak".
September 16 - WWII: Salerno Mutiny
September 17 - WWII: The Villefranche-de-Rouergue uprising takes place.
September 23 - WWII: Republic of Salò is founded.
September 27 - WWII: First of the four days of Naples uprising.

October

October 1 - WWII: American forces enter liberated Naples.
October 6 - WWII: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Vella Lavella.
October 7 - WWII: Naples post office explosion
October 10 - The Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky instituted in the USSR.
October 13 - WWII: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.
October 18 - Chiang Kai-shek takes the oath of office as president of China.
October 21 - Lucie Aubrac and others in her French Resistance cell liberate Raymond Aubrac from Gestapo imprisonment
October 22 - WWII: RAF delivers a highly destructive airstrike on the German industrial and population center of Kassel
October 30 - The Merrie Melodies short, Falling Hare, the only short with Bugs getting out-smarted is released.

November

November 1 - WWII: In Operation Goodtime, United States Marines land on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.
November 2 - WWII:

In the early morning hours, American and Japanese ships fight the inconclusive Battle of Empress Augusta Bay off Bougainville.
British troops, in Italy, reach the Garigliano River.

November 14 - Leonard Bernstein, substituting at the last minute for ailing principal conductor Bruno Walter, directs the New York Philharmonic in its regular Sunday afternoon broadcast concert over CBS Radio. The event receives front page coverage in the New York Times the following day.
November 15 - Porajmos: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies and "part-Gypsies" were to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps."
November 16 - WWII:

After flying from Britain, 160 American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.
Japanese submarine sinks surfaced USA submarine USS Corvina near Truk

November 18 - WWII: 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF lost nine aircraft and 53 aviators.
November 20 - WWII: Battle of Tarawa begins - United States Marines land on Tawara and Makin atolls in the Gilbert Islands and take heavy fire from Japanese shore guns.
November 22

WWII: War in the Pacific - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and ROC leader Chiang Kai-Shek meet in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss ways to defeat Japan.
Lebanon gains independence from France.

November 23 - The Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg was destroyed. It was rebuilt in 1961 and called the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
November 25 - WWII: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Cape St. George between Buka and New Ireland.
November 28 - WWII: Tehran Conference - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin meet in Tehran to discuss war strategy (on November 30 they established an agreement concerning a planned June 1944 invasion of Europe codenamed Operation Overlord).
November 29 - Second session of AVNOJ, the Anti-fascist council of national liberation of Yugoslavia, is held in Jajce, Bosnia and Herzegovina, determining the post-war ordering of the country.

December

December 2 - A Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of Bari, Italy, sinks an American ship with a mustard gas stockpile. Numerous fatalities (though the exact death toll is unresolved as the bombing raid itself caused hundreds of deaths too).
December 3 - Edward R. Murrow delivers his classic "Orchestrated Hell" broadcast over CBS Radio describing a Royal Air Force nighttime bombing raid on Berlin.
December 4

WWII: In Yugoslavia, resistance leader Marshal Tito proclaims a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in-exile.
Great Depression officially ends in the United States: With unemployment figures falling fast due to World War II-related employment, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt closes the Works Progress Administration.

December 20 - Military coup in Bolivia
December 24 - WWII: US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
December 30 - Subhash Chandra Bose sets up a pro-Japanese Indian government at Port Blair, India.

Undated

Development of the Colossus computer by British to break German encryption (see History of computing hardware).
Mondragón cooperative begins in Basque Country in Spain
Arana Hall, Otago founded.
Jacques-Yves Cousteau co-invents, with Emile Gagnan, the first commercially successful open circuit type of scuba diving equipment, the aqua-lung..
Publication of Martin Noth's groundbreaking Uberlieferungsgeschischtliche Studien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament [Schriften der Konigsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft: Geisteswissenschaftliche Klasse; 18,2 (trans: "Writings of the Konigsberger Scholarly Society:Spiritual Scientific Class No. 18.2")]: (Halle ["Halle an der Saale"]: M. Niemeyer, 1943)

Ongoing

Second World War (1939-1945)
Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)

Births

January-February

January 1 - Don Novello, American actor
January 2 - Barış Manço, Turkish singer and television personality (d. 1999)
January 4 - Doris Kearns Goodwin, American writer
January 6 - Terry Venables, English football manager
January 7 - Sadako Sasaki, Japanese atomic bomb sickness victim (d. 1955)
January 9 - Freddie Starr, English comedian and singer
January 10 - Jim Croce, American singer (d. 1973)
January 11 - Jim Hightower, American radio host and author
January 13 - Richard Moll, American actor
January 16 - Brian Ferneyhough, British composer
January 18 - Kay Granger, American politician
January 19

Janis Joplin, American singer (d. 1970)
Princess Margriet of the Netherlands

January 20 - Mel Hague, English singer and author
January 24 - Sharon Tate, American actress and murder victim (d. 1969)
January 25 - Tobe Hooper, American film director
January 26 - César Gutiérrez, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player (d. 2005)
January 29 - Tony Blackburn, British radio disc jockey
January 30 - Marty Balin, American musician
February 2 - Erkan Genis, Turkish artist
February 3 - Blythe Danner, American actress
February 4 - Alberto João Jardim, Portuguese politician
February 5

Nolan Bushnell, American video game pioneer
Michael Mann, American film director, writer, and producer
Craig Morton, American football player

February 6 - Fabian, American singer
February 7 - Gareth Hunt, English actor
February 9

Joe Pesci, American actor
Joseph E. Stiglitz, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate

February 14 - Maceo Parker, American musician (P-Funk)
February 18 - Graeme Garden, Scottish writer, comedian, and actor
February 19

Tim Hunt, British biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Homer Hickam, American author and retired NASA engineer

February 20

Mike Leigh, British film director
Antonio Inoki, Japanese professional wrestler

February 21 - David Geffen, American record executive and film producer
February 23 - Fred Biletnikoff, American football player and coach
February 24 - Hristo Prodanov, Bulgarian mountaineer
February 25 - George Harrison, British musician (The Beatles) (d. 2001)
February 26 - Bill Duke, American actor and director
February 27

Morten Lauridsen, American composer
Graham Bowers, British musician, artist and engineer

March-April

March - John Leeson, British actor
March 1

Richard H. Price, American physicist
Gil Amelio, American entrepreneur

March 2

Peter Straub, American author
Zygfryd Blaut, Polish footballer

March 3 - Trond Mohn, Norwegian billionaire
March 4

Lucio Dalla, Italian singer and songwriter
Zoltan Jeney, Hungarian composer

March 8 - Lynn Redgrave, English actress
March 9

Bobby Fischer, American chess player (d. 2008)
Charles Gibson, American television journalist
Colin Murdock, American voice actor

March 15 - David Cronenberg, Canadian film director
March 16

Helen Armstrong, American violinist
Kim Mu-saeng, South Korean actor (d. 2005)

March 18 - Kevin Dobson, American actor
March 19

Mario J. Molina, Mexican chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
Mario Monti, Italian member of the European Commission

March 20

Gerard Malanga, American poet and photographer
Naima Neidre, Estonian graphic artist

March 21

Ellen Cannon Reed, American witch and author, (d. 2003)
Vivian Stanshall, English comedian, writer, artist, broadcaster, and musician (d. 1995)
István Gyulai, Hungarian sports official (d. 2006)