Events 201 - 400 of 599
LSD
Apr 16 Swiss scientist Dr. Albert Hofmann discovers the psychedelic effects of LSD
Yamamoto Flies to Rabaul
Apr 17 Japanese Navy Marshal Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto flies from Truk to Rabaul, tracked by US fighter aircraft after intelligence intercepts his itinerary [1]
- Apr 17 SS General Jürgen Stroop arrives in Warsaw
Operation Vengeance Kills Yamamoto
Apr 18 Operation Vengeance: US Army Air Force P-38G fighter aircraft from Kukum Field on Guadalcanal ambush and shoot down the transport bomber aircraft of Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy and mastermind behind the Pearl Harbor attack [1]
- Apr 19 Bicycle Day - Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Apr 19 Jews refuse to surrender the Warsaw Ghetto to SS officer Jürgen Stroop, who then orders its destruction, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Stengel Hit by Taxi
Apr 20 Braves manager Casey Stengel is struck by a taxi, fractures a leg
- Apr 22 German counterattack in North Tunisia
- Apr 22 RAF shoots down 14 German transport planes over Mediterranean Sea
- Apr 23 British & US offensive directed at Tunis and Bizerta
- Apr 25 The Demyansk Shield for German troops in commemoration of Demyansk Pocket instituted
- Apr 27 Soviet Union breaks contact with Polish government exiled in London
Pilecki Escapes
Apr 27 Witold Pilecki escapes from Auschwitz after having voluntarily been imprisoned there to gain information about the Holocaust
Present Laughter
Apr 29 Noël Coward's comic play "Present Laughter" premieres in London
- Apr 29 US 34th Division occupies Hill 609, North Tunisia
- Apr 30 Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp for Jews forms
- Apr 30 Dutch strike against forced labor in Nazi Germany's war industry
- Apr 30 Noël Coward's play "This Happy Breed" premieres in London; written in 1939, production was delayed by WWII
- May 1 1st edition of illegal "The Free Artist" appears in Amsterdam
- May 1 Food rationing begins in the United States during World War II
- May 1 German plane sinks the British ship SS Erinpura in the Mediterranean with the loss of 799 lives
- May 1 German Wehrmacht deployed in order to break Dutch strikes
- May 1 SS General Hanns Albin Rauter announces that all Jews will be 'removed' from the occupied Netherlands
- May 2 German troops vacate Jefna, Tunisia
Pulitzer to Upton Sinclair
May 3 Pulitzer prize awarded to Upton Sinclair for his novel "Dragon's Teeth" about the Nazi rise to power
- May 3 Strike against obligatory labor camps ends, after 200 killed
- May 3 US 1st armour division occupies Mateur, Tunisia
- May 4 NL Ford Frick demonstrates revised balata ball to reporters by bouncing it on his office carpet ball proves to be 50% livelier
- May 5 US Postmaster General Frank C. Walker invents Postal Zone System
- May 6 British 1st army opens assault on Tunis
- May 7 British 11th Hussars occupy Tunis
- May 7 Dutch men 18-35 obliged to report to labor camps
George Washington Carver Launched
May 7 Liberty Ship George Washington Carver, named after scientist, launched
- May 7 US 1st Armour division occupies Ferryville, Tunisia
- May 7 US 9th Infantry division occupies Bizerta/Bensert, Tunisia
- May 8 Admiral Cunningham of British fleet: "Sink, burn & destroy; let nothing pass"
- May 9 5th German Panzer army surrenders in Tunisia
- May 9 Rotschild-Haddassh University Hospital opens
Hermann Goering Division Surrenders
May 11 German Luftwaffe armoured Hermann Göring division in Tunisia surrenders - its commander Colonel Joseph Schmid escapes
- May 11 US 7th div lands on Attu, Aleutian, (1st US territory recaptured)
- May 12 Axis forces in North Africa surrender
Churchill's US Visit
May 12 British premier Winston Churchill arrives in USA
- May 12 German troops in Tunisia, North Africa, surrender
- May 13 German & Italian forces in Africa surrender
- May 13 German occupiers attempt to confiscate all radios in the Netherlands
- May 14 Australian Hospital Ship Centaur sinks off the coast of Queensland after being struck by torpedo fired by Japanese submarine; 268 of 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard die
- May 15 Halifax bombers sinks U-463
Stalin Dissolves Comintern
May 15 Joseph Stalin dissolves the Comintern (or Third International) to avoid upsetting his Western allies with claims he was trying to foment revolution globally
Dambusters Raid
May 16 Operation Chastise: No. 617 Squadron RAF begins the famous Dambusters Raid, bombing the Möhne and Eder dams in the Ruhr valley with bouncing bombs
- May 16 SS General Jürgen Stroop orders the burning of the Warsaw Ghetto, ending a month of Jewish resistance. 13,000 Jews have died, about half burnt alive or suffocated, German casualties less than 300
Howard Hughes Crash
May 17 Millionaire Howard Hughes crashes into Lake Mead, while test flying his Sikorsky S-43, killing CAA inspector Ceco Cline and Richard Felt
- May 17 The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer).
- May 17 World War II: the Dambuster Raids by No. 617 Squadron RAF on German dams
- May 18 Allied bombers attack Pantelleria, an Italian island 100 km southwest of Sicily
- May 19 Berlin is declared "Judenrien" (free of Jews)
- May 19 Churchill pledges Britain's full support to US against Japan
- May 20 French, British and US victory parade in Tunis, Tunisia
- May 21 Fastest 9 inning AL baseball night game (89 mins), Chicago White Sox beat visiting Washington Senators, 1-0
- May 22 RAF scatters 1st copies of "The Flying Hollander"
- May 23 -24] 826 Allied bombers attack Dortmund
Dr Faustus
May 23 Thomas Mann begins writing his novel Dr Faustus
- May 24 Final entry in the Stroop Report, detailing the destruction of the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto, compiled by Nazi officers, later used as evidence in the Nuremberg trials
German U-boats Stopped
May 24 German Admiral Donitz stops U-boat operations in the Atlantic Ocean - turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic
- May 24 U-441 shoots Sunderland seaplane down over Gulf of Biskaje
Sorry, Wrong Number
May 25 Agnes Moorehead appears in "Sorry, Wrong Number" on the radio program "Suspense", her most successful appearance
- May 25 Riot at Mobile, Alabama, shipyard over upgrading 12 black workers
- May 25 Trident conference in Washington, D.C. (operation plan '43 against Japan)
- May 26 British PM Winston Churchill and US General George C. Marshall fly from the US to North Africa
- May 26 Edwin Barclay of Liberia becomes first president of a black country to visit US
- May 26 Jews riot against Germany in Amsterdam
- May 27 French resistance under Jean Moulin meets secretly in Paris
Algiers Allied Planning Conference
May 29 Algiers Allied Planning Conference between Winston Churchill, George Marshall and General Dwight D. Eisenhower finalizes the plan for the Italian Campaign
- May 29 Meat and cheese rationed in US
De Gaulle in Algiers
May 30 French General Charles De Gaulle arrives in Algiers
- May 30 US troops reconquer Attu Aleutians
- May 31 "Archie" comic strip 1st broadcast on radio
- May 31 42 U-boats sunk by the Allies this month
- May 31 Cards Mort Cooper pitches 1st of back-to-back one-hitters
- Jun 1 Germany shoots down a civilian flight from Lisbon to London, 13 passengers, included actor Leslie Howard, and 4 crew die
- Jun 1 Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Rip Sewell patents his "eephus" or "blooper ball" pitch; uses pitch on way to a 20-win campaign
- Jun 2 99th Pursuit Squadron flies 1st combat mission (over Italy)
- Jun 2 German assault on Sebastopol, Crimea, begins
Zoot Suit Riots
Jun 3 A mob of 60 from the Los Angeles Naval Reserve Armory beat up everyone perceived to be Hispanic, starting the week-long Zoot Suit Riots
- Jun 3 United Nations Relief & Rehabilitation Administration forms
Argentine coup d'état
Jun 4 Argentina taken over by General Rawson & Colonel Juan Perón
- Jun 4 St Louis Card Mort Cooper pitches his 2nd consecutive 1 hitter
- Jun 5 German occupiers arrest Louvain University's chancellor
- Jun 5 Philippine President José P. Laurel survives assassination attempt after being shot 4 times with a 45 caliber pistol while playing golf at Wack Wack Golf Course in Mandaluyong
Lodz Ghetto Liquidated
Jun 10 Heinrich Himmler orders the final liquidation of Lodz ghetto in occupied Poland
Cronin's Pinch HRs
Jun 17 Player-manager Joe Cronin of Red Sox hits two 3-run pinch home runs
- Jun 18 SS Police in Amsterdam sentence 12 resistance fighters to death for the fire-bombing at the census records bureau in March
- Jun 19 NFL's Philadelphia Eagles & Pittsburgh Steelers merge, (dissolves on Dec 5)
- Jun 20 Chubb Crater (now called Pingualuit Crater) discovered in northern Quebec (3½ km diameter)
- Jun 20 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) founded in Chicago
- Jun 20 Detroit race riot kills 35
- Jun 20 Germans round up Jews in Amsterdam
- Jun 21 Federal troops put down racial riot in Detroit; 30 dead
- Jun 22 617 Squadron (Dambusters) attends investiture at Buckingham Palace; Commanding Officer Guy Gibson awarded the Victoria Cross
World's Oldest Treaty
Jun 23 British ambassador to Portugal Ronald Hugh Campbell invokes the almost 600 year old Anglo-Portuguese alliance between the two countries to request the use of military facilities on the Azores [1]
- Jun 23 Dutch artsens protest against Nazis
Germen Rocket Base Discovered
Jun 23 RAF discovers Wernher von Braun's German V1/V2 rocket development base in Peenemunde
- Jun 25 Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Reichskommissar in the Netherlands, orders mass arrests of Dutch physicians
- Jun 25 Crematorium 3 at Birkenau is finished
- Jun 25 Racial unrest in Detroit
- Jun 27 Elly Dammers throws Dutch record spear (41,43m)
- Jun 27 Fanny Blankers-Koen runs Dutch record 200m (24.5)
- Jun 29 Germany begins withdrawing U-boats from North Atlantic in anticipation of the Allied invasion of Europe
- Jun 29 US forces landed at Nassau Bay, near Salamaua, New Guinea
Operation Cartwheel
Jun 30 Allied forces under General MacArthur begin Operation Cartwheel (island-hopping) in the South West Pacific to try to destroy Japanese base at Rabaul
- Jul 1 "Pay-as-you-go" - 1st withholding tax from paychecks
- Jul 2 Gulf of Biskaje: Liberator bombers sinks U-126
- Jul 2 Lieutenant Charles Hall becomes 1st African American pilot to shoot down a Nazi plane
- Jul 3 British Liberator bomber sinks German U-628 in Bay of Biscay
- Jul 5 Battle of Gulf of Kula
- Jul 5 Battle of Kursk, USSR: Operation Citadel: Nazi German Panzer Division assault begins what becomes the largest tank in history
- Jul 5 Liberator bombers sink U-535 in Gulf of Biskaye
- Jul 5 US invasion fleet (96 ships) sails to Sicily
- Jul 6 2nd day of Battle of Kursk, USSR: Operation Citadel: 25,000 Germans killed
- Jul 6 US destroyer William D Porter [Willie Dee] launched
Japanese PM in Java
Jul 7 -10] Japanese premier Hideki Tojo visits Java
- Jul 7 3rd day of Battle of Kursk, USSR: Operation Citadel: Germans occupy Dubrova Luftwaffe fighter ace shoots down 7 Russian aircraft
- Jul 7 German Submarine U-951 sunk by depth charges, off Cape St. Vincent in the North Atlantic
- Jul 7 Liberator bombers sinks U-517
- Jul 8 4th day of Battle of Kursk, USSR: Operation Citadel - Nazi General Model uses last tank reserve
- Jul 8 British air raid sinks U-232
- Jul 8 Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (Dutch National Socialist Movement) leader Anton Mussert meets with Heinrich Himmler
- Jul 8 US invasion fleet passes Bizerta, Tunisia
- Jul 9 5th day of Battle of Kursk, USSR: Operation Citadel - Germans occupy Verchopenje
- Jul 9 British air raid sinks U-435
- Jul 10 6th day of Battle of Kursk, USSR: Operation Citadel continues
- Jul 10 US, British and Canadian forces invade Sicily in WW II (Operation Husky)
- Jul 11 7th day of Battle of Kursk, USSR: Operation Citadel continues
- Jul 11 Counterattack by Hermann Goering's armored division in Sicily, Italy
- Jul 11 Massacres of Poles in Volhynia
- Jul 11 US 45th Division occupies airport Comiso Sicily
- Jul 11 US 82nd Airborne division shot at by "friendly fire" in Sicily
- Jul 12 8th day of Battle of Kursk, USSR: Operation Kutuzov (Soviet counter-offensive begins
- Jul 12 Battle of Kolombangara (Second Battle of Gulf of Kula)
- Jul 12 National Committee Freies Deutschland forms
- Jul 12 Pope Pius XII receives German ambassador baron von Weizsacker
- Jul 12 Soviet offensive at Orel
- Jul 12 World War II: Battle of Prokhorovka - Russia defeats German forces in one of the largest ever tank battles
- Jul 17 RAF bombs Germany rocket base Peenemunde
- Jul 18 British assault on Catania, Sicily
- Jul 18 Giants and Phillies strand record 30 baserunners, NY wins, 10-6
- Jul 19 500 allied air forces raid Rome during WW II
- Jul 20 Jacques Lusseyran is arrested by the Gestapo after being betrayed by a fellow member of the French resistance
Joint Chiefs Question Nimitz
Jul 20 US Joint Chiefs of Staff question Admiral Chester Nimitz over the landing on Gilbert Island
Stormy Weather
Jul 21 Musical film "Stormy Weather", directed by Andrew L. Stone, starring Bill Robinson, Lena Horne and Fats Waller (singing "Ain't Misbehavin'") premieres in the US
Patton Liberates Palermo
Jul 22 US forces led by General George S. Patton liberate Palermo, Sicily
- Jul 23 US 45th Infantry division occupies north coast of Termini (Sicily)
- Jul 24 Operation Gomorrah: RAF begins bombing Hamburg (till 3rd August), creating a firestorm and killing 42,600 people
- Jul 25 1st warship named after an African American launched - USS Leonard Roy Harmon, a Buckley class destroyer
Fall of Mussolini
Jul 25 Benito Mussolini dismissed as Italian Premier and arrested on the authority of King Victor Emmanuel III
Mussolini Resigns
Jul 28 Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini resigns
- Jul 28 Operation Gomorrah: RAF bombing over Hamburg causes a firestorm that kills 42,600 German civilians
- Jul 28 US President FDR announces end of coffee rationing in US
- Jul 29 1 million inhabitants flee Hamburg
- Jul 29 Nazi's evacuate Hollandsche Theater in Amsterdam
- Jul 30 US 45th Infantry division occupies San Stefano
- Jul 31 Transport #58 departs with French Jews to Nazi Germany
- Aug 1 Japan declares Burma Independence under U Ba Maw
- Aug 1 Race riot in Harlem, New York City
- Aug 1 Sunderland seaplanes sink U-454 & U-383
- Aug 2 Armed revolt by 800 prisoners at Treblinka Extermination Camp: crematorium destroyed; 200 escape the compound, but only 100 survive
Film & TV History
Aug 2 Gene Roddenberry pilots B-17 'Yankee Doodle' which crashes on takeoff, killing two
JFK Boat Sinks
Aug 2 Lt John F. Kennedy's PT-boat 109 sinks at Solomon islands
- Aug 2 Sunderland seaplanes sink U-706 and U-106
- Aug 3 General George S. Patton slaps a US GI in hospital, accusing him of cowardice
- Aug 3 Nazi occupiers attack city of Orel, leave it on fire
- Aug 4 British premier Winston Churchill travels on the Queen Mary to Canada
- Aug 4 Soviet units reach suburbs of Orel
- Aug 4 USAAF bombs Germans in Troina
- Aug 5 Sicily: 3 US A-36's bomb British headquarters
- Aug 5 Soviet forces reconquer Orel and Bjelgorod
- Aug 5 World War II: at around 11 A.M during the Battle of Troina, Mount Etna erupts sending ash and lava miles into the sky
- Aug 6 US 1st Infantry division occupies node Troina Sicily
- Aug 7 Red Army recaptures Bogodukov
- Aug 8 Common Chiefs of staff meet in Quebec
- Aug 8 US amphibians land at St Agata on North coast of Sicily
- Aug 8 Vegetables & fruit rationed in Holland
Life of Galileo
Aug 9 Bertolt Brecht's play "Life of Galileo" premieres in Zurich
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