| 1943-08-17
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 L. Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
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| 1943-07-11
World War II: Allied invasion of Sicily – German and Italian troops launch a counter-attack on Allied forces in Sicily.
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| 1943-05-11
World War II: American troops invade Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
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| 1943-02-11
World War II: General Dwight Eisenhower is selected to command the allied armies in Europe.
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| 1943-09-23
World War II: The so-called Salò Republic is born.
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| 1943-01-31
German Field Marshall Friedrich Paulus surrenders to the Soviets at Stalingrad, followed 2 days later by the remainder of his Sixth Army, ending one of World War II's fiercest battles.
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| 1943-01-23
World War II: Australian and American forces finally defeat the Japanese army in Papua. This turning point in the Pacific War marks the beginning of the end of Japanese aggression.
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| 1943-05-16
Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends.
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| 1943-01-23
Duke Ellington plays at Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
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| 1943-09-18
World War II: The Jews of Minsk are massacred at Sobibór.
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| 1943-08-31
The USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after a black person, is commissioned.
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| 1943-09-10
World War II: German forces begin their occupation of Rome.
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| 1943-04-08
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an attempt to check inflation, freezes wages and prices, prohibits workers from changing jobs unless the war effort would be aided thereby, and bars rate increases by common carriers and public utilities.
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| 1943-11-01
World War II: Battle of Empress Augusta Bay, United States Marines, the 3rd Marine Division, land on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.
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| 1943-04-13
World War II: The discovery of a mass grave of Polish prisoners of war executed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, alienating the Western Allies, the Polish government in exile in London, from the Soviet Union.
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| 1943-03-13
The Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków. Hans Finke arrives in Auschwitz with 963 other prisoners. 473 are put to death in the gas chambers. 491 are assigned to slave labor.
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| 1943-01-23
World War II: The Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse on Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal campaign ends.
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| 1943-04-13
James Boarman, Fred Hunter, Harold Brest and Floyd G. Hamilton take part in an attempt to escape from Alcatraz .
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| 1943-03-19
Frank Nitti, the Chicago Outfit Boss after Al Capone, commits suicide at the Chicago Central Railyard.
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| 1943-03-01
World War II: Battle of Bismarck Sea begins.
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| 1943-05-15
Joseph Stalin dissolves the Comintern (or Third International).
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| 1943-01-15
World War II: The Soviet counter-offensive at Voronezh begins.
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| 1943-05-31
Zoot Suit Riots begin
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| 1943-08-29
German-occupied Denmark scuttles most of its navy;Germany dissolves the Danish government.
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| 1943-08-23
World War II: Kharkov liberated.
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| 1943-09-05
World War II: The 503d Parachute Infantry Regiment lands and occupies Nazdab, near Lae in the Salamaua-Lae campaign.
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| 1943-05-13
World War II: German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces.
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| 1943-07-24
World War II: 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.
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| 1943-02-22
World War II: Members of White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.
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| 1943-06-23
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.
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| 1943-10-04
World War II: U.S. captures Solomon Islands.
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| 1943-07-09
World War II: Operation Husky – Allied forces perform an amphibious invasion of Sicily.
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| 1943-09-18
World War II: Adolf Hitler orders the deportation of Danish Jews.
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| 1943-07-22
World War II: Allied forces capture the Italian city of Palermo.
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| 1943-03-27
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.
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| 1943-02-18
The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement.
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| 1943-07-10
World War II: The launching of Operation Husky begins the Italian Campaign.
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| 1943-11-03
World War II: 500 aircraft of the U.S. 8th Air Force devastate Wilhelmshafen harbor in Germany.
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| 1943-03-04
World War II: The Battle of the Bismarck Sea in the South West Pacific comes to an end.
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| 1943-07-25
World War II: Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by his own Italian Grand Council and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.
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| 1943-08-28
World War II: in Denmark, a general strike against the Nazi occupation is started.
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| 1943-02-23
A fire breaks out at St. Joseph's Orphanage, Co Cavan, Ireland, killing 36 people (35 of whom are children).
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| 1943-11-20
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.
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| 1943-08-12
Alleged date of the first Philadelphia Experiment test on United States Navy ship USS Eldridge.
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| 1943-11-25
World War II: Statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina is re-established at the State Anti-Fascist Council for the People's Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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| 1943-01-11
Italian-American Anarchist Carlo Tresca is assassinated in New York
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| 1943-09-17
World War II: The Russian city of Bryansk is liberated from Nazis.
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| 1943-06-19
Race riots occur in Beaumont, Texas.
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| 1943-11-22
World War II: War in the Pacific – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek meet in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss ways to defeat Japan (see Cairo Conference)
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| 1943-09-09
World War II: The Allies land at Salerno and Taranto, Italy.
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| 1943-08-17
The U.S. Eighth Air Force suffers the loss of 60 bombers on the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission.
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| 1943-08-02
World War II: PT-109 rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri and sinks. Lt. John F. Kennedy, future U.S. President, saves all but two of his crew.
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| 1943-07-05
Beginning of the Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history and the world's largest tank battle at Prokhorovka village.
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| 1943-11-19
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.
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| 1943-12-30
Subhas Chandra Bose raises the flag of Indian independence at Port Blair.
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| 1943-05-17
World War II: the Dambuster Raids by No. 617 Squadron RAF on German dams.
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| 1943-01-24
World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill conclude a conference in Casablanca.
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| 1943-09-13
Chiang Kai-shek elected president of the Republic of China.
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| 1943-10-26
World War II: First flight of the Dornier Do 335 "Pfeil".
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| 1943-04-19
World War II: In Poland, German troops enter the Warsaw ghetto to round up the remaining Jews, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
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| 1943-04-13
The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C., on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birth.
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| 1943-09-29
World War II: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio sign an armistice aboard the Royal Navy battleship HMS Nelson off Malta.
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| 1943-02-20
American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
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| 1943-10-14
Prisoners at the Nazi German Sobibor extermination camp in Poland revolted against the Germans, killing eleven SS troops who were guards there, and wounding many more. About 300 of the Sobibor Camp's 600 prisoners escaped from this Nazi extermination camp, and about 50 of these survived past the end of World War II (on May 8, 1945, European time).
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| 1943-10-22
World War II: in the Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless.
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| 1943-02-27
The Rosenstrasse protest starts in Berlin
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| 1943-07-05
World War II: An Allied invasion fleet sails for Sicily (Operation Husky, July 10, 1943).
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| 1943-02-14
World War II: Tunisia Campaign – General Hans-Jurgen von Arnim's Fifth Panzer Army launches a concerted attack against Allied positions in Tunisia.
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| 1943-12-26
World War II: German warship Scharnhorst is sunk off of Norway's North Cape after a battle against major Royal Navy forces.
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| 1943-04-25
The Demyansk Shield for German troops in commemoration of Demyansk Pocket is instituted.
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| 1943-02-14
World War II: Rostov-on-Don, Russia is liberated.
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| 1943-11-28
World War II: Tehran Conference – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran to discuss war strategy.
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| 1943-02-18
Joseph Goebbels delivers his Sportpalast speech.
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| 1943-12-05
World War II: U.S. Army Air Force begins attacking Germany's secret weapons bases in Operation Crossbow .
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| 1943-11-15
Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps". (see Porajmos)
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| 1943-04-18
World War II: Operation Vengeance, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by U.S. fighters over Bougainville Island.
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| 1943-09-07
A fire at the Gulf Hotel in Houston, Texas, kills 55 people.
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| 1943-12-04
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.
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| 1943-04-19
Bicycle Day – Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time.
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| 1943-11-29
The 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.
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| 1943-12-24
World War II: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the Supreme Allied Commander.
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| 1943-11-18
World War II: Battle of Berlin: 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF loses nine aircraft and 53 air crew.
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| 1943-02-02
World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad comes to conclusion as Soviet troops accept the surrender of 91,000 remnants of the Axis forces.
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| 1943-02-20
The Parícutin volcano begins to form in Parícutin, Mexico.
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| 1943-02-20
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.
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| 1943-10-17
Burma Railway (Burma-Thailand Railway) is completed.
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| 1943-01-29
The first day of the Battle of Rennell Island, U.S. cruiser Chicago is torpedoed and heavily damaged by Japanese bombers.
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| 1943-05-24
Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
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| 1943-10-10
Double Tenth Incident in Japanese controlled Singapore
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| 1943-09-06
The Monterrey Institute of Technology, one of the largest and most influential private universities in Latin America, is founded in Monterrey, Mexico.
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| 1943-03-02
World War II: Battle of the Bismarck Sea – United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships.
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| 1943-10-19
Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
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| 1943-02-09
World War II: Allied authorities declare Guadalcanal secure after Imperial Japan evacuates its remaining forces from the island, ending the Battle of Guadalcanal.
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| 1943-07-14
In Joplin, Missouri, the George Washington Carver National Monument becomes the first United States National Monument in honor of an African American.
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| 1943-10-31
World War II: An F4U Corsair accomplishes the first successful radar-guided interception.
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| 1943-05-17
The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.
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| 1943-03-15
World War II: Third Battle of Kharkov – the Germans retake the city of Kharkov from the Soviet armies in bitter street fighting.
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| 1943-11-06
World War II: the Soviet Red Army recaptures Kiev. Before withdrawing, the Germans destroy most of the city's ancient buildings.
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| 1943-06-01
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 the downing was an attempt to kill British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
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| 1943-04-07
Holocaust: In Terebovlia, Ukraine, Germans order 1,100 Jews to undress to their underwear and march through the city of Terebovlia to the nearby village of Plebanivka where they are shot dead and buried in ditches.
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| 1943-01-23
World War II: Troops of Montgomery's 8th Army capture Tripoli in Libya from the German-Italian Panzer Army.
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| 1943-09-12
World War II: Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy, is rescued from house arrest on the Gran Sasso in Abruzzi, by German commando forces led by Otto Skorzeny.
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| 1943-07-12
World War II: Battle of Prokhorovka – German and Soviet forces engage in the largest tank engagement of all time.
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| 1943-11-24
World War II: The USS Liscome Bay is torpedoed near Tarawa and sinks with nearly 650 men killed.
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| 1943-11-23
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.
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| 1943-10-01
World War II: Naples falls to Allied soldiers.
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| 1943-12-04
World War II: In Yugoslavia, resistance leader Marshal Tito proclaims a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in-exile.
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| 1943-07-11
Massacres of Poles in Volhynia.
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| 1943-01-27
World War II: The VIII Bomber Command dispatched ninety-one B-17s and B-24s to attack the U-Boat construction yards at Wilhemshafen, Germany. The first American bombing attack on Germany.
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| 1943-04-16
Dr. Albert Hofmann discovers the psychedelic effects of LSD.
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| 1943-01-30
World War II: Second day of the Battle of Rennell Island. The USS Chicago (CA-29) is sunk and a U.S. destroyer is heavily damaged by Japanese torpedoes.
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| 1943-08-27
Japanese forces evacuate New Georgia Island in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.
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| 1943-12-28
World War II – After eight days of brutal house-to-house fighting, the battle of Ortona concludes with the victory of the1st Canadian Infantry Division over the German 1st Parachute Division and the capture of the Italian town of Ortona.
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| 1943-08-17
World War II: First Québec Conference of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and William Lyon Mackenzie King begins.
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| 1943-11-23
World War II: Tarawa and Makin atolls fall to American forces.
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| 1943-12-02
A Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of Bari, Italy, sinks numerous cargo and transport ships, including an American Liberty ship, the John Harvey, with a stockpile of World War I-era mustard gas.
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| 1943-12-13
World War II: The Massacre of Kalavryta by German occupying forces in Greece.
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| 1943-03-14
World War II – The Kraków Ghetto is 'liquidated'.
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| 1943-10-14
The American Eighth Air Force loses 60 B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers in aerial combat during the second mass-daylight air raid on the Schweinfurt ball-bearing factories in western Nazi Germany.
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| 1943-03-03
World War II: In London, England, 173 people are killed in a crush while trying to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green tube station.
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| 1943-09-08
World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy.
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| 1943-02-07
Imperial Japanese naval 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.
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| 1943-02-19
World War II: Battle of the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia begins.
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| 1943-11-16
World War II: American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.
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| 1943-04-30
World War II: Operation Mincemeat: The submarine HMS Seraph surfaces in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain to deposit a dead man planted with false invasion plans and dressed as a British military intelligence officer.
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| 1943-03-22
World War II: the entire population of Khatyn in Belarus is burnt alive by German occupation forces.
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| 1943-07-28
World War II: Operation Gomorrah: The British bomb Hamburg causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.
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| 1943-10-13
World War II: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.
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| 1943-01-11
World War II: The United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China.
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| 1943-07-01
Tokyo City merges with Tokyo Prefecture and is dissolved. Since then, no city in Japan has had the name "Tokyo" (present-day Tokyo is not officially a city).
|
| 1943-01-18
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
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| 1943-02-27
The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men.
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| 1943-01-15
The world's largest office building, The Pentagon, is dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.
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| 1943-06-12
Holocaust: Germany liquidates the Jewish Ghetto in Berezhany, western Ukraine. 1,180 Jews are led to the city's old Jewish graveyard and shot.
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| 1943-09-08
World War II: The O.B.S. (German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone) in Frascati is bombed by USAAF.
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| 1943-03-13
World War II: In Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700.
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| 1943-09-07
World War II: The German 17th Army begins its evacuation of the Kuban River bridgehead (Taman Peninsula) in southern Russia and moves across the Strait of Kerch to the Crimea.
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| 1943-09-13
The Municipal Theatre of Corfu is destroyed during an aerial bombardment by Luftwaffe.
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| 1943-02-16
World War II: Soviet troops re-enter Kharkov.
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| 1943-08-02
Rebellion in the Nazi death camp of Treblinka.
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| 1943-05-14
A Japanese submarine sinks AHS Centaur off the coast of Queensland.
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| 1943-06-04
A military coup in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.
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| 1943-03-05
First flight of Gloster Meteor jet aircraft in the United Kingdom.
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| 1943-11-01
World War II: In support of the landings on Bougainville, U.S. aircraft carrier forces attack the huge Japanese base at Rabaul.
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| 1943-05-19
World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set Monday, May 1, 1944 as the date for the Normandy landings ("D-Day"). It would later be delayed over a month due to bad weather.
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| 1943-11-22
Lebanon gains independence from France.
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