What Happened in 1943 — Events, Births & Deaths

The Republic of China agrees to the Sino-British New Equal Treaty and the Sino-American New Equal Treaty.

Italian-American anarchist Carlo Tresca is assassinated in New York City.

World War II: Japan begins Operation Ke, the successful operation to evacuate its forces from Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal campaign.

World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill begin the Casablanca Conference to discuss strategy and study the next phase of the war.

World War II: The Soviet counter-offensive at Voronezh begins.

The Pentagon is dedicated in Arlington County, Virginia.

World War II: Greek submarine Papanikolis captures the 200-ton sailing vessel Agios Stefanos and mans her with part of her crew.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.

World War II: Australian and American forces defeat Japanese army and navy units in the bitterly fought Battle of Buna–Gona.

World War II: Troops of the British Eighth Army capture Tripoli in Libya from the German–Italian Panzer Army.

World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill conclude a conference in Casablanca.

World War II: The Eighth Air Force sorties ninety-one B-17s and B-24s to attack the U-boat construction yards at Wilhelmshaven, Germany. This was the first American bombing attack on Germany.

World War II: The first day of the Battle of Rennell Island, USS Chicago (CA-29) is torpedoed and heavily damaged by Japanese bombers.

World War II: German field marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders to the Soviets at Stalingrad, followed two days later by the remainder of his Sixth Army, ending one of the war's fiercest battles.

World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end when Soviet troops accept the surrender of the last organized German troops in the city.

The SS Dorchester is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survive.

World War II: Imperial Japanese Navy forces complete the evacuation of Imperial Japanese Army troops from Guadalcanal during Operation Ke, ending Japanese attempts to retake the island from Allied forces in the Guadalcanal campaign.

World War II: Pacific War: Allied authorities declare Guadalcanal secure after Imperial Japan evacuates its remaining forces from the island, ending the Battle of Guadalcanal.

World War II: Attempting to completely lift the Siege of Leningrad, the Soviet Red Army engages German troops and Spanish volunteers in the Battle of Krasny Bor.

World War II: Rostov-on-Don, Russia is liberated.

World War II: Tunisia Campaign: General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim's Fifth Panzer Army launches a counter-attack against Allied positions in Tunisia.

World War II: In the early phases of the Third Battle of Kharkov, Red Army troops re-enter the city.

World War II: The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement.

World War II: Joseph Goebbels delivers his Sportpalast speech.

World War II: Battle of Kasserine Pass in Tunisia begins.

World War II: American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.

The Saturday Evening Post publishes the first of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms in support of United States President Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union address theme of Four Freedoms.

World War II: Members of the White Rose resistance, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst are executed in Nazi Germany.

Yankee Clipper crashes while landing on the Tagus in Lisbon, killing 24.

The Cavan Orphanage fire kills thirty-five girls and an elderly cook.

Greek Resistance: The United Panhellenic Organization of Youth is founded in Greece.

World War II: First large-scale protest march resulting in clashes with the Axis occupation forces and collaborationist police in Athens against rumours of forced mobilization of Greek workers for work in Germany.

The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men.

The Holocaust: In Berlin, the Gestapo arrest 1,800 Jewish men with German wives, leading to the Rosenstrasse protest.

World War II: During the Battle of the Bismarck Sea Allied aircraft defeat a Japanese attempt to ship troops to New Guinea.

World War II: In London, 173 people are killed in a crush while trying to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green tube station.

World War II: The Battle of the Bismarck Sea in the south-west Pacific comes to an end.

World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, begins. It ends on 6 March with the surrender of an entire Italian battalion and the liberation of the town of Grevena.

World War II: General strike and protest march in Athens against rumours of forced mobilization of Greek workers for work in Germany, resulting in clashes with the Axis occupation forces and collaborationist police. The decree is withdrawn on the next day.

World War II: Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel launches the Battle of Medenine in an attempt to slow down the British Eighth Army. It fails, and he leaves Africa three days later.

World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, ends with the surrender of an entire Italian battalion, the bulk of the garrison of the town of Grevena, leading to its liberation a fortnight later.

The Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.

The Holocaust: The liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto is completed.

World War II: Third Battle of Kharkiv: The Germans retake the city of Kharkiv from the Soviet armies.

Frank Nitti, the Chicago Outfit Boss after Al Capone, commits suicide at the Chicago Central Railyard.

Wehrmacht officer Rudolf von Gersdorff plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler by using a suicide bomb, but the plan falls through; von Gersdorff is able to defuse the bomb in time and avoid suspicion.

World War II: The entire village of Khatyn (in present-day Republic of Belarus) is burnt alive by Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118.

World War II: Battle of the Komandorski Islands: In the Aleutian Islands the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska.

World War II: United States Army Air Forces bomber aircraft accidentally cause more than 900 civilian deaths, including 209 children, and 1,300 wounded among the civilian population of the Belgian town of Mortsel. Their target was the Erla factory 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) from the residential area hit.

World War II: The discovery of mass graves of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government-in-exile in London and the Soviet Union, which denies responsibility.

The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C., on the 200th anniversary of President Thomas Jefferson's birth.

Albert Hofmann accidentally discovers the hallucinogenic effects of the research drug LSD. He intentionally takes the drug three days later on April 19.

World War II: Operation Vengeance, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by U.S. fighters over Bougainville Island.

World War II: In German-occupied Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins, after German troops enter the Warsaw Ghetto to round up the remaining Jews.

The Easter Riots break out in Uppsala, Sweden.

World War II: The British submarine HMS Seraph surfaces near Huelva to cast adrift a dead man dressed as a courier and carrying false invasion plans.

World War II: Operations Vulcan and Strike force the surrender of the last Axis troops in Tunisia.

World War II: A Japanese submarine sinks AHS Centaur off the coast of Queensland.

Joseph Stalin dissolves the Comintern (or Third International).

The Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends.

Operation Chastise is undertaken by RAF Bomber Command with specially equipped Avro Lancasters to destroy the Mohne, Sorpe, and Eder dams in the Ruhr valley.

World War II: Dambuster Raids commence by No. 617 Squadron RAF.

Winston Churchill's second wartime address to the U.S. Congress

The Luttra Woman, a bog body from the Early Neolithic period (radiocarbon-dated c. 3928–3651 BC), is discovered near Luttra, Sweden.

Joseph Stalin disbands the Comintern.

The Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer of the Zigeunerfamilienlager (Romani family camp) at Auschwitz concentration camp.

BOAC Flight 777 is shot down over the Bay of Biscay by German Junkers Ju 88s, killing British actor Leslie Howard and leading to speculation that it was actually an attempt to kill British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

In Los Angeles, California, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines attack Latino youths in the five-day Zoot Suit Riots.

A military coup in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.

World War II: The two-day Battle of Porta between the Royal Italian Army and the Greek People's Liberation Army begins.

The Holocaust: Germany liquidates the Jewish Ghetto in Brzeżany, Poland (now Berezhany, Ukraine). Around 1,180 Jews are led to the city's old Jewish graveyard and shot.

The Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL merge for one season due to player shortages caused by World War II.

The Detroit race riot breaks out and continues for three more days.

World War II: The Royal Air Force launches Operation Bellicose, the first shuttle bombing raid of the war. Avro Lancaster bombers damage the V-2 rocket production facilities at the Zeppelin Works while en route to an air base in Algeria.

US military police attempt to arrest a black soldier in Bamber Bridge, England, sparking the Battle of Bamber Bridge mutiny that leaves one dead and seven wounded.

The Holocaust and World War II: Jews in the Częstochowa Ghetto in Poland stage an uprising against the Nazis.

The left-wing German Jewish exile Arthur Goldstein is murdered in Auschwitz.

World War II: The Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history and the world's largest tank battle, begins in the village of Prokhorovka.

World War II: In Gibraltar, a Royal Air Force B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into the sea in an apparent accident moments after takeoff, killing sixteen passengers on board, including general Władysław Sikorski, the commander-in-chief of the Polish Army and the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile; only the pilot survives.

World War II: An Allied invasion fleet sails for Sicily (Operation Husky, July 10, 1943).

World War II: German forces begin a massive offensive against the Soviet Union at the Battle of Kursk, also known as Operation Citadel.

World War II: The Allied invasion of Sicily begins, leading to the downfall of Mussolini and forcing Hitler to break off the Battle of Kursk.

World War II: Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, begins.

Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army within the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Volhynia) peak.

World War II: Allied invasion of Sicily: German and Italian troops launch a counter-attack on Allied forces in Sicily.

World War II: Battle of Kursk: German and Soviet forces engage in the Battle of Prokhorovka, one of the largest armored engagements of all time.

In Diamond, Missouri, the George Washington Carver National Monument becomes the first United States National Monument in honor of an African American.

World War II: Rome is heavily bombed by more than 500 Allied aircraft, inflicting thousands of casualties.

World War II: Allied forces capture Palermo during the Allied invasion of Sicily.

World War II: Axis occupation forces violently disperse a massive protest in Athens, killing 22.

The Rayleigh bath chair murder occurs in Rayleigh, Essex, England.

World War II: The British destroyers HMS Eclipse and HMS Laforey sink the Italian submarine Ascianghi in the Mediterranean after she torpedoes the cruiser HMS Newfoundland.

World War II: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, and American planes bomb the city 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.

World War II: Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by the King (encouraged by the Grand Council of Fascism) and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.

World War II: 136 Greek civilians are murdered by soldiers of the German 1st Mountain Division in the village of Mousiotitsa, Greece.

World War II: Operation Gomorrah: The Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg, Germany causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.

World War II: Operation Tidal Wave, also known as "Black Sunday", is a failed American attempt to destroy Romanian oil fields.

The Holocaust: Jewish prisoners stage a revolt at Treblinka, one of the deadliest of Nazi death camps where approximately 900,000 persons were murdered in less than 18 months.

World War II: After the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed and sunk by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri, Lt. John F. Kennedy, future U.S. president, saves all but two of his crew.

World War II: 317 Greek civilians are murdered by soldiers of the German 1st Mountain Division in the village of Kommeno, Greece.

World War II: The U.S. Eighth Air Force suffers the loss of 60 bombers on the Schweinfurt–Regensburg mission.

World War II: The U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton arrives in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.

World War II: First Québec Conference of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and William Lyon Mackenzie King begins.

World War II: The Royal Air Force begins Operation Hydra, the first air raid of the Operation Crossbow strategic bombing campaign against Germany's V-weapon program.

World War II: Kharkiv is liberated by the Soviet Red Army for the second time after the Battle of Kursk.

World War II: Japanese forces evacuate New Georgia Island in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.

World War II: Aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe razes to the ground the village of Vorizia in Crete.

Denmark in World War II: German authorities demand that Danish authorities crack down on acts of resistance. The next day, martial law is imposed on Denmark.

World War II: German-occupied Denmark scuttles most of its navy; Germany dissolves the Danish government.

USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after a black person, is commissioned.

World War II: British and Canadian troops land on the Italian mainland. On the same day, Walter Bedell Smith and Giuseppe Castellano sign the Armistice of Cassibile, although it is not announced for another five days.

World War II: In the Pacific Theater, the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment lands and occupies Lae Nadzab Airport, near Lae during the Salamaua–Lae campaign.

The Monterrey Institute of Technology is founded in Monterrey, Mexico as one of the largest and most influential private universities in Latin America.

Pennsylvania Railroad's premier train derails at Frankford Junction in Philadelphia, killing 79 people and injuring 117 others.

A fire at the Gulf Hotel in Houston kills 55 people.

World War II: The German 17th Army begins its evacuation of the Kuban bridgehead (Taman Peninsula) in southern Russia and moves across the Strait of Kerch to the Crimea.

World War II: The Armistice of Cassibile is proclaimed by radio. OB Süd immediately implements plans to disarm the Italian forces.

World War II: The Allies land at Salerno and Taranto, Italy.

World War II: In the course of Operation Achse, German troops begin their occupation of Rome.

World War II: Benito Mussolini is rescued from house arrest by German commando forces led by Otto Skorzeny.

World War II: The Wehrmacht starts a three-day retaliatory operation targeting several Greek villages in the region of Viannos, whose death toll would eventually exceed 500 persons.

World War II: The German Tenth Army reports that it can no longer contain the Allied bridgehead around Salerno.

World War II: Adolf Hitler orders the deportation of Danish Jews.

The United States Merchant Marine Academy is dedicated by President Roosevelt.

World War II: German forces murder 92 civilians in Lingiades, Greece.

World War II: Pacific Theater: Ninety-eight American POWs are executed by Japanese forces on Wake Island.

World War II: Thirteen civilians are burnt alive by a paramilitary group in Crete during the Nazi occupation of Greece.

World War II: Around 30 civilians are executed by Friedrich Schubert's paramilitary group in Kallikratis, Crete.

World War II: Marshal Pietro Badoglio announces that Italy has officially declared war on Germany.

World War II: Prisoners at Sobibor extermination camp covertly assassinate most of the on-duty SS officers and then stage a mass breakout.

World War II: The United States Eighth Air Force loses 60 of 291 B-17 Flying Fortresses during the Second Raid on Schweinfurt.

World War II: The Second Philippine Republic, a puppet state of Japan, is inaugurated with José P. Laurel as its president.

Holocaust in Italy: Raid on the Roman Ghetto.

The Burma Railway (Burma–Thailand Railway) is completed.

Nazi Holocaust in Poland: Sobibór extermination camp is closed.

The cargo vessel Sinfra is attacked by Allied aircraft at Crete and sunk. Two thousand and ninety-eight Italian prisoners of war drown with it.

Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.

World War II: The Provisional Government of Free India is formally established in Japanese-occupied Singapore.

World War II: In the second firestorm raid on Germany, the British Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless.

World War II: An F4U Corsair accomplishes the first successful radar-guided interception by a United States Navy or Marine Corps aircraft.

World War II: The 3rd Marine Division, United States Marines, landing on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands, secures a beachhead, leading that night to a naval clash at the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay.

World War II: Five hundred aircraft of the U.S. 8th Air Force devastate Wilhelmshaven harbor in Germany.

World War II: Bombing of the Vatican.

World War II: The 1st Ukrainian Front liberates Kyiv from German occupation.

An agreement for the founding of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration is signed by 44 countries in the White House, Washington, D.C.

The Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps".

World War II: In the first action of the Berlin Air Offensive, four hundred and forty Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF loses nine aircraft and 53 air crew.

The Holocaust: Nazis liquidate Janowska concentration camp in Lemberg (Lviv), western Ukraine, murdering at least 6,000 Jews after a failed uprising and mass escape attempt.

World War II: Battle of Tarawa (Operation Galvanic) begins: United States Marines land on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore guns and machine guns.

World War II: Cairo Conference: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese Premier Chiang Kai-shek meet in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss ways to defeat Japan.

Lebanon gains independence from France, nearly two years after it was first announced by the Free French government.

World War II: The Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg is destroyed. It will eventually be rebuilt in 1961 and be called the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

World War II: Tarawa and Makin atolls fall to American forces.

World War II: At the battle of Makin the USS Liscome Bay is torpedoed near Tarawa and sinks, killing 650 men.

World War II: Statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina is re-established at the State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

World War II: HMT Rohna is sunk by the Luftwaffe in an air attack in the Mediterranean north of Béjaïa, Algeria.

World War II: Tehran Conference: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran, to discuss war strategy.

The second session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ), held to determine the post-war ordering of the country, concludes in Jajce (present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina).

World War II: A Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of Bari, Italy, sinks numerous cargo and transport ships, including the American SS John Harvey, which is carrying a stockpile of mustard gas.

World War II: In Yugoslavia, resistance leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito proclaims a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in-exile.

World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt closes down the Works Progress Administration, because of the high levels of wartime employment in the United States.

World War II: Allied air forces begin attacking Germany's secret weapons bases in Operation Crossbow.

World War II: The German 117th Jäger Division destroys the monastery of Mega Spilaio in Greece and executes 22 monks and visitors as part of reprisals that culminated a few days later with the Massacre of Kalavryta.

World War II: The Massacre of Kalavryta by German occupying forces in Greece.

World War II: The Battle of Arawe begins during the New Britain campaign.

All Chinese are again permitted to become citizens of the United States upon the repeal of the Act of 1882 and the introduction of the Magnuson Act.

World War II: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is named Supreme Allied Commander for Operation Overlord.

World War II: German warship Scharnhorst is sunk off Norway's North Cape after a battle against major Royal Navy forces.

Soviet authorities launch Operation Ulussy, beginning the deportation of the Kalmyk nation to Siberia and Central Asia.

World War II: After eight days of brutal house-to-house fighting, the Battle of Ortona concludes with the victory of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division over the German 1st Parachute Division and the capture of the Italian town of Ortona.

Subhas Chandra Bose raises the flag of Indian independence at Port Blair.