50 Fun Facts About 1943

Which grocery item did US Food Administrator Claude Wickard ban for seven weeks in early 1943 as a wartime saving?

Sliced bread needed heavier wax-paper wrapping than whole loaves, so officials hoped a ban would save paper. Public complaints helped end it on March 8, 1943.

Which drug did Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann test on himself in April 1943 before a famously strange bicycle ride home?

LSD had sat on a shelf for five years before Hofmann absorbed a trace by accident and decided to try a measured dose. April 19 is now known as Bicycle Day.

Which children's classic did exiled French pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry publish in New York in April 1943?

The Little Prince was written in New York and on Long Island and reached France only after the liberation. Its author vanished on a reconnaissance flight in July 1944.

Which Scandinavian company did 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad found in 1943 as a small mail-order business?

IKEA joins Kamprad's initials to Elmtaryd, the family farm, and Agunnaryd, his home village. Furniture only entered the range five years after the founding.

Which future US president towed an injured crewman to safety after a Japanese destroyer sank PT-109 in August 1943?

John F. Kennedy swam with the burned sailor's life-jacket strap clenched in his teeth. A message scratched on a coconut later helped bring the stranded crew's rescue.

Which government building in the Washington, DC, area was completed in January 1943 after only 16 months of work?

The Pentagon was built with concrete ramps between its floors rather than elevators, a design that saved scarce wartime steel. Ground was broken on September 11, 1941.

British spies dressed a corpse as a Royal Marine in 1943's Operation Mincemeat to mask the invasion of which island?

Sicily was painted as a mere feint in the fake letters, which pointed to Greece and Sardinia. Germany shifted reinforcements to both, and the real target received none.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's first musical together, a Broadway smash from March 1943, is named after which US state?

Oklahoma! ran for an unprecedented 2,212 performances and earned a special Pulitzer Prize. During its out-of-town tryouts the show was still called Away We Go!

Which Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman romance reached general US release in January 1943 and later won Best Picture?

Casablanca was sent into wide release to cash in on headlines about the Allied leaders' conference in the Moroccan city. Its New York premiere had followed the city's capture in 1942.

Which toy did naval engineer Richard James invent in 1943 after a part knocked off a shelf seemed to walk?

Slinky was an instant hit when James first demonstrated it at a Gimbels department store in November 1945. The first 400 sold in 90 minutes.

In which city did Ike Sewell and Richard Riccardo open the first Pizzeria Uno in 1943?

Chicago's deep-dish pizza is usually traced to Uno, though its first pizza chef, Rudy Malnati, is also credited with the recipe. His sons later opened rival deep-dish restaurants.

Which French naval officer co-invented the Aqua-Lung diving gear with engineer Émile Gagnan in 1943?

Jacques Cousteau adapted a regulator Gagnan had built for gas generators during a wartime fuel shortage. He used early prototypes that same year to shoot the film Épaves.

Which Beatle, born in Liverpool in February 1943, was nicknamed the quiet one of the group?

George Harrison won over John Lennon by playing the instrumental Raunchy on the top deck of a Liverpool bus. Lennon had at first thought him, just turned 15, too young to join.

Which rock frontman, born in Dartford, Kent, in July 1943, studied at the London School of Economics before fame?

Mick Jagger was studying finance and accounting on a government grant when the Rolling Stones took off. He had first met Keith Richards as a primary-school classmate.

Which actor, born in Manhattan in August 1943 to two painters, won Oscars for The Godfather Part II and Raging Bull?

Robert De Niro was nicknamed Bobby Milk as a boy in Little Italy because of his pale complexion. His father disapproved of the street kids he ran around with there.

Which blues-rock singer, born in Port Arthur, Texas, in January 1943, broke through at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival?

Janis Joplin sang at Monterey with a then little-known San Francisco band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. She died of an overdose in October 1970, aged 27.

Which tennis champion, born in California in November 1943, beat Bobby Riggs in 1973's Battle of the Sexes?

Billie Jean King played softball until she was 11, when her parents steered her toward a sport they thought more ladylike. Her brother Randy pitched for the San Francisco Giants.

Which chess prodigy, born in March 1943, became a grandmaster at 15 and won the world title in Reykjavik in 1972?

Bobby Fischer took the crown from Boris Spassky of the USSR after first choosing Belgrade as the venue. Iceland's capital had been his opponent's pick.

Which comic-book hero made his first screen appearance in a 15-chapter 1943 Columbia serial starring Lewis Wilson?

Batman's wartime serial introduced the Batcave and its secret entrance through a grandfather clock. Both ideas quickly became a permanent part of the character's story.

At which Soviet city did Friedrich Paulus surrender Germany's Sixth Army in 1943, a day after becoming field marshal?

Stalingrad made Paulus the first German field marshal to be captured alive. Hitler had promoted him expecting that he would take his own life rather than give up.

Which deposed dictator did German commandos free from a mountaintop hotel in a glider raid in September 1943?

Benito Mussolini had been a prisoner for seven weeks, ever since his own Grand Council voted against him and the king dismissed him. Hitler then made him figurehead of a puppet state.

Which structures did RAF 617 Squadron attack in Germany's Ruhr region in May 1943 with Barnes Wallis's bouncing bombs?

Dams on the Möhne and Eder rivers were breached, sending catastrophic floods down the valleys below. The raid earned 617 Squadron its lasting nickname, the Dam Busters.

In which city did Jewish fighters hold out against SS troops for four weeks in the ghetto uprising of April 1943?

Warsaw's ghetto fighters ambushed German columns with pistols, grenades and Molotov cocktails thrown from alleyways, sewers and windows. It was the largest Jewish revolt of the war.

In which Middle Eastern capital did the Allied Big Three leaders hold their first joint meeting in November 1943?

Tehran's Soviet embassy hosted the talks, the first time Stalin had met both Western leaders together. They agreed that an invasion of northern France would come by May 1944.

Which American general was chosen in December 1943 as Supreme Allied Commander for the coming invasion of France?

Dwight Eisenhower was picked over George Marshall, the Army's chief of staff. He had already commanded the Allied landings in North Africa, code-named Operation Torch.

Which Soviet city gave its name to the July 1943 clash described as the biggest tank battle of World War II?

Kursk was the last strategic offensive Germany managed to launch on the Eastern Front. Its losses in men and tanks left the Red Army holding the initiative for the rest of the war.

To which country did Danish fishermen ferry most of Denmark's Jews in October 1943, ahead of a planned Nazi roundup?

Sweden took in more than 7,000 of Denmark's Jews after a German diplomat, Georg Duckwitz, leaked the deportation plan. Their survival rate was among the highest in occupied Europe.

Which physicist was appointed director of the secret Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico in 1943?

Robert Oppenheimer suggested the remote mesa himself, having spent much of his youth in the area. The lab took over the buildings of the Los Alamos Ranch School.

Which US president became the first to fly while in office, crossing the Atlantic by flying boat in January 1943?

Franklin Roosevelt flew aboard the Dixie Clipper, a Pan Am-crewed Boeing 314, on a 5,500-mile trip in three legs to meet Churchill in Morocco.

Which wartime icon did Norman Rockwell paint for a May 1943 Saturday Evening Post cover, her foot resting on Mein Kampf?

Rosie the Riveter sits in a pose Rockwell borrowed from Michelangelo's prophet Isaiah on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. His model was a 19-year-old Vermont telephone operator.

Which baggy men's outfit gave its name to the June 1943 riots in which servicemen attacked Los Angeles youths?

Zoot suit wearers, mostly young Mexican Americans, were stripped of outfits the servicemen called unpatriotic for the amount of fabric they used in wartime.

Which pioneer of alternating current died alone in his room at the Hotel New Yorker in January 1943, aged 86?

Nikola Tesla had lived at the hotel since 1934 and walked to the park every day to feed the pigeons. He said one injured white bird came to visit him daily.

Which children's author died in December 1943, leaving about 4,000 acres of Lake District land to the National Trust?

Beatrix Potter, the creator of Peter Rabbit, had become a prize-winning breeder of Herdwick sheep. Her bequest included her working farms along with their cottages and flocks.

Which Disney star toils in a Nazi factory in the nightmare cartoon Der Fuehrer's Face, an Oscar winner in March 1943?

Donald Duck's bad dream was made to sell war bonds and is the only one of his cartoons ever to win an Academy Award. Its working title was Donald Duck in Nutziland.

Which dog character first reached the screen in a 1943 MGM film starring Roddy McDowall and a young Elizabeth Taylor?

Lassie was played by a male collie named Pal, who had been hired to perform the rapids stunt. Being male, he was judged to look more impressive in the part.

Which crooner signed with Columbia Records as a solo act in June 1943 and became the idol of teenage bobby soxers?

Frank Sinatra signed during a musicians' strike, and by the end of 1943 he had overtaken Bing Crosby in a DownBeat popularity poll. That February he had joined radio's Your Hit Parade.

Which silent-film legend, aged 54, married playwright Eugene O'Neill's 18-year-old daughter Oona in June 1943?

Charlie Chaplin and Oona stayed married until his death and had eight children. Her father, only six months older than his new son-in-law, disowned her and never reconciled.

Which actress, accepting her Oscar for Mrs. Miniver in March 1943, spoke for over five minutes, a record until 2025?

Greer Garson talked for about five and a half minutes at the Cocoanut Grove ceremony in Los Angeles. The Academy later brought in a time limit for acceptance speeches.

Which 25-year-old conductor found fame overnight in November 1943 by replacing a sick Bruno Walter at Carnegie Hall?

Leonard Bernstein stepped in without any rehearsal, and the concert went out live on national radio. The New York Times put the story on its front page the next day.

Which 1992 film starring Geena Davis and Tom Hanks is based on the women's pro baseball teams first fielded in 1943?

A League of Their Own gives a mostly fictionalized account of the All-American Girls league, which chewing-gum mogul Philip Wrigley owned at first. Its Rockford Peaches won four titles.

Which team beat the St. Louis Cardinals in five games to win the 1943 World Series, a rematch of 1942?

New York Yankees manager Joe McCarthy took his final World Series title with Joe DiMaggio and Phil Rizzuto both away on military service.

Wartime player shortages led the Pittsburgh Steelers to merge for the 1943 NFL season with which other team?

Philadelphia Eagles players joined theirs in a squad officially called the Phil-Pitt Combine and nicknamed the Steagles. NFL owners approved the merger by a single vote, 5–4.

Which colt completed American racing's 1943 Triple Crown by winning the Belmont Stakes by a record 25 lengths?

Count Fleet's winning margin stood as the Belmont record until Secretariat won by 31 lengths in 1973. He was the sixth horse to sweep the three races.

Which Bears quarterback threw seven touchdown passes in one 1943 game, the NFL's first 400-yard passing performance?

Sid Luckman passed for 433 yards that day and went on to lead the Bears to the 1943 NFL championship, one of four titles he won with the team.

Streptomycin, first isolated at Rutgers University in October 1943, was the first antibiotic cure for which disease?

Tuberculosis yielded to a drug isolated by PhD student Albert Schatz, who sued his supervisor Selman Waksman in 1950 and won a share of the royalties. Waksman alone received the 1952 Nobel Prize.

What burst out of Mexican farmer Dionisio Pulido's cornfield in February 1943 and stayed active for nine years?

A volcano named Parícutin grew into a 424-metre cone on Pulido's land. Before leaving for the last time, he put up a sign declaring that it was owned and operated by him.

Which codebreaking machine, working by December 1943, is regarded as the first programmable electronic digital computer?

Colossus was designed by Post Office telephone engineer Tommy Flowers to help crack the Lorenz cipher at Bletchley Park. Its existence was kept secret until the mid-1970s.

Which paycheck deduction have US employers been required to make since a wartime law signed in June 1943?

Federal income tax withholding had been tried in 1913 and soon repealed. The 1943 law revived it, so wartime taxes were collected as wages were paid.

Norwegian commandos blew up a plant at Vemork in February 1943 to deny Germany which nuclear-research material?

Heavy water from Vemork came from the first site in the world to mass-produce it. Some 3,000 German soldiers were sent to hunt the saboteurs, and every one of them escaped.

Which Founding Father's memorial in Washington, DC, was dedicated in April 1943 on the 200th anniversary of his birth?

Thomas Jefferson was represented by a plaster cast on opening day. The 19-foot bronze statue that stands under the dome today was not added until 1947.