1943 Wikipedia Summary

Events

Below, the events of World War II have the “WWII” prefix.

January

• January 1 – WWII: The Soviet Union announces that 22 German divisions have been encircled at Stalingrad, with 175,000 killed and 137,650 captured.
• January 4 – WWII: Greek-Polish athlete and saboteur Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz is executed by the Germans at Kaisariani.
• January 10 – WWII: Guadalcanal Campaign: American forces of the 2nd Marine Division and the 25th Infantry Division begin their assaults on the Galloping Horse and Sea Horse on Guadalcanal. Meanwhile, the Japanese 17th Army makes plans to abandon the island and after fierce resistance withdraws to the west coast of Guadalcanal.
• January 11
  • The United States and United Kingdom revise previously unequal treaty relationships with the Republic of China.
  • Italian-American anarchist Carlo Tresca is assassinated in New York City.
• January 13 – Anti-Nazi protests in Sofia result in 200 arrests and 36 executions.
• January 14 – 24 – WWII: Casablanca Conference: Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States; Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; and Generals Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud of the Free French forces meet secretly at the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, Morocco, to plan the Allied European strategy for the next stage of the war.
• January 15 – WWII: Guadalcanal Campaign – Operation Ke: Japanese forces begin to withdraw from Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
• January 16 – Iraq declares war on the Axis powers.
• 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.
  • The first Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins: several days engagement with the Germans limits the number of Jews deported at this time.
• January 21 – WWII: Pan Am Flight 1104 – Pan American Airways Martin M-130 flying boat crashes about 7 mi (11 km) southwest of Ukiah, California. All 10 passengers and 9 crew aboard are killed, including Admiral Robert H. English (at this time COMSUBPAC).
• January 22
  • WWII: Battle of Buna–Gona: American and Australian forces secure control of the territory of Papua.
  • The Holocaust: Round up of Marseille begins – Over 4,000 Jews are detained in Nazi-occupied Marseille as part of “Action Tiger”, before being transported to extermination camps in Poland.
• January 23
  • WWII: British forces capture Tripoli from the Italians.
  • 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.
• January 27 – WWII: 50 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany: Wilhelmshaven is the target.
• January 29
  • Nazi German police arrest alleged necrophiliac and serial killer Bruno Lüdke.
  • The United States Marine Corps Women’s Reserve (MCWR) is created.
• 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.
• January 29–31 – WWII: Battle of Wau – Australian forces, with United States support, resist a Japanese advance in the New Guinea campaign.
• January 30 – WWII: German General Friedrich Paulus is promoted to the rank of Field Marshal and instructed to fight to the death in Stalingrad, while Karl Dönitz is promoted to Commander in Chief of the German Navy, replacing Erich Raeder.

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 Four Chaplains of the U.S. Army are among those drowned when their ship, Dorchester, is struck by a German torpedo in the North Atlantic.
• February 5 – Lt. General Frank M. Andrews is selected to command the U.S. armies in Europe, while General Dwight D. Eisenhower is assigned command in North Africa. Andrews will serve only 3 months, before dying in an airplane crash.
• February 6 – WWII: RCN corvette HMCS Louisburg is bombed and sunk off Oran, Algeria by Italian aircraft.
• February 7 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy SC 118 is attacked by U-boats, who sink 8 ships.
• 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.
  • WWII: Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army begin, with the Parośla I massacre within the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.
  • The Holocaust: Rue Sainte-Catherine Roundup – The Gestapo, directed by Klaus Barbie, arrest 86 Jews in Lyon.
• 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.
• February 14 – WWII: Rostov-on-Don in Russia is liberated.
• February 14–17 – WWII: Battle of Sidi Bou Zid: In the Tunisia Campaign, German Panzer divisions commanded by Hans-Jürgen von Arnim are victorious over the United States Army.
• February 16 – WWII: The Soviet Union reconquers Kharkiv, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkiv.
• February 18
  • In a Sportpalast speech in Berlin, German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declares a “total war” against the Allies, tacitly admitting that Nazi Germany faces serious dangers.
  • The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose German Resistance movement.
• February 19–24 – WWII: Battle of Kasserine Pass: German General Erwin Rommel‘s Afrika Korps and other Axis forces launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia; it is the United States’ first major battle defeat of the war. On February 22, an Anglo-American force halts the German advance near Thala, forcing the Germans to retreat, US bombers harass the retreating Panzers.
• February 20
  • American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
  • The Parícutin volcano begins to appear in a cornfield in Mexico.
• February 21 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy ON 166 is attacked by U-boats, who sink eleven ships.
• February 22
  • WWII: RCN corvette HMCS Weyburn sinks east of Gibraltar, after being mined.
  • Members of the White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.
• 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.
• February 28 – Operation Gunnerside: 6 Norwegians, led by Joachim Rønneberg, successfully attack the heavy water plant at Vemork.

March

• 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.
• 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.
• March 1 – Heinz Guderian becomes Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops for the German Army.
• March 1–2 – WWII: Koriukivka massacre – 6,700 inhabitants of Koriukivka are murdered in the Ukraine, by a German SS unit.
• March 2 – WWII: Battle of the Bismarck Sea – United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships, then strafe survivors in the water.
• March 3 – 173 people are killed in a crush while trying to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green, London.
• March 4
  • As part of The Holocaust in Bulgarian-occupied Greece, almost all Jews in the region are rounded up to be taken to Treblinka extermination camp.
  • The 15th Academy Awards ceremony is held in Los Angeles. Mrs. Miniver wins the Best Picture Award.
• March 4–6 – WWII: Battle of Fardykambos – Greek partisans and armed civilians force the surrender of an Italian army battalion.
• March 5 – The Gloster Meteor, the first Allied jet fighter, makes its first flight, in England.
• March 9–10 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy SC 121 is attacked by U-boats sinking seven ships.
• March 9 – Şükrü Saracoğlu forms the new government of Turkey (14th government; Şükrü Saracoğlu had served twice as a prime minister).
• March 10 – Banco Bradesco is founded in Marília, São Paulo, Brazil.
• March 12 – WWII: Italian occupation of Greece: The Italian occupying forces abandon the town of Karditsa to the partisans. On the same day, an Italian motorized column razes the village of Tsaritsani, burning 360 of its 600 houses and shooting 40 civilians.
• March 13 – The Holocaust: Nazi German forces liquidate the Jews of the Kraków Ghetto, in Occupied Poland.
• 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.
• March 15 – WWII:
  • 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.
  • German forces recapture Kharkiv after four days of house-to-house fighting against Soviet troops, ending the month-long Third Battle of Kharkiv.
• March 16–19 – WWII: 22 ships from Convoys HX 229/SC 122 and one U-boat are sunk in the largest North Atlantic U-boat “wolfpack” attack of the war.
• 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.
• March 22 – WWII: Khatyn massacre – The entire population of Khatyn, Belarus is burnt alive by German occupation forces.
• March 23 – The drugs Vicodin and Lortab are first produced 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 27 – WWII: British Royal Navy escort carrier HMS Dasher (D37) is destroyed by an accidental explosion in the Firth of Clyde, killing 379 of the crew of 528.
• March 28 – In Italy a ship full of weapons and ammunition explodes in the port of Naples, killing 600.

April

• April 3 – Shipwrecked steward Poon Lim, BEM, is rescued by Brazilian fishermen after being adrift for 133 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
  • 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.
  • The Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins when Nazi troops enter the Warsaw Ghetto to round up remaining Jews.
• April 21 – WWII:
  • Aberdeen, Scotland, experiences its worst bombing, with 125 people killed.
  • The first German Tiger I tank is captured in North Africa by British forces.
• April 25 – Easter occurs on the latest possible date (last time 1886; next time 2038) in the Western Christian Church.
• April 27 – The U.S. Federal Writers’ Project ceases operation.

May

• 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.
• May 9–12 – Japanese troops carry 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 – The Third Washington Conference (“Trident”) 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
  • Australian Hospital Ship Centaur is sunk off the coast of Queensland by Japanese submarine  I-177, killing 268 of the 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard.
  • The 358th Bombardment Squadron, 303d Bombardment Group B-17F Hell’s Angels is the first USAAF bomber to complete 25 missions.
• May 15 – The Comintern is dissolved in Moscow.
• 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.
• May 16 – Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends. 13,000 Jews have been killed in the ghetto and almost all the remaining 50,000 residents are deported to Majdanek and Treblinka extermination camps.
• May 17 – WWII:
  • The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania‘s Moore School to develop the computer ENIAC.
  • 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.
• May 19 – Winston Churchill addresses a joint session of the United States Congress.
• May 23 – WWII: The battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62) is commissioned at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• May 27 – The port city of Maizuru is founded in Japan.
• May 29 – Norman Rockwell‘s illustration of ‘Rosie the Riveter‘ first appears, on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.
• May 30
  • The Holocaust: Dr. Josef Mengele begins his position as a medical officer in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
  • WWII: The Battle of Attu ends in the Aleutian Islands with an American victory over the Japanese forces there.

June

• 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.
• June 3
  • The Zoot Suit Riots erupt between military personnel and Mexican-American youths in East Los Angeles.
  • The French Committee of National Liberation (Comité Français de Libération Nationale, CFLN) is formed with headquarters in Algiers and Generals Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud as co-presidents.
• June 4 – A military coup d’état in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.
• June 8 – WWII: Japanese battleship Mutsu is destroyed by an accidental magazine explosion, in Hashirajima anchorage.
• June 8–9 – WWII: Battle of Porta: The Royal Italian Army is defeated by the Greek People’s Liberation Army.
• June 20–23 – The Detroit race riot of 1943 in the United States kills 34 people (25 African Americans, 9 whites), wounds hundreds more and damages and destroys property worth millions.
• June 21 – WWII: As part of Operation Animals, British Special Operations Executive saboteurs destroy the railway bridge over the Asopos River in “Operation Washing“, and guerrillas of the Greek People’s Liberation Army ambush and destroy a German convoy at the Battle of Sarantaporos.
• June 22 – WWII: The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division lands in North Africa, prior to training at Arzew, French Morocco.
• June 30
  • The United States Civilian Conservation Corps is abolished.
  • WWII: The New Georgia campaign begins in the Solomon Islands, an Allied offensive against the Japanese forces stationed there.
• 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.

July

• July 1 – The United States Women’s Army Corps (WAC) is converted to full status.
• 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.
• July 5 – WWII:
  • Nazi Germany commences Operation Citadel. It will eventually lead to the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history.
  • A fleet sets sail for the Allied invasion of Sicily.
  • The National Bands Agreement is concluded in Greece.
• July 6 – WWII: Americans and Japanese fight the Battle of Kula Gulf off Kolombangara.
• 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.
  • The Holocaust: Jedwabne pogrom – At least 340 Polish Jews are marched to a local barn, locked inside and subsequently burned to death.
• July 11 – WWII:
  • United States Army forces make an assault on Piano Lupo, just outside Gela, Sicily.
  • Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army within the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Volhynia) peak.
• 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.
• July 19 – WWII: Rome is bombed by the Allies, for the first time in the war.
• July 24 – WWII: Operation Gomorrha: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night; 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 42,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.

• 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.

August

• August 1 – Operation Tidal Wave: 177 B-24 Liberator bombers from the U.S. Army Air Force bomb oil refineries at Ploiești, Romania.
• August 2 – WWII: John F. Kennedy‘s PT boat PT-109 is run down by Japanese destroyer Amagiri.
• August 4 – WWII: The aircraft carrier USS Intrepid (CV-11) is launched at Newport News, Virginia.
• August 5 – WWII:
  • United States Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) are formed, consolidating the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WFTD).
  • John F. Kennedy and crew are found by Solomon Islands 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 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.
  • The Quadrant Conference begins in Quebec City; Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King meets with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• August 17 – WWII:
  • 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
  • Operation Hydra: The British Royal Air Force sets out to bomb the Peenemünde Army Research Center, to disrupt the German V-weapons programme.
• 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.
• August 23 – WWII: The Battle of Kursk ends, with a strategic defeat for the German forces.
• August 24 – Heinrich Himmler is named Reichsminister of the Interior in Germany.
• August 26 – WWII: Louis Mountbatten is named Supreme Allied Commander for Southeast Asia.
• August 28 – WWII: King Boris III of Bulgaria dies under suspicious circumstances; his 6-year-old son, Simeon II, ascends to the throne.
• August 29 – WWII: Occupation of Denmark – 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: Allied invasion of Italy
  • Armistice of Cassibile: The Kingdom of Italy surrenders to the Allies in a document signed on Sicily but not made public at this time.
  • Operation Baytown: Mainland Italy is invaded by Allied forces under General Bernard 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 – Gulf Hotel fire: A fire at the Gulf Hotel in Houston, Texas kills 55.
• September 8
  • WWII: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies.
  • WWII: Frascati air raid: The USAAF bombs the German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone.
  • The first classes commence at Grace University in Omaha, Nebraska.
• September 9 – Bertolt Brecht‘s play Life of Galileo (German: Leben des Galilei) receives its first theatrical production, at the Schauspielhaus Zürich.
• September 12 – WWII: Gran Sasso raid – German paratroopers rescue Mussolini from imprisonment, in Unternehmen Eiche (“Operation Oak”).
• September 16 – WWII: Salerno Mutiny – Soldiers of the British Army‘s X Corps refuse postings to new units.
• September 17 – WWII: Villefranche-de-Rouergue Mutiny – A group of pro-Partisan soldiers, led by Ferid Džanić and others within the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian), training in Occupied France, rise against Nazi German troops in the Division; the revolt is rapidly suppressed.
• September 21–26 – WWII: Massacre of the Acqui Division – German soldiers of the 1st Mountain Division (Wehrmacht) kill over 5,100 Italian military internees resisting disarmament on the Greek island of Cephalonia.
• 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.
• September 23 – WWII: The Italian Social Republic (“Republic of Salò”) is founded in northern Italy as a puppet state of Nazi Germany.
• September 25 – WWII: The Russian city of Smolensk is liberated by Soviet forces as part of the successful Smolensk operation against German defenders.
• September 27 – WWII: Four days of Naples begins: a popular uprising drives German occupying forces from the city.

October

• October 1 – WWII: United States forces enter liberated Naples.
• October 3 – WWII: Nazi Wehrmacht forces commit the Lyngiades massacre in northwest Greece as an arbitrary reprisal.
• October 6 – WWII: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Vella Lavella.
• October 7 – WWII: The Naples post-office bombing kills 100.
• October 10
  • WWII: Double Tenth incident (Japanese occupation of Singapore): The Japanese military police, the Kempeitai, arrest and torture more than 50 civilians and civilian internees, on false suspicion of their involvement in a raid on Singapore Harbour during Operation Jaywick.
  • The Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky is instituted in the Soviet Union.
• October 13 – WWII: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.
• October 14
  • WWII: During the Second Raid on Schweinfurt, the United States Eighth Air Force suffers so many losses, that it loses air supremacy over Germany for several months.
  • The Holocaust: Uprising in Sobibór extermination camp; about half the inmates escape. Three days later, the camp is closed.
  • José P. Laurel takes the oath of office as President of the Philippines (Second Philippine Republic).
• 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.
• October 17 – WWII:
  • The last commerce raider, German auxiliary cruiser Michel, is sunk off Japan by United States submarine Tarpon.
  • The Burma Railway is completed between Bangkok, Thailand and Rangoon, Burma (modern-day Myanmar) (415 km (258 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.
• October 18 – Chiang Kai-shek takes the oath of office as Chairman of the National Government of China.
• October 19 – WWII: Allied aircraft sink the German-controlled cargo ship MS Sinfra in the Mediterranean, killing over 2,000 people, mostly Italian military internees.
• October 21 – Lucie Aubrac and others in her French Resistance cell liberate Raymond Aubrac from Gestapo imprisonment.
• October 22 – WWII: Bombing of Kassel in World War II: The British Royal Air Force delivers a highly destructive airstrike on the German industrial and population center of Kassel; at least 10,000 are killed and 150,000 are made homeless.
• October 24 – WWII: British Royal Navy destroyer HMS Eclipse (H08) is sunk by a mine in the Aegean Sea, with the loss of 119 of the ship’s company and 134 troops.
• 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.
  • The Merrie Melodies animated cartoon Falling Hare, one of the only shorts with Bugs Bunny getting out-smarted, is released in the United States.

November

• November 1 – WWII: Operation Goodtime: United States Marines land on Bougainville Island in the Solomon Islands.
• November 2 – WWII:
  • Battle of Empress Augusta Bay off Bougainville Island: American and Japanese ships fight to a draw.
  • WWII: British troops in Italy reach the Garigliano River.
• November 3–4 – The Holocaust: Aktion Erntefest (“Operation Harvest Festival”) – The largest single day massacre of Jews in the entire war takes place when over 43,000 Jews are shot-gunned to death by the SS, the Ordnungspolizei and the “Trawniki men” (Ukrainian collaborators) in Sonderdienst formations at the Majdanek, Trawniki and Poniatowa concentration camps in the General Government territory of occupied Poland.
• November 5 – WWII: First Bombing of the Vatican – Four bombs are dropped on the neutral Vatican City; the aircraft responsible is never certainly identified.
• November 6 – WWII: The Ukrainian capital of Kiev is liberated by Soviet forces from its German occupiers as part of the Battle of Kiev.
• November 9 – An agreement for the foundation of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration is signed by 44 countries in the White House, Washington, D.C.
• November 10 – The Lübeck martyrs, four men of religion, are executed for supposedly treasonable views.
• 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 be put “on the same level as Jews and placed in Nazi 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 Chuuk Lagoon (Truk).
• November 18 – WWII: Battle of Berlin – The British Royal Air Force opens its bombing campaign against Berlin with 440 planes, causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF loses 9 aircraft and 53 aviators.
• 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.
• November 20 – WWII: Battle of Tarawa: United States Marines land on Tarawa and Makin atolls in the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati from 1979) and take heavy fire from Japanese shore guns.
• 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.
• November 22 – Lebanon gains independence, upon the ending of the French Mandate.
• 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).
• November 25 – WWII: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Cape St. George, between Buka and New Ireland.
• 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.
• November 27 – The 1943 Tosya–Ladik earthquake in Turkey kills thousands.
• 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 – 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 SS John Harvey, releasing its secret cargo of mustard gas bombs, inflating the number of casualties.
• December 3
  • In reprisal for an act of sabotage, the SS and Gestapo execute 100 Warsaw Tramway workers.
  • 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.
  • With unemployment figures falling fast due to WWII-related employment, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt closes the Works Progress Administration.
  • WWII: Bolivia declares war on Romania and Hungary.
• December 7 – Chiara Lubich starts the humanitarian Focolare Movement in Trento, Italy.
• December 13 – WWII: Massacre of Kalavryta – The occupying 117th Jäger Division (Wehrmacht) machine-guns all adult males from Kalavryta, Greece, subsequently burning the town.
• December 15 – WWII: American and Australian forces begin the Battle of Arawe as a diversion before a larger landing at Cape Gloucester on New Britain, in Papua New Guinea.
• December 20 – A military coup is staged in Bolivia.
• December 20–28 – WWII: Italian Campaign – Battle of Ortona: Canadian infantry defeat elite German paratroops.
• December 24 – WWII: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes Supreme Allied Commander Europe. He establishes the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in London.
• December 26 – WWII: Battle of the North Cape – German battleship Scharnhorst is torpedoed and sunk in a night action north of the Arctic Circle by British battleship HMS Duke of York and her escorts with the loss of all but 36 of the German crew of 1,943 (including Admiral Erich Bey); this is the war’s last action between big-gun capital ships of Britain and Germany.
• December 30 – Subhas Chandra Bose sets up a pro-Japanese Indian government at Port Blair, India.
• December 31 – The Times Square Ball in Times Square, New York City isn’t dropped a second time. Instead, there was a moment of silence at midnight, followed by the sound of bells playing from sound trucks at the base of One Times Square.

Date unknown

• Bengal Famine.
• 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.
• Arana Hall, a residential college of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, is founded.
• Jacques-Yves Cousteau co-invents, with Émile Gagnan, the first commercially successful open circuit type of scuba diving equipment, the Aqua-lung.
• Martin Noth‘s groundbreaking work of Old Testament scholarship, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament, is published.