Year retrospective · 1940s

1943

1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1943rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 943rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 43rd year of the 20th century, and the 4th year of the 1940s decade.

Recorded events

10

top entries

Notable births

30

Notable deaths

30

Decade

1940s

Timeline

Defining events of 1943

  1. 1943 World War II: The discovery of mass graves of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government-in-exile in London and the Soviet Union, which denies responsibility.

    1939–1945 global conflict

    World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war.

  2. 1943 The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C., on the 200th anniversary of President Thomas Jefferson's birth.

    National memorial in Washington, D.C.

    , built in honor of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the nation's third president. Built between 1939 and 1943, the memorial features multiple quotes from Jefferson intended to capture his ideology and philosophy, known as Jeffersonian democracy. Jefferson was widely considered among the most influential political minds of his era and one of the most consequential intellectual forces behind both the American Revolution and the American Enlightenment.

  3. 1943 Albert Hofmann accidentally discovers the hallucinogenic effects of the research drug LSD. He intentionally takes the drug three days later on April 19.

    Swiss chemist (1906–2008)

    Albert Hofmann was a Swiss chemist known for being the first to synthesize, ingest, and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Hofmann's team also isolated, named and synthesized the principal psychedelic mushroom compounds psilocybin and psilocin. Hofmann discovered the structure of chitin in 1929.

  4. 1943 World War II: Operation Vengeance, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by U.S. fighters over Bougainville Island.

    U.S. operation to kill Admiral Yamamoto, 18 April 1943

    Operation Vengeance was the American military operation to kill Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy on 18 April 1943 during the Solomon Islands campaign in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was killed near Bougainville Island when his G4M1 transport aircraft was shot down by United States Army Air Forces fighter aircraft operating from Kukum Field on Guadalcanal.

  5. 1943 World War II: In German-occupied Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins, after German troops enter the Warsaw Ghetto to round up the remaining Jews.

    Jewish insurgency against Nazi Germany in German-occupied Poland during World War II

    The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was an uprising by the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the gas chambers of the Majdanek and Treblinka extermination camps in 1943. It was the largest single revolt by Jews against the Nazis during World War II.

  6. 1943 The Easter Riots break out in Uppsala, Sweden.

    1943 clashes between Nazis and anti-fascists in Sweden

    The Easter Riots is the name given to a period of unrest in Uppsala, Sweden, during the Easter of 1943. The fascist group Swedish Socialist Union held its national congress in Uppsala, amid the Second World War and only days after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The unrest climaxed on 26 April, when the SSS ended the congress by holding a demonstration at the Royal Mounds of Old Uppsala.

  7. 1943 World War II: The British submarine HMS Seraph surfaces near Huelva to cast adrift a dead man dressed as a courier and carrying false invasion plans.
  8. 1943 World War II: United States Army Air Forces bomber aircraft accidentally cause more than 900 civilian deaths, including 209 children, and 1,300 wounded among the civilian population of the Belgian town of Mortsel. Their target was the Erla factory 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) from the residential area hit.
  9. 1943 The Holocaust in Ukraine: In Terebovlia, Germans order 1,100 Jews to undress and march through the city to the nearby village of Plebanivka, where they are shot and buried in ditches.
  10. 1943 Ioannis Rallis becomes collaborationist Prime Minister of Greece during the Axis Occupation.

Arrivals

Born in 1943

Margo MacDonald 1943– Scottish politician (1943–2014)
Richard Smalley 1943– American chemist and Nobel laureate (1943–2005)
Nikki Giovanni 1943– American poet, writer and activist (1943–2024)
"Superstar" Billy Graham 1943– American wrestler (1943–2023)
Colin Baker 1943– English actor (born 1943)
William Calley 1943– US Army officer convicted for massacre at My Lai, Vietnam (1943–2024)
Willie Davenport 1943– American athlete and bobsledder (1943–2002)
Vince Cable 1943– British politician (born 1943)
Colin Pillinger 1943– English planetary scientist
Margo MacDonald 1943– Scottish politician (1943–2014)
Richard Smalley 1943– American chemist and Nobel laureate (1943–2005)
Nikki Giovanni 1943– American poet, writer and activist (1943–2024)

Farewells

Died in 1943

Isoroku Yamamoto Japanese admiral (1884–1943)
Potato Creek Johnny American frontiersman
Theodor Eicke German SS officer (1892–1943)
Alexandre Yersin Swiss-born French physician and microbiologist
Gustav Vigeland Norwegian sculptor
Stephen Vincent Benét Poet, short story writer, novelist (1898–1943)
Cipto Mangunkusumo Indonesian independence leader
Otto Freundlich German painter (1878–1943)
Fethi Okyar 2nd Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey from 1924 to 1925
Isoroku Yamamoto Japanese admiral (1884–1943)
Potato Creek Johnny American frontiersman
Theodor Eicke German SS officer (1892–1943)

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