1943 - Definition and Overview

1943 is a common year starting on Friday.

Events

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.
• January 11 - General Juanto dies in Argentina - Ramon Castillo succeeds him
• January 12 - Jan Campert, Dutch journalist and writer, dies in Neuengamme concentration camp
• January 13 - Richard Moll, actor
• 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 - World War II: Japanese are driven off Guadalcanal.
• January 15 - The world's largest office building, The Pentagon, is dedicated (Arlington, Virginia).
• January 18 - World War II: Soviet officials announce they have broken the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad.
• January 18 - The Jews in the Warsaw ghetto rise up for the first time.
• January 23 - World War II: British forces capture Tripoli from the Nazis.
• January 23 - In Spearfish, South Dakota, temperature rises from -20 to +7 degrees Celsius in two minutes
• January 23 - Duke Ellington plays at New York City's Carnegie Hall for the first time.
• January 24 - World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill conclude a conference in Casablanca.
• January 27 - World War II: 50 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany (Wilhelmshaven was the target).

February

• February 1 - World War II: Vidkun Quisling is appointed Premier of Norway by the Nazi occupiers.
• February 2 - World War II: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end with the surrender of the German 6th Army.
• February 7 - World War II: In the United States, it is announced that shoe rationing will go into effect in two days.
• February 8 - World War II: Battle of Kursk - the Russian army captures the city.
• February 8 - World War II: 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 - World War II: Rostov, Russia is liberated.
• February 14 - World War II: 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 - World War II: Soviet Union reconquers Kharkov, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkov
• February 18 - 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.
• February 22 - Members of White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.
• February 28 - OPERATION GUNNERSIDE, 6 Norwegians led by Joachim Ronneberg successfully attack the heavy water plant Vemork.

March

• March 1 - "Panzer General" Heinz Guderian becomes the Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops for the German Army during World War II.
• March 2 - World War II: 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 8 - World War II: American forces are attacked by Japanese troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville in a battle that will last five days.
• March 13 - World War II: On Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700.
• March 13 - Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.
• March 26 - World War II: 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.

April

• April 3 - Shipwrecked steward Poon Lim is rescued by Brazilian fishermen after he has been adrift for 130 days
• 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 11 - World War II: American troops invade Attu in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
• May 13 - World War II: German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces.
• May 16 - World War II: The Dambuster Raids by RAF 617 Sqdn on German dams.
• May 16 - Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto uprising ends.
• May 17 - World War II: Surviving RAF Dam Busters return.
• May 17 - The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.
• May 24 - Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer in Auschwitz.

June

• June 4 - Military coup in Argentina - Castillo is ousted

July

• July 5 - World War II: Battle of Kursk - The largest tank battle in history begins.
• July 5 - World War II: An Allied invasion fleet sails to Sicily.
• July 6 - World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the Battle of Kula Gulf off Kolombangara.
• July 10 - World War II: The Allies begin their invasion of Axis-controlled Europe with landings on the island of Sicily, off mainland Italy.
• July 12 - World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Kolombangara.
• July 19 - World War II: Rome is bombed by the Allies for the first time in the war.
• July 24 - World War II: 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 27 - World War II: USSR leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into Russia. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so will be immediately killed.
• July 28 - World War II: Operation Gomorrah - The British bomb Hamburg causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.

August

• August 6 - World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the Battle of Vella Gulf off Kolombangara.
• August 17 - World War II: The US 7th Army under General George S. Patton arrive in Messina, Italy followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
• August 29 - World War II: 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 - World War II: Mainland Italy is invaded by Allied forces under Bernard L. Montgomery, for the first time in the war.
• September 5 - World War II: 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 8 - World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies.
• September 8 - World War II: Julius Fucik is executed by Nazis.
• September 23 - World War II: Republic of Salò is founded.

October

• October 6 - World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Vella Lavella.
• October 13 - World War II: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.
• October 22 - World War II: RAF delivers a highly destructive airstrike on the German industrial and population center of Kassel

November

• November 1 - World War II: In Operation Goodtime, United States Marines land on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.
• November 2 - World War II: In the early morning hours, American and Japanese ships fight the inconclusive Battle of Empress Augusta Bay off Bougainville.
• November 2 - World War II: British troops, in Italy, reach the Garigliano River.
• 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 - World War II: After flying from Britain, 160 American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.
• November 16 - World War II: Japanese submarine sinks surfaced USA submarine USS Corvina near Truk
• November 18 - World War II: 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF lost nine aircraft and 53 aviators.
• November 20 - World War II: Battle of Tarawa begins - United States Marines land on Tarawa and Makin atolls in the Gilbert Islands and take heavy fire from Japanese shore guns.
• November 22 - World War II: 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.
• November 22 - 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 - World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Cape St. George between Buka and New Ireland.
• November 28 - World War II: 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 4 - World War II: In Yugoslavia, resistance leader Marshal Tito proclaims a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in-exile.
• December 4 - Great Depression 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 - World War II: US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the supreme Allied commander.
• December 30 - Subhash Chandra Bose raises the flag of Indian independence at Port Blair.

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

Ongoing

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

Year in Topic

• 1943 in film
  • Ossessione by Luchino Visconti.
• 1943 in music
• 1943 in rail transport
  • After a few years of only producing diesel engines for the United States Navy during World War II, General Motors Electro-Motive Division returns to manufacturing railroad locomotives.

Births

January

• January 2 - Baris Manco, Turkish celebrity
• January 4 - Doris Kearns Goodwin, writer
• January 6 - Terry Venables, football (soccer) manager
• January 10 - Jim Croce, singer (d. 1973)
• January 11 - Jim Hightower, radio host, author
• January 16 - Brian Ferneyhough, composer
• January 18 - Kay Granger, American politician
• January 19 - Janis Joplin, blues singer (d. 1970)
• January 19 - Princess Margriet of the Netherlands
• January 24 - Sharon Tate, actress (d. 1969)
• January 25 - Tobe Hooper, director
• January 26 - César Gutiérrez, Major League Baseball player (d. 2005)
• January 30 - Marty Balin, musician

February

• February 2 - Erkan Genis, impressionist artist
• February 3 - Blythe Danner, actress
• February 5 - Nolan Bushnell, video game pioneer
• February 5 - Craig Morton, US football star
• February 6 - Fabian Forte, singer
• February 7 - Gareth Hunt. actor
• February 9 - Joe Pesci, actor
• February 10 - Frank-Patrick Steckel, theater director
• February 11 - Ian Cameron, British brigadier
• February 12 - Samuel Karokikki, Nauruan athlete
• February 13 - Geoff Edwards, game show host
• February 14 - Maceo Parker, musician (P-Funk)
• February 15 - Elke Heidenreich, journalist and writer
• February 18 - Graeme Garden, writer, comedian, actor
• February 20 - Mike Leigh, director
• February 21 - David Geffen, producer
• February 23 - Fred Biletnikoff, US football star, coach
• February 24 - George Harrison, musician, member of The Beatles (d. 2001)
• February 24 - Hristo Prodanov, Bulgarian mountaineer
• February 26 - Bill Duke, actor
• February 27 - Morten Lauridsen, composer

March

• March 1 - Gil Amelio, former CEO of National Semiconductor and Apple Computer, now a venture capitalist
• March 2 - Peter Straub, American author
• March 8 - Lynn Redgrave, English actress
• March 9 - Bobby Fischer, American chess player
• March 9 - Charles Gibson, American television journalist
• March 15 - David Cronenberg, director
• March 19 - Mario Monti, aka "Super Mario"
• March 22 - Bruno Ganz, actor
• March 26 - Bob Woodward, American journalist
• March 29 - Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou, aka Vangelis, new age musician
• March 29 - Eric Idle, actor, writer, composer
• March 29 - John Major, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• March 31 - Christopher Walken, actor

April

• April 8 - Miller Farr, American football player
• April 10 - Andrzej Badeński, Polish athlete
• April 20 - John Eliot Gardiner, English conductor
• April 23 - Edie Sedwick actor, model

May

• May 8 - Toni Tennille, singer
• May 10 - Richard (Dick) Darman, government bureaucrat and businessman
• May 14 - Jack Bruce, bass guitarist
• May 14 - Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, president of Iceland
• May 17 - Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin, later Raja of Perlis and Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
• May 22 - Betty Williams, politician, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Peace
• May 23 - John Newcombe, tennis player
• May 31 - Joe Namath, American football quarterback
• May 31 - Sharon Gless, actress

June

• June 15 - Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark
• June 17 - Newt Gingrich, American politician
• June 17 - Barry Manilow, American musician
• June 23 - James Levine, American conductor
• June 27 - Rico Petrocelli, baseball player

July

• July 4 - Konrad "Conny" Bauer, musician, free jazz trombonist
• July 4 - Geraldo Rivera, reporter, talk show host
• July 5 - Curt Blefary, Major League Baseball player (d. 2001)
• July 10 - Arthur Ashe, American tennis player (d. 1993)
• July 26 - Mick Jagger, English pop musician of the Rolling Stone

August

• August 11 - Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani general and leader
• August 14 - Jimmy Johnson, former American Football coach, TV analyst
• August 17 - Robert De Niro, United States actor
• August 28 - Lou Piniella, baseball manager
• August 30 - Jean-Claude Killy, skier

September

• September 6 - Roger Waters, bassist, singer and song writer of Pink Floyd
• September 11 - Gilbert Proesch, artist, half of Gilbert and George
• September 11 - Raymond Villeneuve, FLQ terrorist
• September 22 - Toni Basil, musician, video artist
• September 30 - Johann Deisenhofer, scientist

October

• October 2 - Franklin Rosemont, co-founder of the Surrealist Movement in the United States
• October 14 - Lois Hamilton, model, actress, artist (d. 1999)
• October 16 - Paul Rose, FLQ terrorist, convicted murderer

November

• November 7 - Joni Mitchell, musician
• November 19 - Aurelio Monteagudo, Major League Baseball player (d. 1990)
• December 8 - James Douglas Morrison, later known as Jim Morrison, US singer, songwriter, poet (d. 1971)
• December 11- John Kerry, politician
• December 13 - Ferguson Jenkins, Baseball Hall of Famer
• December 17 - Ron Geesin, musician
• December 18 - Keith Richards, guitarist for The Rolling Stones
• December 23 - Harry Shearer, actor, voice actor
• December 24 - Tarja Halonen, President of Finland
• December 31 - John Denver, American musician

Deaths

January

• January 5 - George Washington Carver, educator, activist, botanist
• January 7 - Nikola Tesla, inventor
• January 23 - Alexander Woollcott, bon vivant

February

• February 14 - David Hilbert, mathematician
• February 17 - Armand J. Piron, jazz musician (b. 1888)

March

• March 12 - Gustav Vigeland, Norwegian sculptor
• March 28 - Sergei Rachmaninoff, composer, pianist

April

• April 18 - Isoroku Yamamoto, japonese admiral.

May

• May 26 - Edsel Ford

July

• July 21 - Charlie Paddock, American athlete

August

• August 14 - Joe Kelley, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1871)
• August 28 - King Boris III of Bulgaria

October

• October 5 - Leon Roppolo, jazz musician (b. 1902)
• October 7 - Eugeniusz Bodo, famous Polish actor, killed by the NKVD

December

• December 1 - Damrong Rajanubhab, Thai prince, administrator and historian (b. 1862)
• Eidegenegen Eidagaruwo, first Angam Baby
• Esteban Huertas Panamanian independence fighter

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Otto Stern
• Chemistry - George de Hevesy
• Medicine - Henrik Carl Peter Dam, Edward Adelbert Doisy, Gerhard Domagk
• Literature - not awarded
• Peace - not awarded