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 - Culbert Olson, 29th Governor of California, 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 the 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: The 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.
  • The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins.
• 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 is the target).
• January 29 - German police arrest alleged necrophiliac Bruno Ludke.

February

Soviet T34 tanks during the Battle of Kursk.

• 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 legendary Four Chaplains of the U.S. Army are drowned, when their ship (USAT Dorchester) is struck by a German torpedo.
• February 7 - WWII: In the United States, it is announced that shoe rationing will go into effect in 2 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: The 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 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 at St. Joseph's Orphanage, County Cavan, Ireland, kills 36 people (35 of whom are 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 - The 15th Academy Awards ceremony is held in Los Angeles.
• March 8 - WWII: American forces are attacked by Japanese troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville, in a battle that will last 5 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 22 - WWII: The entire population of Khatyn in Belarus is burnt alive by the German occupation forces.
• March 23- The drugs Vicodin and Lortab are made in Germany.
• March 26 - WWII - Battle of the Komandorski Islands: In the Aleutian Islands, the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese troops attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska.
• March 28 - In Italy a ship full of weapons and ammunition explodes in the port of Naples, killing 600.
• 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 being 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 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 10 - Marco Nahon departures from Greece to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
• May 11 - WWII: American troops invade Attu in the Aleutian Islands, in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
• May 12 - The 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 - The Australian Hospital Ship Centaur is sunk off the coast of Queensland, by a Japanese submarine.
• May 15 - The Comintern is dissolved in Moscow.
• May 16 - WWII: The Dambuster Raids by RAF 617 Sqdn are carried out on German dams.
• May 16 - Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends.
  • Marco Nahon arrives at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
• May 17 - WWII:
  • The surviving RAF Dam Busters return.
  • The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the computer 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 the chief medical officer of Auschwitz.
• May 29 - Norman Rockwell's illustration of Rosie the Riveter first appears on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.
• May 31 - The Zoot Suit Riots erupt between military personnel and Mexican American youths in East Los Angeles.

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.
• June 4 - A 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 - The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division lands in North Africa, prior to training at Arzew, French Morocco.

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 - Allied invasion of Sicily: The allied invasion of Axis-controlled Europe begins with landings on the island of Sicily off mainland Italy, by the U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division and a number of Allied paratroopers.
• July 11 - United States Army forces assault the village of Piano Lupo, just outside of Gela, Sicily.
• July 12 - WWII - Battle of Prokhorovka: The Wehrmacht and the Red Army fight to a draw.
• 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 withdraws its support of 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 Ploie“ti, 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: The USS Intrepid (CV-11) is launched.
• August 5 - WWII: John F. Kennedy and crew are found by Solomon Islanders coastwatchers Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana with their dugout canoe.
• August 6 - WWII - Battle of Vella Gulf: Americans defeat a Japanese convoy 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 - The 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 arrives 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: - Heinrich Himmler is named Reichminister of the Interior in Germany .
• August 26 - WWII: Lord Louis Mountbatten is named Supreme Allied Commander for Southeast Asia.
• August 28 - WWII: King Boris III of Bulgaria dies under peculiar circumstances; his 6-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.
  • Frascati bombing raid September 8, 1943: The USAAF bombs the German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone.
  • Czech resistance fighter Julius Fucik is executed by the Nazis.
• September 8 - The first classes commence at Grace University.
• September 12 - WWII: German paratroopers rescue Mussolini from imprisonment, in "Operation Oak".
• September 16 - WWII: The Salerno Mutiny occurs within the British X Corps.
• September 17 - WWII: The Villefranche-de-Rouergue uprising takes place.
• September 23 - WWII: The Republic of Salò is founded.
• September 27 - WWII: The 4-day Naples Uprising begins.

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: The Naples post office explosion kills 100.
• October 10 - The Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky is 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: The RAF delivers a highly destructive airstrike on the German industrial and population center of Kassel.
• October 30 - The Merrie Melodies animated short Falling Hare, the only short with Bugs getting out-smarted, is released in the United States.

November

• November 1 - WWII - 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" 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.
  • A Japanese submarine sinks the surfaced U.S. submarine USS Corvina near Truk.
• November 18 - WWII: 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin, causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF loses 9 aircraft and 53 aviators.
• November 20 - WWII - Battle of Tarawa: 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: U.S. 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 is destroyed. It is 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: U.S. 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 establish an agreement concerning a planned June 1944 invasion of Europe codenamed Operation Overlord).
• 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.

December

• December 2 - A Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of Bari, Italy, sinks an American ship with a mustard gas stockpile, causing numerous fatalities (though the exact death toll is unresolved, as the bombing raid itself causes 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.
  • The Great Depression officially ends in the United States: With unemployment figures falling fast due to World War II-related employment, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt closes the Works Progress Administration.
• December 20 - A military coup is staged in Bolivia.
• December 24 - WWII: U.S. 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

• The Colossus computer is invented by the British to break German encryption (see History of computing hardware).
• The Mondragón Cooperative Corporation begins in Basque Country in Spain.
• Arana Hall, Otago is founded in New Zealand.
• Jacques-Yves Cousteau co-invents, with Emile Gagnan, the first commercially successful open circuit type of scuba diving equipment, the Aqua-lung.^[1].
• 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

• January 1 - Don Novello, American actor (Saturday Night Live)
• January 2 - Bar-- 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 (Time In A Bottle) (d. 1973)
• January 11 - Jim Hightower, American radio host and author
• January 13 - Richard Moll, American actor (Night Court)
• January 16 - Brian Ferneyhough, British composer
• January 18 - Kay Granger, American politician
• January 19
  • Janis Joplin, American rock singer (Mercedez Benz) (d. 1970)
  • Princess Margriet of the Netherlands
• January 20 - Mel Hague, English singer and author
• January 24 - Sharon Tate, American actress and Manson 'Family' 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 rock musician (Jefferson Airplane)

February

• 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 8 - Creed Bratton, American actor and musician
• February 9
  • Joe Pesci, American actor (My Cousin Vinny)
  • 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
  • Moshe Cotel, American composer and pianist (d. 2008)
• 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
• February 28 - Donnie Iris, American musician (The Jaggerz, Wild Cherry, Donnie Iris and the Cruisers)

March

• 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)
• March 22
  • Bruno Ganz, Swiss actor (Luther)
  • Keith Relf, British rock musician (The Yardbirds) (d. 1976)
• March 25 - Royston Maldoom OBE, British choreographer
• March 26 - Bob Woodward, American journalist (All The President's Men)
• March 29
  • Eric Idle, English actor, writer, and composer (Monty Python)
  • John Major, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
  • Vangelis, Greek musician and composer (Chariots of Fire)
• March 31 - Christopher Walken, American actor (Click)

April

• April 2 - Frank Feather, British-born international business futurist and author
• April 5 - Max Gail, American actor (Barney Miller)
• April 7 - Mick Abrahams, British rock guitarist
• April 8 - Miller Farr, American football player
• April 10 - Andrzej Bade-ski, Polish athlete
• April 11 - Harley Race, American professional wrestler
• April 20 - John Eliot Gardiner, English conductor