Directory

1943 CE

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising sees Jewish fighters revolt against Nazi Germany; the Battle of Kursk is the largest tank battle in history and a decisive Soviet victory; the Allied invasion of Sicily begins, leading to the fall of Benito Mussolini; the Tehran Conference brings together Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin to plan Nazi Germany’s defeat; the Bengal famine of 1943 kills 2–3 million in British India; the Zoot Suit Riots erupt in Los Angeles, highlighting racial tensions; the Battle of the Bismarck Sea sees Allied air power destroy a Japanese convoy; the Bombing of Rome in World War II causes civilian casualties and historic damage; and the Bombing of Hamburg in World War II kills tens of thousands and cripples the city’s industry.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 11 – The United States and United Kingdom revise previously unequal treaty relationships with the Republic of China.source
  • March 9 – Şükrü Saracoğlu forms the new government of Turkey (14th government; Şükrü Saracoğlu had served twice as a prime minister).source
  • May 19 – Winston Churchill addresses a joint session of the United States Congress.source
  • August 14 – The Quadrant Conference begins in Quebec City; Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King meets with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.source
  • August 14 – WWII: Rome is declared an open city by the Italian government, with Italy offering to demilitarize the capital, in return for an Allied agreement not to bomb the city further.source
  • August 21 – 1943 Australian federal election: John Curtin's Labor government defeats the Country/UAP Coalition, led by former Prime Minister Arthur Fadden. Labor achieves its greatest ever electoral result, including winning every seat (except one) outside of the eastern states. Notably, this election marked the first time that a woman has been elected to both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Fadden will step down from the Opposition leadership, handing it over to Robert Menzies, who will go on to dissolve the UAP and form the Liberal Party shortly after.source
  • August 24 – Heinrich Himmler is named Reichsminister of the Interior in Germany.source
  • September 23 – WWII: The Italian Social Republic ("Republic of Salò") is founded in northern Italy as a puppet state of Nazi Germany.source
  • October 14 – José P. Laurel takes the oath of office as President of the Philippines (Second Philippine Republic).source
  • October 30 – WWII: Signing of Moscow Declarations: the Declaration of the Four Nations on general security, by the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and Republic of China; and the Declarations on Italy, Austria and Atrocities by the first three governments.source
  • Third Moscow Conference: A meeting takes place at the Kremlin between the British, American, and Soviet foreign ministers Anthony Eden, Cordell Hull and Vyacheslav Molotov. The USSR agrees to the full creation of a world peace organization with its Allies.source
  • Chiang Kai-shek takes the oath of office as Chairman of the National Government of China.source
  • November 9 – An agreement founding the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration is signed by 44 countries in the White House, Washington, D.C.source
  • November 22–26 – WWII: Cairo Conference ("Sextant") – President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill and Chairman of the National Government of China Chiang Kai-shek meet at Cairo, Egypt, to discuss ways to defeat Japan in the Pacific War.source
  • November 22 – Lebanon gains independence, upon the ending of the French Mandate.source
  • December 16 - WWII: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is returned to the United States by the USS Iowa after completing his trip to the Cairo and Tehran Conferences.source
  • December 30 – Subhas Chandra Bose sets up a pro-Japanese Indian government at Port Blair, India.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 18 – WWII: Soviet officials announce that the Red Army has broken the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad as part of Operation Iskra, opening a narrow land corridor to the city. Georgy Zhukov is promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union.source
  • January 22 – WWII: Battle of Buna–Gona: American and Australian forces secure control of the territory of Papua.source
  • January 29–30 – WWII: Battle of Rennell Island – The Imperial Japanese Navy resists the United States Navy's attempt to interrupt the withdrawal of Japanese forces from Guadalcanal, in the last major naval battle of the Guadalcanal campaign.source
  • February 2 – WWII: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end, with the surrender of the German 6th Army.source
  • February 9 – WWII: The Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands ends with United States forces in command of Guadalcanal, the evacuation of Japanese forces in Operation Ke having been completed two days earlier.source
  • February 10–March 3 – Mohandas Gandhi (under arrest by forces of the British Raj in Pune as a member of the Quit India Movement) keeps a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment.source
  • February 13 – WWII: Operation Longcloth: Chindit forces (some 3,000 men) of the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade under Brigadier General Orde Wingate cross the Chindwin River and proceed into Burma.source
  • February 16 – WWII: The Soviet Union reconquers Kharkiv, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkiv.source
  • German forces recapture Kharkiv after four days of house-to-house fighting against Soviet troops, ending the month-long Third Battle of Kharkiv.source
  • The Holocaust: Josef Mengele begins his position as a medical officer in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.source
  • June (late) – The Holocaust: The last trainload of Jewish prisoners is moved from Bełżec extermination camp in occupied Poland (for gassing at Sobibór), and for the remainder of the year the Nazis make efforts to obliterate the site.source
  • July 10 – (0245 GMT (4:45 a.m. local time)) – WWII: Allied invasion of Sicily – The Allied invasion of Axis-controlled Europe begins, with landings on the island of Sicily off mainland Italy by the Seventh United States Army and the British Eighth Army, including the 1st Canadian Infantry Division.source
  • July 12 – WWII: Main engagement of the Battle of Prokhorovka – The Wehrmacht and the Red Army fight to a draw in one of the largest tank battles in military history.source
  • Nazi Germany commences Operation Citadel. It will eventually lead to the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history.source
  • Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army within the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Volhynia) peak.source
  • August 1 – Operation Tidal Wave: 177 B-24 Liberator bombers from the U.S. Army Air Force bomb oil refineries at Ploiești, Romania.source
  • August 23 – WWII: The Battle of Kursk ends, with a strategic defeat for the German forces.source
  • August 26 – WWII: Louis Mountbatten is named Supreme Allied Commander for Southeast Asia.source
  • United States Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) are formed, consolidating the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WFTD).source
  • The Seventh U.S. Army, under General George S. Patton, meets the Eighth British Army under Field Marshal B. L. Montgomery in Messina, Sicily, completing the Allied invasion of Sicily.source
  • September 22–October 2 – WWII: Landing at Scarlet Beach on the Huon Peninsula of New Guinea by Allied forces, the first time Australian troops have made an opposed amphibious landing since the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915.source
  • Operation Baytown: Mainland Italy is invaded by Allied forces under General Bernard Montgomery, for the first time in the war.source
  • October 14 – The Holocaust: Uprising in Sobibór extermination camp; about half the inmates escape. Three days later, the camp is closed.source
  • November 19 – The Holocaust: Inmates of Janowska concentration camp, near Lwów (at this time in German-occupied Poland), stage a failed uprising, after which the SS liquidates the camp, resulting in at least 6,000 deaths.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • A fleet sets sail for the Allied invasion of Sicily.source
  • John F. Kennedy and crew are found by Solomon Islands coastwatchers Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, with their dugout canoe.source

Religion & Belief

  • July 25 – Benito Mussolini, Fascist Prime Minister of Italy since 1922, is arrested after the Grand Council of Fascism withdraws its support. "Il Duce" is replaced by General Pietro Badoglio.source
  • September 30 – Pope Pius XII issues the encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu calling for Catholic scholars to produce new Bible translations based on the source languages.source
  • October 16 – The Holocaust: Raid of the Ghetto of Rome – Over a thousand Jews are rounded up in Rome by the Gestapo; only 16 will survive their deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp. The public silence of Pope Pius XII on the raid becomes a matter of historical controversy.source
  • November 15 – Porajmos: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in Nazi concentration camps".source
  • November 29 – The second session of AVNOJ, the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia, is held in Jajce, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to determine the post-war ordering of the country.source

Economy & Finance

  • March 10 – Banco Bradesco is founded in Marília, São Paulo, Brazil.source
  • Aberdeen, Scotland, experiences its worst bombing, with 125 people killed.source
  • December 4 – With unemployment figures falling fast due to WWII-related employment, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt closes the Works Progress Administration.source
  • History of the cooperative movement: Father José María Arizmendiarrieta sets up a polytechnic school at Mondragón in the Spanish Basque Country (predecessor of the University of Mondragón), which inspires creation of the Mondragon Corporation.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • January 29 – The United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve (MCWR) is created.source
  • March 5 – The Gloster Meteor, the first Allied jet fighter, makes its first flight, in England.source
  • March–December – History of computing hardware: British prototype Mark I Colossus computer is constructed (the world's first totally electronic programmable computing device) to assist in cryptanalysis of German signals at Bletchley Park.source
  • The first German Tiger I tank is captured in North Africa by British forces.source
  • May 16–17 – WWII: Operation Chastise (the 'Dambuster Raid') takes place: No. 617 Squadron RAF use bouncing bombs to breach German dams in the Ruhr Valley.source
  • May 23 – WWII: The battleship is commissioned at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.source
  • The 358th Bombardment Squadron, 303d Bombardment Group B-17F Hell's Angels is the first USAAF bomber to complete 25 missions.source
  • The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the computer ENIAC.source
  • The Memphis Belle's crew becomes the first aircrew in the 8th Air Force to complete its 25-mission tour of duty. The aircraft and crew are the first to return to the U.S. intact for a War Bond drive.source
  • The Burma Railway is completed between Bangkok, Thailand and Rangoon, Burma (modern-day Myanmar) (415 km mi) by the Empire of Japan, to support its forces in the Burma campaign, using the forced labour of Asian civilians and Allied Prisoners of war.source
  • 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.source
  • After flying from Britain, 160 American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.source
  • First Bombing of the Vatican – Four bombs are dropped on the neutral Vatican City; the aircraft responsible is never certainly identified.source
  • Jacques-Yves Cousteau co-invents, with Émile Gagnan, the first commercially successful open circuit type of scuba diving equipment, the Aqua-lung.source
  • The accident of two steam locomotives in the south of Elo river bridge Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. They came from Mertoyudan train station and Yogyakarta.source

Science & Discovery

  • August 4 – WWII: The aircraft carrier is launched at Newport News, Virginia.source

Health & Medicine

  • January 23 – American critic and commentator Alexander Woollcott suffers an eventually fatal heart attack, during a regular broadcast of the CBS Radio round-table program People's Platform.source
  • March 23 – The drugs Vicodin and Lortab are first produced in Germany.source
  • April 19 – History of lysergic acid diethylamide: Albert Hofmann self-administers the psychedelic drug LSD (which he first synthesized in 1938) for the first time in history and records the details of his experience.source
  • Australian Hospital Ship Centaur is sunk off the coast of Queensland by , killing 268 of the 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard.source
  • August 3 – Patton slapping incident: U.S. General George S. Patton Jr. slaps a soldier suffering from battle fatigue, at a field hospital in Sicily. On August 10, he slaps another soldier suffering from the same condition.source

Crime & Justice

  • January 4 – WWII: Greek-Polish athlete and saboteur Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz is executed by the Germans at Kaisariani.source
  • January 22 – The Holocaust: Round up of Marseille begins – Over 4,000 Jews are arrested in Nazi-occupied Marseille as part of "Action Tiger", before being transported to extermination camps in Poland.source
  • January 29 – Nazi German police arrest alleged necrophiliac and serial killer Bruno Lüdke.source
  • February 22 – Members of the White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.source
  • May 29 – Norman Rockwell's illustration of 'Rosie the Riveter' first appears, on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.source
  • July 10 – The Holocaust: Jedwabne pogrom – At least 340 Polish Jews are marched to a local barn, locked inside and subsequently burned to death.source
  • Krasowo-Częstki massacre: The village of Krasowo-Częstki in Nazi-occupied Poland is completely burned and 257 of its inhabitants, mostly women and children, murdered by the Ordnungspolizei and SS in retaliation for German deaths in a skirmish with Polish partisans nearby.source
  • October 30 – The Merrie Melodies animated cartoon Falling Hare, one of the only shorts with Bugs Bunny getting out-smarted, is released in the United States.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 21 – WWII: Pan Am Flight 1104 – Pan American Airways Martin M-130 flying boat crashes about 7 smi km southwest of Ukiah, California. All 10 passengers and 9 crew aboard are killed, including Admiral Robert H. English (at this time COMSUBPAC ).source
  • February 6 – WWII: Royal Canadian Navy corvette HMCS Louisburg is bombed and sunk off Oran, Algeria by Italian aircraft.source
  • February 7 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy SC 118 is attacked by U-boats, who sink 8 ships.source
  • February 21 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy ON 166 is attacked by U-boats, which sink eleven ships.source
  • February 22 – WWII: Royal Canadian Navy corvette HMCS Weyburn sinks east of Gibraltar, after being mined.source
  • February 23–24 – Cavan Orphanage Fire: 35 girls and a cook from St Joseph's Orphanage, an industrial school at Cavan, Ireland, are killed in a fire in their dormitories. A subsequent inquiry absolves the Poor Clares of blame.source
  • March 2 – WWII: Battle of the Bismarck Sea – United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships, then strafe survivors in the water.source
  • March 9–10 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy SC 121 is attacked by U-boats sinking seven ships.source
  • March 14 – WWII: British submarine HMS Thunderbolt is sunk off Sicily by an Italian corvette, the second time this vessel has been lost with all hands.source
  • March 27 – WWII: British Royal Navy escort carrier is destroyed by an accidental explosion in the Firth of Clyde, killing 379 of the crew of 528.source
  • Italian submarine Leonardo da Vinci sinks Canadian Pacific liner RMS Empress of Canada off Sierra Leone. Nearly half of the 392 fatalities are Italian prisoners of war.source
  • April 3 – Shipwrecked steward Poon Lim, BEM, is rescued by Brazilian fishermen after being adrift for 133 days.source
  • May 6 – WWII: Six U-boats are sunk, after sinking 12 ships from Convoy ONS 5, in the last major North Atlantic U-boat "wolfpack" attack of the war.source
  • June 1 – BOAC Flight 777, a scheduled passenger flight, is shot down over the Bay of Biscay by German Junkers Ju 88s; all 17 persons aboard perish, including actor Leslie Howard.source
  • July 4 – 1943 Gibraltar B-24 crash: The aircraft carrying General Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, crashes, killing him and 15 others, leading to a lasting controversy over the circumstances.source
  • August 2 – WWII: John F. Kennedy's PT boat PT-109 is run down by Japanese destroyer Amagiri.source
  • September 7 – Gulf Hotel fire: A fire at the Gulf Hotel in Houston, Texas kills 55.source
  • October 19 – WWII: Allied aircraft sink the German-controlled cargo ship in the Mediterranean, killing over 2,000 people, mostly Italian military internees.source
  • October 24 – WWII: British Royal Navy destroyer is sunk by a mine in the Aegean Sea, with the loss of 119 of the ship's company and 134 troops.source
  • The last commerce raider, German auxiliary cruiser Michel, is sunk off Japan by United States submarine Tarpon.source
  • November 23 – The Deutsches Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße, in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg, is destroyed in an air raid (it is reopened in 1961, as the Deutsche Oper Berlin).source
  • November 26 – WWII: British troopship HMT Rohna is sunk off the north African coast by a Luftwaffe Henschel Hs 293 radio controlled glide bomb, killing 1,015.source
  • A Japanese submarine sinks the surfaced U.S. submarine , near Chuuk Lagoon (Truk).source
  • December 2 – WWII: Bari chemical warfare disaster: A surprise Luftwaffe air raid on Bari, Italy sinks 28 Allied ships in the harbor, including the American Liberty ship , releasing its secret cargo of mustard gas bombs, inflating the number of casualties.source

Climate & Environment

  • February 20 – The Parícutin volcano begins to appear in a cornfield in Mexico.source
  • June 30 – The United States Civilian Conservation Corps is abolished.source
  • September 9 – WWII: Operation Avalanche: 170,000 British and American troops land near Salerno.source
  • November 27 – The 1943 Tosya–Ladik earthquake in Turkey kills thousands.source

Culture & Society

  • March 4 – The 15th Academy Awards ceremony is held in Los Angeles. Mrs. Miniver wins the Best Picture Award.source
  • March 12 – Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man is premiered by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.source
  • March 17 (Saint Patrick's Day) – Éamon de Valera, Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, makes the speech "The Ireland That We Dreamed Of", commonly called the "comely maidens" speech, in Dublin Castle.source
  • March – Exiled French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's self-illustrated children's novella, The Little Prince, is published in New York City, the all-time best-selling book originating in French.source
  • April 25 – Easter occurs on the latest possible date (last time 1886; next time 2038) in the Western Christian Church.source
  • May 27 – The port city of Maizuru is founded in Japan.source
  • The National Bands Agreement is concluded in Greece.source
  • September 8 – The first classes commence at Grace University in Omaha, Nebraska.source
  • October 10 – The Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky is instituted in the Soviet Union.source
  • December 7 – Chiara Lubich starts the humanitarian Focolare Movement in Trento, Italy.source
  • December 31 – The Times Square Ball in Times Square, New York City, is not dropped a second time. Instead, there is a moment of silence at midnight, followed by the sound of bells playing from sound trucks at the base of One Times Square.source
  • Martin Noth's groundbreaking work of Old Testament scholarship, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament, is published.source
  • Arana Hall, a residential college of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, is founded.source

Births

  • January 5 – James Goldstein, LA businessman, NBA basketball aficionadosource
  • February 9 – Joseph E. Stiglitz, American economist, Nobel Prize laureatesource
  • February 25 – George Harrison, English singer, guitarist (The Beatles) (d. 2001)source
  • March 19 – Mario J. Molina, Mexican chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2020)source
  • April 22 – Louise Glück, American poet, 12th US Poet Laureate, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 2023)source
  • August 6 – Jim Hardin, American baseball pitcher (Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves) (d. 1991)source
  • August 11 – Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani general, leader and 10th President of Pakistan (d. 2023)source
  • August 28 – Surayud Chulanont, Thai politician, 24th Prime Minister of Thailandsource
  • September 11 – Mickey Hart, American percussionist and musicologist (Grateful Dead)source
  • October 12 – Jeffrey R. MacDonald, American physician and United States Army Officersource
  • December 8 – Jim Morrison, American rock musician (The Doors) (d. 1971)source
  • December 11 – John Kerry, American politician, 68th U.S. Secretary of Statesource
  • December 18 – Keith Richards, English rock guitarist, songwriter (The Rolling Stones)source
  • December 31 – Pete Quaife, English musician, artist and author (The Kinks) (d. 2010)source

Deaths

  • January 5 – George Washington Carver, African-American botanist (b. c. 1864)source
  • January 8 – Richard Hillary, Australian-born British Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot, author (killed on active service in aviation accident) (b. 1919)source
  • March 12 – Czesława Kwoka, Polish Roman Catholic religious sister and blessed (killed in Auschwitz concentration camp) (b. 1928)source
  • April 9 – Philip Slier, Dutch Jewish typesetter (in Sobibór extermination camp) (b. 1923)source
  • April 30 – Otto Jespersen, Danish linguist, creator of Ido and Novial languages (b.1860)source
  • July 4 – Władysław Sikorski, Polish prime minister in exile (aviation accident) (b. 1881)source
  • July 13 – Kurt Huber, German university professor, member of the White Rose resistance group in Nazi Germany (executed) (b. 1893)source
  • August 14 – Joe Kelley, American baseball player, MLB Hall of Famer (b. 1871)source
  • August 28 – WWII: King Boris III of Bulgaria dies under suspicious circumstances; his 6-year-old son, Simeon II, ascends to the throne.source
  • September 6 – Reginald McKenna, British Chancellor of the Exchequer 1915–1916 (b. 1863)source
  • October 9 – Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)source
  • October 18 – Margaret Bartholomew, American Civil Air Patrol officer (aviation accident on mission) (b. 1903)source
  • December 14 – John Harvey Kellogg, American physician, nutritionist (b. 1852)source
  • December 22 – Beatrix Potter, British children's author, illustrator (b. 1866)source