Events from the year 1943 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government President: Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-New York) Vice President: Henry A. Wallace (D-Iowa) Chief Justice: Harlan F. Stone (New York) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Sam Rayburn (D-Texas) Senate Majority Leader: Alben W. Barkley (D-Kentucky) Congress: 77th (until January 3), 78th (starting January 3)
State governments Governors and lieutenant governors Governors
Lieutenant governors
Events
January January 1 – Project Y, the Manhattan Project's secret laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, for development and production of the first atomic bombs under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer, begins operations. 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. January 14 The Casablanca Conference, where 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). Aircraft carrier USS Independence is commissioned. January 15 – The world's largest office building, The Pentagon, headquarters of the Department of War, is dedicated in Arlington, Virginia. January 23 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".
February
February 3 – The legendary Four Chaplains of the U.S. Army are drowned when their ship () is struck by a German torpedo. February 5 – Howard Hughes's Western The Outlaw, starring Jane Russell, is released for a week prior to Motion Picture Production Code censors requiring its withdrawal from distribution. February 6 – Walt Disney Productions' sixth feature film, Saludos Amigos, is released. It is the first of six package films they would release throughout the remainder of the 1940s. February 7 – WWII: It is announced that shoe rationing will go into effect in the US in two days. February 8 – WWII: Battle of Guadalcanal – United States forces defeat Japanese troops. February 11 – General Dwight D. Eisenhower is selected to command the Allied armies in Europe. February 14 – WWII: 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 17 – Aircraft carrier USS Lexington is commissioned. February 20 – American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies. February 25 – Aircraft carrier USS Princeton is commissioned. February 27 – Smith Mine disaster: Smith Mine No. 3, a coal mine in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men.
March March 2 – WWII: Battle of the Bismarck Sea – United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships. March 4 – The 15th Academy Awards, hosted by Bob Hope, are presented at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, with William Wyler's Mrs. Miniver winning Outstanding Motion Picture. The film also receives 12 and 6 respective nominations and awards, with Wyler also winning Best Director. March 8 – WWII: American forces are attacked by Japanese troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville, in a battle that lasts five days. March 12 – Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man is premiered by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. March 13 – WWII: On Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700. 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 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 13 – The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birthday. The bronze statue is added in 1947. April 24 – Ammunition ship catches fire in New York Harbor threatening the explosion of 5,000 tons of ammunition but is towed clear and sunk. April 27 – The U.S. Federal Writers' Project is shuttered.
May
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 17 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 23 – Aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill is commissioned. May 30 – Prelude to the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles.
June June 3–8 – Zoot Suit Riots: U.S. servicemen in Los Angeles attack young Mexican Americans on the ostensible grounds that the latter's generously cut zoot suits are offensive at a time of austerity. June 6 – The first game of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League is played, a precursor of professional women's sports in the U.S. June 15–17 – Beaumont race riot of 1943 in Texas. June 20–22 – 1943 Detroit race riot. June 22 – The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division lands in North Africa, prior to training at Arzew, French Algeria.
July 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 Gela, Sicily. July 21 – Release of the musical film Stormy Weather starring Lena Horne, "Bojangles" Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway, the Nicholas Brothers and other African American performers. July 24 WWII: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian airplanes 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. Aircraft carrier USS Cabot is commissioned.
August
August 1 – WWII: Operation Tidal Wave – 177 B-24 Liberator bombers from the U.S. Army Air Force bomb oil refineries at Ploieşti, Romania. August 1–2 – Harlem riot of 1943, a race riot. August 3 – WWII: John F. Kennedy's patrol torpedo boat PT-109 is rammed by a destroyer. 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 14 – WWII: The Quadrant Conference begins in Quebec City; Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King meets with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. August 16 – WWII: Aircraft carrier USS Intrepid is commissioned. 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 30 – The Lackawanna Limited train wreck at Wayland in upstate New York causes 29 deaths and injures 114 others.
September 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 – The Gulf Hotel fire in Houston, Texas, kills 55 people. September 8 – United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies.
October October 1 – WWII: American forces enter liberated Naples. October 6 – WWII: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Vella Lavella. October 11 – The New York Yankees defeat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4 games to 1, to win their 10th World Series Title in baseball. October 12 – The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) begins radio broadcasting. October 28 – The alleged date of the Philadelphia Experiment, in which the U.S. destroyer escort was to be rendered invisible to human observers for a brief period. October 30 – The Merrie Melodies animated short Falling Hare, one of the few shorts 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. 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 16 WWII: After flying from Britain, 160 American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway. WWII: A Japanese submarine sinks the surfaced U.S. submarine USS Corvina near Truk. November 17 – Aircraft carrier USS Bataan is commissioned November 20 – WWII: Battle of Tarawa – United States Marines land on Tarawa 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. 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 – WWII: Aircraft carrier USS Hornet is commissioned.
December December 2 – Fifteen atomic scientists, including Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs, arrive from Britain to join the US atomic research project. 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 – 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 15 – Aircraft carrier USS San Jacinto is commissioned. December 24 – WWII: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
Ongoing World War II, U.S. involvement (1941–1945)
Births
January
January 1 Jerilyn Britz, American golfer Stanley Kamel, American actor (died 2008) Don Novello, American comedian, screenwriter and producer Ronald Perelman, American businessman and philanthropist, founder of MacAndrews & Forbes January 3 – Adrian Garrett, American baseball player (died 2021) January 4 – Doris Kearns Goodwin, American writer January 8 Jimmy Elledge, American country musician (d. 2012) Charles Murray, American political scientist and author January 9 – Scott Walker, singer and composer (d. 2019 in the United Kingdom) January 10 Jim Croce, American surburbia musician (d. 1973)