What happened in 1943

World4

• Mar 2WWII: Battle of the Bismarck Sea – United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships, then strafe survivors in the water.
• Sep 12WWII: Gran Sasso raid – German paratroopers rescue Mussolini from imprisonment, in Unternehmen Eiche ("Operation Oak").
• Oct 6WWII: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Vella Lavella.
• Dec 24WWII: Dnieper–Carpathian offensive of Soviet Arme begins.

Japan1

• Jan 29WWII: 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.

North America13

• Jan 1Disney in the United States releases the anti -Nazi and -Axis propaganda short animated movie Der Fuehrer's Face featuring Donald Duck which later wins Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
• Jan 10WWII: 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.
• Mar 4The 15th Academy Awards ceremony is held in Los Angeles. Mrs. Miniver wins the Best Picture Award.
• May 12The Third Washington Conference ("Trident") begins in Washington, D.C., with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill taking part.
• May 17The 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 29Norman Rockwell's illustration of 'Rosie the Riveter' first appears, on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.
• Aug 5United States Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) are formed, consolidating the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WFTD).
• Aug 14The Quadrant Conference begins in Quebec City; Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King meets with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• Aug 17The 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.
• Nov 1WWII: Operation Goodtime: United States Marines land on Bougainville Island in the Solomon Islands.
• Nov 20WWII: 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.
• Nov 28WWII: 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.
• Dec 24WWII: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes Supreme Allied Commander Europe. He establishes the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in London.

Europe48

• Jan 18The first Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins: several day's engagements with the Germans limits the number of Jews deported at this time.
• Feb 18The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose German Resistance movement.
• Feb 22Members of the White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.
• Mar 4As part of The Holocaust in Bulgarian-occupied Greece, almost all Jews in the region are rounded up to be taken to Treblinka extermination camp.
• Mar 15German forces recapture Kharkiv after four days of house-to-house fighting against Soviet troops, ending the month-long Third Battle of Kharkiv.
• MarExiled 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.
• Apr 19The Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins when Nazi troops enter the Warsaw Ghetto to round up remaining Jews.
• Apr 21The first German Tiger I tank is captured in North Africa by British forces.
• May 16Holocaust: 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.
• Jul 5Nazi Germany commences Operation Citadel. It will eventually lead to the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history.
• Jul 11Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army within the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Volhynia) peak.
• Sep 3Armistice of Cassibile: The Kingdom of Italy surrenders to the Allies in a document signed on Sicily but not made public at this time.
• Sep 3WWII: Allied invasion of Italy
• Oct 14The Holocaust: Uprising in Sobibór extermination camp; about half the inmates escape. Three days later, the camp is closed.
• Nov 6WWII: The Ukrainian capital of Kiev is liberated by Soviet forces from its German occupiers as part of the Battle of Kiev.

33 more in the app

USSR / Russia12

• Jan 18WWII: 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.
• Feb 2WWII: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end, with the surrender of the German 6th Army.
• Feb 16WWII: The Soviet Union reconquers Kharkiv, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkiv.
• Mar 26WWII: 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. During the engagement, heavy cruiser USS Salt Lake City is severely damaged by Japanese cruiser gunfire. Lasting for three and a half hours, it will be the longest continuous gunnery duel in modern naval history.
• Jul 12WWII: 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.
• Jul 17Soviet forces of the Southwestern- and Southern Front strike hard at the German defenses of the 9th Army under General Walter Model during Operation Kutuzov.
• Aug 23WWII: The Battle of Kursk ends, with a strategic defeat for the German forces.
• Sep 25WWII: The Russian city of Smolensk is liberated by Soviet forces as a part of the successful Smolensk operation.
• Oct 10The Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky is instituted in the Soviet Union.
• Oct 18Third Moscow Conference: A meeting takes place at the Kremlin between the British, American, and Soviet foreign ministers Anthony Eden, Cordell Hull and Vyacheslav Molotov. The USSR agrees to the full creation of a world peace organization with its Allies.
• Oct 30WWII: 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.
• Nov 5Battle of the Dnieper: Soviet forces of the 4th Ukrainian Front under General Fyodor Tolbukhin overrun the area between the lower Dnieper and the Crimea. The German 6th Army pulls back across the river, leaving the bridgehead at Nikopol on the east bank. The Crimea is cut off from the rest of the German army.

Asia4

• Feb 13WWII: Operation Longcloth: Chindit forces (some 3,000 men) of the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade under Brigadier General Orde Wingate cross the Chindwin River and proceed into Burma.
• May 9Japanese troops carry out the Changjiao massacre in Changjiao, Hunan, China.
• Oct 17The Burma Railway is completed between Bangkok, Thailand and Rangoon, Burma (modern-day Myanmar) () 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.
• Bengal Famine.

Middle East2

• Nov 22Lebanon gains independence, upon the ending of the French Mandate.
• Nov 22WWII: 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.

Latin America2

• Feb 20The Parícutin volcano begins to appear in a cornfield in Mexico.
• Mar 10Banco Bradesco is founded in Marília, São Paulo, Brazil.

Africa3

• Feb 14WWII: 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.
• Feb 19WWII: 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.
• Mar 16WWII: Battle of the Mareth Line: Allied forces of the British 8th Army under General Bernard Montgomery launch an offensive against the Mareth Line held by the Italo-German 1st Army.

Oceania11

• Jan 15WWII: Guadalcanal campaign – Operation Ke: Japanese forces begin to withdraw from Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
• Jan 22WWII: Battle of Buna–Gona: American and Australian forces secure control of the territory of Papua.
• Jan 29WWII: Battle of Wau – Australian forces, with United States support, resist a Japanese advance in the New Guinea campaign.
• Feb 9WWII: 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.
• Jun 30WWII: The New Georgia campaign begins in the Solomon Islands, an Allied offensive against the Japanese forces stationed there.
• Jul 6WWII: Americans and Japanese fight the Battle of Kula Gulf off Kolombangara.
• Aug 6WWII: 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.
• Sep 5WWII: US landing at Nadzab: The 503rd Parachute Regiment under Colonel George Jones lands and occupies Nadzab, just east of the port city of Lae, in northeastern Papua New Guinea.
• Nov 2Battle of Empress Augusta Bay off Bougainville Island: American and Japanese ships fight to a draw.
• Nov 25WWII: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Cape St. George, between Buka and New Ireland.
• Dec 15WWII: 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.