Events 1 - 200 of 599
- Jan 1 Chicago Black Hawks field first trio of brothers to play together in an NHL game; Max, Doug and Reggie Bentley appear for the Hawks in a 6-5 win over the New York Rangers at Chicago Stadium
- Jan 1 German officer Claus von Stauffenberg promoted to lt-colonel
Josh Gibson Hospitalized
Jan 1 Negro Baseball League star Josh Gibson suffers a nervous breakdown; admitted to hospital for rest and treatment; released in time for pre-season training
- Jan 2 University of Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team begins 129 home game winning streak that only ends in 1955; incorporates NCAA titles in 1948, 1949 and 1951
- Jan 3 1st missing persons telecast (NYC)
- Jan 3 Canadian Army troops arrive in North Africa
- Jan 3 Max and Doug Bentley assist on brother Reg's only NHL goal in Chicago Blackhawks' 3-3 tie with the Rangers in NYC; only time in NHL history trio of family members score and assist on a scoring play
"Joseph & His Brothers"
Jan 4 Thomas Mann completes his tetralogy, "Joseph & His Brothers"
Warsaw Ghetto to be Deported
Jan 9 Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler views the Warsaw Ghetto - ordered deportation of 8,000 Jews
Hitler Declares "Total War"
Jan 13 Adolf Hitler declares "Total War" against the Allies
Casablanca Conference
Jan 13 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Casablanca, French Morocco for a conference of Allied forces in World War II
- Jan 13 Soviet offensive at Don under general Golikov
- Jan 13 US infantry captures Galloping Horse Ridge, Guadalcanal
- Jan 14 Montreal Canadiens' left wing Alex Smart becomes the first NHL rookie to score a hat trick in his first NHL game, a 5-1 win at home over the Chicago Black Hawks
Casablanca Conference
Jan 14 World War II: Casablanca Conference begins between Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and other Allied representatives
- Jan 14 World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt travels from Miami to Morocco to meet with Winston Churchill, becoming the first American president to travel overseas by airplane
- Jan 14 World War II: Japan begins Operation Ke, withdrawal of its troops from Guadalcanal
- Jan 15 1,000 workers complete air conditioning system for Pentagon
- Jan 15 1st transport of Jews from Amsterdam to concentration camp Vught
- Jan 15 World War II: The Soviets begin a counter-offensive at Voronezh
- Jan 15 World's largest office building, the Pentagon is completed to house the US military
- Jan 16 -60°F (-51°C), Island Park Dam, Idaho (state record)
- Jan 16 1st US air raid on Ambon
- Jan 16 German 2nd SS-Panzer division evacuates Charkow
- Jan 16 Red Army recaptures Pitomnik airport at Stalingrad
- Jan 17 Tin Can Drive Day in the US, salvage collected for the war effort
Siege of Leningrad
Jan 18 Soviets announce they have broken the long siege of Leningrad by Nazi Germany by opening a narrow land corridor, though the siege would not be fully lifted until a year later
- Jan 18 US rations bread & metal - banning presliced bread reduce bakery demand for metal parts
1st Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Jan 19 1st Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins
- Jan 19 Joint Chiefs of Staff decide on invasion in Sicily
- Jan 20 Lead, South Dakota, temperature is 52°F, while 1.5 miles away Deadwood records -16°F
- Jan 21 Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, Royal Navy, promoted to Admiral of the Fleet
- Jan 21 Soviet forces reconquer Gumrak airport near Stalingrad
- Jan 21 Soviet forces reconquer Worosjilowsk
- Jan 22 66.34 cm (26.12") precipitation over 24 hour period in Hoegees Camp, California (state record)
- Jan 22 Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff determine invasion of Sicily for July 10th
- Jan 22 Temperature rises 49°F (9°C) in 2 minutes in Spearfish, South Dakota
- Jan 23 British 8th army marches into Tripoli
- Jan 23 Detroit Red Wings scores NHL record 8 goals in 1 period
Ellington's Carnegie Debut
Jan 23 Duke Ellington plays at Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time
- Jan 23 Japanese Mount Austen on Guadalcanal captured
- Jan 24 Adolf Hitler orders German troops at Stalingrad to fight to the death
- Jan 24 Jewish patients, nurses and doctors incinerated at Auschwitz-Birkenau
- Jan 27 1st US air attack on Germany (Wilhelmshafen)
- Jan 28 Chic Blackhawks beats NY Rangers 10-1, Max Bentley scores 4 goals
- Jan 29 New Zealand cruiser Kiwi collides with Japanese submarine I-1 at Guadalcanal
- Jan 29 Sidney Kingsley's play "Patriots" premieres in NYC
- Jan 29 U.S. cruiser "Chicago" is heavily damaged by Japanese bombers on the first day of the Battle of Rennell Island
- Jan 30 Members of the Dutch Protestant resistance against the German occupation begin publishing underground newspaper "Trouw" (Loyal) in the Netherlands
- Jan 30 WWII: 6 British Mosquito planes bomb Berlin, Germany in daylight
Paulus Promoted
Jan 30 WWII: Adolf Hitler promotes Friedrich Paulus, commander of the 6th Army, to Field Marshal in the hope that he will not surrender
- Jan 30 WWII: Battle of Rennell Island, in the Solomon Islands - Japanese aerial torpedoes sink USS Chicago, a US Navy cruiser
- Jan 30 WWII: German assault on French in Tunisia
- Jan 30 WWII: German under officers shot down in Haarlem Netherlands
- Jan 31 Chile breaks off relations with Germany & Japan
Paulus Surrenders
Jan 31 German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders to Soviet troops at Stalingrad
Quisling Premier
Feb 1 German occupiers make Vidkun Quisling Norwegian premier
- Feb 1 Mussert forms pro-Nazi shadow cabinet in Netherlands
- Feb 2 German 6th Army surrenders after the Battle of Stalingrad in a major turning point in Europe during World War II
- Feb 2 MLB Chicago Cubs return to original uniform after experimenting with a vest style
- Feb 3 "The Four Chaplains" drown after giving up their life jackets to others as the US Army transport ship Dorchester sinks in the North Atlantic [1]
"The Good Person of Szechwan"
Feb 4 Bertolt Brecht's play "The Good Person of Szechwan" premieres in Zurich
- Feb 5 Amsterdam resistance group CS-6 shoots nazi general Seyffardt
- Feb 5 Clandestine Radio Atlantiksender, Germany, 1st transmission
LaMotta vs. Robinson
Feb 5 Jake LaMotta defeats future multi-weight world boxing champion Sugar Ray Robinson by unanimous points decision in Detroit in the 2nd of their 6 meetings; his only win of their rivalry; Robinson’s first loss in his first 40 pro bouts
- Feb 6 1st Spitfire in action above Darwin, Australia, Mu Ki-46 shot down
Sinatra's Debut
Feb 6 Singer Frank Sinatra debuts on radio's "Your Hit Parade"
- Feb 7 Shoe rationing begins in US (may purchase up to 3 more pairs in 1942)
- Feb 8 Red Army recaptures Kursk on the eastern front
- Feb 9 Japanese troops evacuate Guadalcanal, ending the epic World War II battle on the Solomon Islands in the Pacific
- Feb 9 National League of Baseball seeks a buyer for the Philadelphia Phillies as owner Gerry Nugent falls in arrears
- Feb 9 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an executive order setting a minimum 48-hour work week in a number of critical war industries
- Feb 10 "Manifesto of Algerian People" calls for equality & self-determination
- Feb 10 British 8th Army sweeps through North Africa to Tunisia
- Feb 10 Van der Veen Resistance starts fire in Amsterdam employment bureau
- Feb 11 Transport #47 departs with French Jews to nazi-Germany
Eisenhower Given Command
Feb 11 US General Eisenhower selected to command the allied armies in Europe; British General Montgomery not best pleased
- Feb 12 General Eisenhower departs Algiers for Tebessa
- Feb 13 German assault on Sidi Bou Zid Tunisia, General Dwight D. Eisenhower visits front
- Feb 13 Women's US Marine Corps created
- Feb 14 German offensive against US troops through de Faid-pass, Tunisia begins, starting the Battle of Sidi Bou Zid
- Feb 14 The Soviet Union recaptures the city of Rostov-on-Don, liberating Russia from the German 17th Army during WWII
We Can Do It!
Feb 15 Wartime propaganda poster "We Can Do It!" produced by J. Howard Miller and posted on the walls of Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company's plants in the Midwest
- Feb 15 Women's camp Tamtui on Ambon (Moluccas) hit by allied air raid
- Feb 16 -32°F (-36°C), Falls Village, Connecticut (state record)
- Feb 16 British premier Winston Churchill contracts pneumonia
- Feb 16 Sign on Munich facade: "Out with Hitler! Long live freedom!" done by "White Rose" student anti-Nazi resistance group, caught on 2/18, beheaded on 2/22
- Feb 16 Withdrawing Afrika Korps reaches Mareth-line in North Africa
- Feb 16 World War II: The USSR reconquers Kharkov
- Feb 17 Adolf Hitler visits field marshal Erich von Manstein's headquarters in Zaporozje, Ukraine and stays until the 19th
Scientific Discovery
Feb 17 Dow Chemical and Corning Glass Works form a joint venture to explore and produce silicon materials, based upon the work of James Franklin Hyde
- Feb 17 Dutch churches protest at Seyss-Inquart against persecution of Jews
Event of Interest
Feb 17 Major General Omar Bradley flies to Washington, D.C.
Sports History
Feb 17 NY Yankee Joe DiMaggio enlists into the US army
- Feb 18 1st edition of Dutch resistance newspaper "Trouw"
- Feb 18 A syndicate headed by New York lumberman William D Cox buys MLB's Philadelphia Phillies for $850,000; 33 year-old Cox is youngest owner in baseball
- Feb 18 German Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbells demands "total war" from German citizens in speech at Berlin Sportpalast
- Feb 18 Members of student non-violent resistance group "White Rose" arrested by Nazis after distributing pamphlets in Munich, Germany
- Feb 19 German tanks under Major General Karl Buelowius attack Kasserine Pass, Tunisia
- Feb 20 Allied troops occupy Kasserine pass in Tunisia
- Feb 20 American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
- Feb 20 New volcano Paracutin erupts in farmer's corn field (Mexico)
- Feb 20 Phil Wrigley & B Rickey charter All-American Girls Softball League
- Feb 21 Dutch RC bishops protest against persecution of Jews
- Feb 22 3 members of White Rose student anti-Nazi resistance group are executed in Munich, Germany
Tagus River Plane Crash
Feb 22 Plane crash in the Tagus River, Lisbon, Portugal kills 23 with 15 survivors including singer Jane Froman
- Feb 23 German troops pull back through Kasserine-pass Tunisia
- Feb 23 Major General Omar Bradley arrives in Dakar & Marrakesh
- Feb 24 Major General Omar Bradley flies to Algiers
- Feb 24 Texas League announces it will quit for the duration of WW II
- Feb 25 Vietminh forms Indo Chinese Democratic Front
- Feb 26 German assault moves to Beja, North Tunisia
- Feb 27 The Rosenstrasse protest starts in Berlin
- Feb 27 The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men
- Feb 27 University of Munich professor Kurt Huber, advisor to student non-violent resistance group "White Rose", arrested by Nazis
- Mar 1 Jewish old age home for disabled in Amsterdam raided
- Mar 2 1st transport from Westerbork Netherlands to Sobibor concentration camp
- Mar 3 Battle of the Bismarck Sea: Australian and American air forces devastate Japanese navy convoy
- Mar 3 Bethnal Green Tube disaster: 173 die in a stampede sheltering in an air raid, UK's greatest loss of civilian life in WWII (details censored till January 20 1945)
- Mar 3 F Ryerson & Cohn Claues' "Harriet" premieres in NYC
15th Academy Awards
Mar 4 15th Academy Awards: "Mrs. Miniver", James Cagney & Greer Garson win
- Mar 4 Transport #50 departs with French Jews to Maidanek/Sobibor
- Mar 5 Anti-fascist strikes in Italy
- Mar 5 RAF bombs Essen Germany
Battle of Medenine
Mar 6 Battle of Medenine: Erwin Rommel's Axis forces counterattack in North Africa to delay an attack by the British on the Mareth Line in Tunisia
Patton in Tunisia
Mar 7 US General George S. Patton arrives in Djebel Kouif, Tunisia
- Mar 8 335 allied bombers attack German city of Nuremberg, a centre for military production
- Mar 8 Limited gambling legalized in Mexico
- Mar 9 Delft, Netherlands anti-Nazi resistance group Pahud de Mortanges wiped out
- Mar 9 Greek Jews of Salonika are transported to Nazi extermination camps
- Mar 11 Nazi Militia forms in Netherlands
- Mar 12 Soviet troops liberate Wjasma
- Mar 13 Baseball approves official ball (with cork & balata)
- Mar 13 Failed assassin attempt on Adolf Hitler during Smolensk-Rastenburg flight
- Mar 13 Frank Dixon wins Knights of Columbus mile (4:09.6)
Kraków Ghetto Liquidated
Mar 13 Nazis liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków; Oskar Schindler with advance information, saves his workers by keeping them in his factory overnight
- Mar 15 Allied reconnaissance flight over Java
- Mar 15 Red Army evacuates Kharkov
- Mar 16 Ships Elin K (Norway) and Zaanland (Netherlands) torpedoed by German U-boats and sink
- Mar 17 Aldemarin (Ned) & Fort Cedar Lake (US) torpedoed & sinks
- Mar 17 F. Hugh Herbert's "Kiss & Tell" premieres in NYC
- Mar 17 Physician Willem J. Kolff performs the world's first 'hemodialysis' using his artificial kidney machine, however the treatment is unsuccessful and the patient dies, in the Netherlands
- Mar 18 British merchant vessel "Canadian Star" is torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic by German U-boat U-221, 34 die with 54 survivors [1]
- Mar 18 Red Army evacuates Belgorod
- Mar 18 Ships James Oglethorpe (US) & Terkolei (Netherlands) torpedoed and sinks
- Mar 19 British 8th army opens assault on Mareth line, Tunisia
- Mar 19 Frank Nitti, the Chicago Outfit Boss after Al Capone, commits suicide at the Chicago Central Railyard
- Mar 19 In their third match, Jake LaMotta finally defeats Jimmy Reeves by knocking him out in the sixth round
- Mar 20 German U-384 bombed & sinks
- Mar 21 Assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler fails
- Mar 21 Massacre of the town of Kalavryta, Greece by German Nazi troops.
- Mar 22 Dutch SS police chief Hans Albin Rauter threatens to kill half Jewish children
- Mar 22 Dutch work week extended to 54 hour
- Mar 22 Obligatory work for woman ends in Belgium
- Mar 23 German counterattack on US lines in Tunisia
- Mar 25 97% of all Dutch physicians strike against Nazi registration
Sanshiro Sugata
Mar 25 Akira Kurosawa's debut film "Sanshiro Sugata" is released
The Durante-Moore Show
Mar 25 Jimmy Durante & Garry Moore premiere on radio
- Mar 26 Battle of Komandorski Islands, naval battle between American navy and Japanese Imperial forces in the Pacific Ocean, ends inconclusively
- Mar 26 Elsie S. Ott is 1st woman to be awarded US Air Force Medal
Blue Ribbon Town
Mar 27 Blue Ribbon Town (with Groucho Marx) 1st heard on CBS Radio
- Mar 27 WWII: Dutch resistance fighters burn and bomb the Amsterdam civil registry office in effort to destroy records and prevent the Nazis from identifying Jews and others marked for persecution; about 15% of records destroyed and 12 of the 19 known participants were tried and executed by the Nazi occupiers
- Mar 27 WWII: US begins assault on Fondouk Pass, Tunisia
- Mar 29 Meat (784 gram/week, 2 kilogram for GI's), butter & cheese rationed in US during WW II
- Mar 30 British 1st army recaptures Sejenane
- Mar 31 US errantly bombs Rotterdam, kills 326
- Apr 1 Jan Dieters, Dutch politician, resistance fighter, and a leading member of Communist Party of the Netherlands, is arrested by the Nazis
- Apr 4 WWII: US Army Air Force bomber 'Lady Be Good' fails to return to Soluch, Libya base after its maiden flight; presumed lost at sea, wreck was discovered in desert 15 years later [1]
Poon Lim's 133 Day South Atlantic Odyssey
Apr 5 Chinese steward Poon Lim is found off the coast of Brazil by a Brazilian fisherman family after being adrift for 133 days, after British ship SS Benlomond was torpedoed by a German U-boat
- Apr 5 Mortsel, Belgium: Allies target Minerva car factory, used for repairing Luftwaffe planes for bombing raid; collateral damage from missed targets kills 936 civilians, Belgium's greatest loss of WWII
- Apr 6 British & US armies link up in Africa during WW II
- Apr 6 British offensive at Wadi Akarit, South Tunisia
- Apr 6 Lou Jansen, leader of illegal Dutch political party (CPN) arrested
- Apr 7 Adolf Hitler & Benito Mussolini met for an Axis conference in Salzburg
- Apr 7 British and US troops make contact at Wadi Akarit, South-Tunisia
- Apr 7 German Lt colonel Claus von Stauffenberg seriously wounded at allied air raid
- Apr 7 NFL adopts free substitution rule; helmets made mandatory and 10-game schedule for all teams approved
- Apr 8 1943 NFL Draft: Frank Sinkwich from University of Georgia first pick by Detroit Lions
- Apr 8 Hakuun Yasutani Roshi, founder of Sanbo Kyodan, receives dharma
- Apr 8 Stanley Cup Final, Boston Garden, Boston, MA: Detroit Red Wings beat Boston Bruins, 2-0 for a 4-0 series sweep and their 3rd SC Championship
- Apr 8 U.S. President Franklin 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 to common carriers and public utilities.
- Apr 10 12 Jewish patients of Herren Loo-Lozenoord escape Nazis
- Apr 10 General Montgomery occupies Sfax, Tunisia
- Apr 11 American helicopter designer Frank Piasecki, Vertol founder, flies his 1st (single-rotor) craft [1]
- Apr 12 Allies conquer Soussa, North-Africa
- Apr 12 Dutch Catholic University Nijmegen closed
- Apr 13 Catholic University Nijegen closes
- Apr 13 FDR dedicates the Jefferson Memorial in honor of former President Thomas Jefferson
- Apr 13 Nazis discover mass grave of Polish officers near Katyn
US Decrypt Yamamoto Plans
Apr 14 American intelligence intercepts and decrypts a JN-25 message detailing forthcoming visit by Japanese Navy Marshal Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto to Balalae Airfield, near Bougainville in the Solomon Islands; results in his plane shot down 4 days later [1]
- Apr 14 Generals Alexander, Eisenhower, Anderson and Bradley discuss assault on Tunis
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