1943

Years: 1940 1941 1942 - 1943 - 1944 1945 1946

Decades: 1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s

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 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.
• January 27 - WWII: 50 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany (Wilhelmshaven was the target).

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: 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
• 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 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 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.
• 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.

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 27 - The U.S. Federal Writers' Project is shuttered.

May

• May 9-12 - Japanese troops carries 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 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 31 - Rioting between military personnel and Mexican American youths erupts in East Los Angeles and is dubbed the "Zoot Suit Riots".

June

• June 1 - British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 777 is shot down over the Bay of Biscay by German Junkers Ju 88s, killing actor Leslie Howard and leading to speculation that downing was an attempt to kill British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
• June 4 - Military Coup d'état in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.
• 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 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 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 US 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.

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.
• 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 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 22 - WWII: RAF delivers a highly destructive airstrike on the German industrial and population center of Kassel

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 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 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.

Births

• March 9 - Bobby Fischer, American chess champion, antisemitic Jew (d. 2008)

Deaths

• January 7 - Nikola Tesla, Serbian-born inventor and electrical engineer (b. 1856)
• February 26 - Theodor Eicke, German military official (b. 1892)
• October 4 - Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln, international Jewish con man (b. 1879)