1943 Nostalgia: When We Were Kids

January
2nd	Germans begin a withdrawal from the Caucasus
6th	Former England football manager, Terry Venables was born in London
9th	English comedian and singer, Freddie Starr was born in Liverpool
10th	Soviets begin an offensive against the Germans in Stalingrad
10th	American singer-songwriter, Jim Croce was born (d. 1973)
13th	Helmut Schenk becomes the first person to use an ejector seat from an aircraft
14th	Casablanca conference between Churchill and Roosevelt begins (During the conference, Roosevelt announces the war can end only with an unconditional German surrender)
15th	Lassie Author, Eric Knight dies in an air crash while serving for the US Army in Dutch Guiana (now Surinam)
18th	Soviet officials announce they have broken the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad
18th	The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins
19th	Singer, Janis Joplin born in Texas, USA (d. 1970)
23rd	Montgomery's Eighth Army takes Tripoli
23rd	Duke Ellington plays at New York City's Carnegie Hall for the first time
24th	Amercian actress and victim of the Charles Manson murders, Sharon Tate born (d. 1969)
27th	First bombing raid by Americans on Germany (at Wilhelmshaven)
29th	German police arrest alleged necrophiliac and serial killer, Bruno Ludke
29th	Radio disc jockey, Tony Blackburn born in Guildford, Surrey

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February
2nd	Germans surrender at Stalingrad in the first big defeat of Hitler's armies
7th	Actor, Gareth Hunt is born
8th	Soviet troops take Kursk
9th	American actor and star of Goodfellas, Joe Pesci is born in Newark, New Jersey
11th	General Eisenhower is selected to command the allied armies in Europe
14th	Battle of Kasserine Pass begins between the U.S. 1st Armored Division and the German the Panzers of General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps in North Africa
16th	Soviets re-take Kharkov
18th	Nazis arrest White Rose resistance leaders in Munich
18th	Scottish writer, comedian, and former "Goodie" Graeme Garden is born
20th	Mike Leigh, British film director is born
20th	The Mexican volcano Parícutin is born in a farmer's cornfield
21st	American record executive and film producer, David Geffen is born
23rd	A fire breaks out at St Joseph's Orphanage ,Co Cavan , Ireland , killing 36 people (35 of whom were children)
25th	British musician and former Beatle, George Harrison is born in Liverpool (d. 2001)
28th	6 Norwegians led by Joachim Ronneberg successfully attack the heavy water plant Vemork in Operation Gunnerside

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March
2nd	Germans begin a withdrawal from Tunisia, Africa
3rd	173 people are killed in a crush while trying to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green tube station in London
4th	The 15th Academy Awards are held in in Los Angeles, California, USA
8th	Actress, Lynn Redgrave is born in London
13th	German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków
15th	Canadian film director, David Cronenberg is born
15th	Germans re-capture Kharkov
16th	Battle of Atlantic climaxes with 27 merchant ships sunk by German U-boats
17th	Éamon de Valera makes his "The Ireland That We Dreamed Of" (commonly, the "comely maidens") speech
19th	Al Capone henchman, Frank Nitti commits suicide (with a gunshot wound to the head)
20th	Montgomery's Eighth Army breaks through the Mareth Line in Tunisia
21st	Eccentric English comedian, writer, artist, broadcaster, and musician, Vivian Stanshall is born (d. 1995)
22nd	The entire population of Khatyn (149 people) in Belarus is burnt alive by the Nazis
22nd	British musician with The Yardbirds, Keith Relf is born (d. 1976)
23rd	Hydrocodone (the drug that forms the basis of Vicodin) was approved by the FDA for sale in the United States
26th	In the Aleutian Islands the Battle of Komandorski Islands begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska
28th	In Italy a ship full of weapons and ammunitions explode in the port of Naples, killing more than 600
29th	English actor, writer, composer and one time Monty Python star, Eric Idle is born in South Shields, County Durham
29th	Former Prime Minister, John Major is born in Carshalton, Surrey
29th	Vangelis, Greek musician and composer is born
31st	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)
31st	Oddball American actor, Christopher Walken is born in New York

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April
3rd	Shipwrecked (second steward on the British merchant ship SS Ben Lomond) Poon Lim is rescued by Brazilian fishermen after he has been adrift for 133 days
6th	Axis forces in Tunisia begin a withdrawal toward Enfidaville as American and British forces link
7th	British rock guitarist, Mick Abrahams is born
13th	Radio Berlin announces the discovery by Wehrmacht of mass graves of Poles killed by Soviets in the Katyn massacre
19th	Albert Hofmann self administers the drug LSD for the first time in history, and records the details of his experience
19th	Waffen SS attacks Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto
21st	Large bombing raid on the Scottish city of Aberdeen
22nd	Albert Hofmann writes his first report about the hallucinogenic properties of LSD, which he first synthesised in 1938
25th	Easter occurs on the latest possible date. The last time this happened was 1886 and the next time will be 2038

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May
5th	British comedian, traveller and former Python, Michael Palin is born in Sheffield
7th	Allies take Tunisia
8th	British musician and former Yardbird, Paul Samwell-Smith is born in Richmond, Surrey
12th	Trident Conference begins in Washington, D.C. with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill taking part
13th	German Afrika Korps and Italian troops surrender in North Africa
14th	Australian Hospital Ship Centaur is sunk off the coast of Queensland, by a Japanese submarine
14th	British musician and songwriter, Jack Bruce is born in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland
16th	The Dambuster Raids by RAF 617 Sqaudron on German dams set out in Operation Chastise, utilising the specially developed "bouncing bombs"
16th	Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto ends
16th	British air raid on the Ruhr
17th	The surviving RAF Dam Busters return
17th	The Memphis Belle Becomes the first airplane in the 8th Air Force to complete a 25-mission tour of duty
22nd	Dönitz suspends U-boat operations in the North Atlantic
24th	Josef Mengele becomes Chief Medical Officer in Auschwitz
29th	Norman Rockwell's iconic illustration of "Rosie the Riveter" first appears on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post
31st	Member of the Gestapo and war criminal, Helmut Kapp is shot and killed in Jędrzejów

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June
1st	British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 777, a DC-3 with registration: G-AGBB, (formerly KLM PH-ALI, Ibis), on a scheduled passenger flight, is shot down over the Bay of Biscay by German Junkers Ju 88s, all 17 persons aboard perish, including the actor Leslie Howard. There is speculation that the downing was an attempt to kill British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as the Germans may have had wrong information he was aboard. Previous (for the occupants more fortunate) attacks on the same aircraft and on the same scheduled route happened on November 15 1942 and April 19 1943
4th	Military Coup d'état in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo
8th	Actor, Colin Baker is born in London
10th	'Pointblank' directive to improve Allied bombing strategy issued
11th	Himmler orders the liquidation of all Jewish ghettos in Poland
13th	The Looney Tunes animated short Porky Pig's Feat, is released to theaters in the U.S
15th	French singer and actor, Johnny Hallyday is born in Paris
17th	Pianist and singer, Barry Manilow is born in Brooklyn, New York
22nd	U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division land in North Africa prior to training at Arzew, French Morocco
23rd	Conductor, James Levine is born in Cincinnati, Ohio

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July
1st	Musician, Jeff Wayne (War of the Worlds) is born in Queens, New York
5th	Germans begin their last offensive against Kursk
9th	Allies land in Sicily
10th	American Tennis player, Arthur Ashe is born in New York (d. 1993)
10th	The Allied invasion of Sicily marks the beginning allied invasion of Axis-controlled Europe with landings on the island of Sicily, off mainland Italy by the U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division
11th	United States Army forces assault the village of Piano Lupo, just outside of Gela, Sicily
12th	Fleetwood Mac member, Christine McVie is born
12th	The Wehrmacht and the Red Army fight the Battle of Prokhorovka
13th	The invasion of Sicily begins with British landings at Augusta on the island's eastern side and American landings to the south
19th	Allies bomb Rome for the first time in the war
20th	Actress, Wendy Richard is born in Middlesbrough
22nd	Americans capture Palermo, Sicily
24th	Operation Gomorrah begins with British and Canadian aeroplanes bombing Hamburg by night, and American planes bombing by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 40,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings
25th	Yardbird, Jim McCarty is born in Liverpool
25th	Mussolini arrested and the Italian Fascist government falls. Marshal Pietro Badoglio takes over and negotiates with Allies
26th	Rolling Stone, Mick Jagger is born in Dartford, Kent
27th	The British bomb Hamburg causing a firestorm that kills most of the 40,000 German civilians in killed as part of Operation Gomorrah
28th	Keyboard player with Pink Floyd, Rick Wright is born in Hatch End, Middlesex

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August
12th	Germans start to evacuate Sicily
17th	American daylight air raids on Regensburg and Schweinfurt in Germany
17th	Allies reach Messina, Sicily
23rd	Soviet troops recapture Kharkov

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September
8th	Italian surrender is announced
9th	Allied landings at Salerno and Taranto
11th	Germans occupy Rome
12th	Germans rescue Mussolini
23rd	Mussolini re-establishes a Fascist government

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October
1st	Allies enter Naples, Italy
4th	SS Reichsführer Himmler gives speech at Posen
13th	Italy declares war on Germany; Second American air raid on Schweinfurt

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November
6th	Russians recapture Kiev in the Ukraine
18th	Large British air raid on Berlin
28th	Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin meet in Teheran

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December
24th	Soviets launch offensives on the Ukrainian front