1943

1845–1958	Germany [earth sciences]	German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion.
1940–1944	USA [everyday life]	A large-scale migration of people from rural areas of the USA to the cities creates major urban problems.
1940–1949	USA [statistics and demography]	Immigration into the USA for the period 1940–49 stands at 856,608.
1942–1945	USA [World War II (1939–45)]	During the war, US women are recruited on a large scale for the war effort; between 1942 and 1945 the number of working women increases by 50%.
May 1942 - November 1943	Siam, Burma [World War II (1939–45)]	Japan constructs the Kwai Railway between Bangkok in Siam (modern Thailand) and Moulmein in Burma. Over 15,000 Allied prisoners of war and 90,000 native labourers die during its construction.
1943	France [technology]	French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau invents the aqualung (or self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, ‘scuba’), the first fully automatic compressed-air breathing apparatus. It allows him to dive to a depth of 64 m/210 ft.
1943	Switzerland [technology]	In Switzerland, Buhrle & Co. develop the first telephone answering machine, which is then manufactured under the name of Ipsophone.
1943	USA [information technology]	The US physicists John V Atanasoff and Clifford Berry build the Atanasoff–Berry computer; designed to solve linear equations, it uses vacuum tubes and stored programs.
1943	France [literature and language]	The Algerian-born French writer Albert Camus publishes his influential philosophical study Le Mythe de Sisyphe/The Myth of Sisyphus.
1943	USA [medicine]	Russian-born US biologist Selman Abraham Waksman discovers the antibiotic streptomycin, which is used as a treatment for tuberculosis; he coins the term ‘antibiotic’ to describe the range of antibacterial drugs developed since the discovery of penicillin.
1943	Hungary [orchestral music]	The Hungarian composer Béla Bartók completes his Concerto for Orchestra.
1943	Netherlands [painting]	The Dutch artist Piet Mondrian completes his painting Broadway Boogie-Woogie.
1943	France [philosophy]	The French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre publishes L'Etre et le néant/Being and Nothingness. His most important philosophical work, it becomes a central text of the philosophy of existentialism.
1943	Germany, Switzerland [plays]	Two plays by the German writer Bertolt Brecht are first performed in Zürich, Switzerland: Der gute Mensche von Sezuan/The Good Woman of Sezuan and Leben des Galilei/The Life of Galileo.
1943	USA [popular culture]	Jive, a faster, more danceable version of jazz, emerges as a popular musical style.
1943	USA [popular culture]	Nationwide salvage drives in the USA collect 255,513 tons of tin cans, 6 million tons of waste paper, and 26 million tons of iron and steel scrap.
1943	England [sculpture]	The English artist Henry Moore sculpts Madonna and Child.
1943	India [famines]	A severe famine strikes Bengal.
1943	France [fiction]	The French writer Antoine Marie Roger de Saint-Exupéry publishes his children's story Le Petit Prince/The Little Prince.
1943	USA, Greece [health and medicine]	The US medical establishment recognizes the ‘pap’ smear (named after Greek-born US physician George Nicholas Papanicolaou) for detecting cervical cancer. In 20 years cervical cancer drops from the first to the third most common cause of death among US women.
1943	USA [comics]	All-America Comics launch a new cartoon starring Wonder Woman, a female version of Superman.
1943	USA [World War II (1939–45)]	Meat rationing is introduced in the USA.
7 January 1943	USA [births and deaths]	Nikola Tesla, Croatian-born US electrical engineer who discovered the rotating magnetic field and invented a polyphase system of alternating current, dies in New York City (86).
14 January - 24 January 1943	Morocco [treaties]	A conference is held at Casablanca in newly liberated Morocco between British prime minister Winston Churchill and US president Franklin Roosevelt. They agree to increase bombing of Germany and mount an invasion of Sicily to exploit Allied success in North Africa. They also demand the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers.
31 January 1943	USSR, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	The German 6th Army, commanded by Friedrich von Paulus, surrenders at Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in the USSR, to the Soviet armies encircling it. Over 200,000 Germans are killed and captured in a major blow for the Third Reich.
April 1943	USA [American football]	In the USA, the wearing of helmets is made compulsory in the National Football League (NFL).
27 April 1943	USA [horse-racing]	Judy Johnson makes her debut as the first professional woman jockey in a steeplechase race at the Pimlico Racetrack, Baltimore, Maryland. She has been granted a licence by the Maryland Jockey Club because of the shortage of male jockeys resulting from their enlistment to the armed forces.
1 May - 3 November 1943	USA [unions and associations]	A lengthy coal-miners' strike takes place in the USA.
8 May 1943	Poland [Holocaust]	The rebellion of Warsaw Jews against the Nazis is finally put down. Around 14,000 have died, and the 7,000 survivors are sent to the death camp at Treblinka, Poland.
16 May 1943	Germany, UK [World War II (1939–45)]	British bombers attack three dams in the Ruhr industrial region of Germany in Operation Chastise, using the rotating bouncing bombs designed by the British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis. Two dams are breached.
5 July 1943	USSR, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	German forces of Army Group Centre and Army Group South mount their last major offensive on the Eastern Front against well-prepared Soviet positions north and south of a huge salient around Kursk, USSR. Kursk is the largest tank battle in history, and fatally weakens German forces on the Eastern Front.
10 July 1943	USA [births and deaths]	Arthur Ashe, US tennis player and the first black man to win a major men's singles championship, born in Richmond, Virginia (–1993).
23 August 1943	USSR, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	The Soviet army recaptures the city of Kharkov in the USSR from the Germans.
3 September 1943	Italy, Germany, USA, UK [World War II (1939–45)]	Allied (British and US) forces land in mainland Italy; an armistice is signed between the Allies and the Italian government of Marshal Pietro Badoglio, the successor to the deposed dictator Benito Mussolini, on the same day.
15 September 1943	Italy [World War II (1939–45)]	The former Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini establishes a new republican fascist government at Salò on Lake Garda, Italy.
28 November - 1 December 1943	Iran, USA, UK, USSR [diplomacy]	At the Tehran Conference in Iran, President Franklin D Roosevelt of the USA and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain outline to the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, the plan for an invasion of German-occupied France in 1944.
December 1943	UK [work and unemployment]	A system of balloting National Service boys to provide extra manpower in coal mines is introduced in the UK. In 1944–45, 21,000 ballotees, popularly known as ‘Bevin boys’, after Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour, worked in the mines.
1 December 1943	USA [World War II (1939–45)]	Gas rationing begins in the USA.
17 December 1943	USA [legislation]	US president Franklin D Roosevelt signs the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, granting Chinese people resident in the USA the right to naturalization and permitting immigration of 105 Chinese citizens a year.