Events

January - March 
January 4 – End of term for Culbert Olson, 29th Governor of California. Earl Warren follows him.
January 11 – The United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China.
January 11 – General Juanto dies in Argentina – Ramon Castillo succeeds him
January 12 – Jan Campert, Dutch journalist and writer, dies in Neuengamme concentration camp
January 14 – Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to travel by airplane while in office (Miami, Florida to Morocco to meet with Winston Churchill to discuss World War II).
January 15 – World War II: Japanese are driven off Guadalcanal.
January 15 – The world's largest office building, The Pentagon, is dedicated (Arlington, Virginia).
January 18 – World War II: Soviet officials announce they have broken the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad.
January 18 – The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rise up for the first time, starting the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
January 23 – World War II: British forces capture Tripoli from the Nazis.
January 23 – In Spearfish, South Dakota, temperature rises from -20 to +7 degrees Celsius in two minutes
January 23 – Duke Ellington plays at New York City's Carnegie Hall for the first time.
January 24 – World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill conclude a conference in Casablanca.
January 27 – World War II: 50 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany (Wilhelmshaven was the target).
February 1 – World War II: Vidkun Quisling is appointed Prime Minister of Norway by the Nazi occupiers.
February 2 – World War II: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end with the surrender of the German 6th Army.
February 3 – World War II: The death of the Four Chaplains when their ship was struck by a torpedo.
February 7 – World War II: In the United States, it is announced that shoe rationing will go into effect in two days.
February 8 – World War II: Battle of Kursk – the Russian army captures the city.
 February 8 – World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal – United States forces defeat Japanese troops.
February 10 – March 3 – Mohandas Gandhi stops eating to protest that he was in jail.
February 11 – General Eisenhower is selected to command the allied armies in Europe.
February 14 – World War II: Rostov, Russia is freed.
February 14 – World War II: Battle of the Kasserine Pass – German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia; it is the United States' first major battle defeat of the war.
February 16 – World War II: Soviet Union reconquers Kharkov, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkov
February 18 – The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement.
February 20 – American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
February 22 – Members of White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.
February 27 – The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, United States explodes, killing 74 men.
February 28 – OPERATION GUNNERSIDE, 6 Norwegians led by Joachim Ronneberg successfully attack the heavy water plant Vemork.
March 1 – "Panzer General" Heinz Guderian becomes the Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops for the German Army during World War II.
March 2 – World War II: Battle of the Bismarck Sea – United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships.
March 3 – 173 people are killed in a crush while trying to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green tube station in London.
March 8 – World War II: American forces are attacked by Japanese troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville in a battle that will last five days.
March 13 – World War II: On Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700.
March 13 – Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.
March 26 – World War II: Battle of Komandorski Islands – In the Aleutian Islands the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska.

April - June 
April 3 – Shipwrecked steward Poon Lim is rescued by Brazilian fishermen after he has been adrift for 130 days
April 22 – Albert Hofmann writes his first report about the hallucinogenic properties of LSD, which he first synthesized in 1938.
April 25 – Easter occurs on the latest possible date. Last time 1886 next time 2038.
April 27 – The U.S. Federal Writers' Project is shuttered.
May 11 – World War II: American troops invade Attu in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
May 13 – World War II: German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces.
May 16 – World War II: The Dambuster Raids by RAF 617 Sqdn on German dams.
May 16 – Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends.
May 17 – World War II: Surviving RAF Dam Busters return.
May 17 – The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.
May 24 – Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes Chief Medical Officer in Auschwitz.
June 4 – Military coup in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.
June 22 – U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division land in North Africa prior to training at Arzew, French Morocco while serving in World War II.

July - September 
July 5 – World War II: Battle of Kursk – The largest tank battle in history begins.
July 5 – World War II: An Allied invasion fleet sails to Sicily.
July 6 – World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the Battle of Kula Gulf off Kolombangara.
July 10 – World War II: The Allies begin their invasion of Axis-controlled Europe with landings on the island of Sicily, off mainland Italy by the U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division.
July 12 – World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Kolombangara.
July 19 – World War II: Rome is bombed by the Allies for the first time in the war.
July 24 – World War II: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, those of the Americans by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.
July 25 – In Italy the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo retires its consent to Mussolini; Mussolini is arrested and the power is given to Maresciallo d'Italia Gen. Pietro Badoglio.
July 27 – World War II: USSR leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into Russia. Under the order all those who run away or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so will be killed as soon as possible.
July 28 – World War II: Operation Gomorrah – The British bomb Hamburg causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.
August 6 – World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the Battle of Vella Gulf off Kolombangara.
August 17 – World War II: The US 7th Army under General George S. Patton arrive in Messina, Italy followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
August 29 – World War II: Germany dissolves the Danish government after it refuses to deal with a wave of strikes and disturbances to the satisfaction of the German authorities. (See: Occupation of Denmark)
September 3 – World War II: Mainland Italy is invaded by Allied forces under Bernard L. Montgomery, for the first time in the war.
September 5 – World War II: The 503rd Parachute Regiment under American General Douglas MacArthur lands and occupies Nadzab, just east of the port city of Lae in northeastern Papua New Guinea.
September 8 – World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies.
September 8 – World War II: Julius Fucik is killed by Nazis.
September 23 – World War II: Republic of Salò is founded.

October - December 
October 6 – World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Vella Lavella.
October 13 – World War II: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.
October 22 – World War II: RAF delivers a highly destructive airstrike on the German industrial and population center of Kassel
November 1 – World War II: In Operation Goodtime, United States Marines land on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.
November 2 – World War II: In the early morning hours, American and Japanese ships fight the inconclusive Battle of Empress Augusta Bay off Bougainville.
November 2 – World War II: British troops, in Italy, reach the Garigliano River.
November 15 – Porajmos: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies and "part-Gypsies" were to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps."
November 16 – World War II: After flying from Britain, 160 American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.
November 16 – World War II: Japanese submarine sinks surfaced USA submarine USS Corvina near Truk
November 18 – World War II: 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF lost nine aircraft and 53 aviators.
November 20 – World War II: Battle of Tarawa begins – United States Marines land on Tarawa and Makin atolls in the Gilbert Islands and take heavy fire from Japanese shore guns.
November 22 – World War II: War in the Pacific – US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and ROC leader Chiang Kai-Shek meet in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss ways to defeat Japan.
November 22 – Lebanon breaks away from France and becomes its own country.
November 23 – The Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg was destroyed. It was rebuilt in 1961 and called the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
November 25 – World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Cape St. George between Buka and New Ireland.
November 28 – World War II: Tehran Conference – US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin meet in Tehran to discuss war strategy (on November 30 they established an agreement concerning a planned June 1944 invasion of Europe codenamed Operation Overlord).
November 29 – Second session of AVNOJ, the Anti-fascist council of national liberation of Yugoslavia, is held in Jajce, Bosnia and Herzegovina, determining the post-war ordering of the country.
December 2 – World War II: Air raid on Bari
December 4 – World War II: In Yugoslavia, resistance leader Marshal Tito proclaims a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in-exile.
December 4 – Great Depression ends in the United States: With unemployment figures falling fast due to World War II-related employment, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt closes the Works Progress Administration.
December 20 – Military coup in Bolivia
December 24 – World War II: US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the supreme Allied commander.
December 30 – Subhash Chandra Bose raises the flag of Indian independence at Port Blair.
Development of the Colossus computer by British to break German encryption (see History of computing hardware).
Mondragón cooperative begins in Basque Country in Spain
Arana Hall, Otago founded.
Second World War (1939-1945)
Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)

Births 
January 1 - Tony Knowles, former Governor of Alaska
January 7 - Sadako Sasaki, Japanese atomic bomb victim (d. 1955)
January 14 - Ralph Steinman, Canadian scientist (d. 2011)
January 18 - Paul Angelis, English actor (d. 2009)
January 24 - Peter Struck, German politician (d. 2012)
January 24 - Sharon Tate, American actress (d. 1969)
February 19 – Lou Christie, singer
February 20 - Mike Leigh, English actor, director and screenwriter
February 22 - Horst Koehler, former President of Germany
February 25 – George Harrison, English musician (The Beatles) (d. 2001)
March 9 – Bobby Fischer, American-born Icelandic chess player (d. 2008)
March 19 - Mario Monti, Prime Minister of Italy
March 29 - John Major, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
March 29 – Eric Idle, English actor and comedian
March 31 – Christopher Walken, American actor
March 31 - Sharon Hampson, Canadian singer and musician (Sharon, Lois & Bram)
April 30 - Frederick Chiluba, former President of Zambia (d. 2011)
May 5 - Michael Palin, British actor, comedian, television presenter and writer
May 14 - Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, President of Iceland
May 14 - Jack Bruce, Scottish bass guitarist (Cream) (d. 2014)
May 24 – Gary Burghoff, actor
May 31 – Sharon Gless, actress
June 13 – Malcolm McDowell, actor
June 17 - Barry Manilow, American singer
July 4 - Adam Hart-Davis, British historian
July 4 - Heide Simonis, German politician
July 12 - Christine McVie, English keyboardist (Fleetwood Mac)
August 11 - Pervez Musharraf, former President of Pakistan
August 17 – Robert De Niro, actor
August 18 – Gianni Rivera, former Italian footballer
August 23 – Pino Presti, Italian bassist, arranger, composer, conductor, record producer
August 30 – Robert Crumb, American cartoonist
September 27 – Randy Bachman, Canadian musician (Bachman–Turner Overdrive)
September 29 - Mohammad Khatami, former President of Iran
September 29 - Lech Walesa, former President of Poland
September 29 - Wolfgang Overath, German footballer
October 16 - Fred Turner, Canadian musician (Bachman–Turner Overdrive)
November 28 - Randy Newman, American singer-songwriter
December 7 - Sue Johnston, British actress
December 11 – John Kerry, American politician, former presidential candidate and 68th United States Secretary of State
December 14 - Britt Allcroft, English filmmaker
December 23 - Silvia Sommerlath, Queen of Sweden
December 24 - Tarja Halonen, former President of Finland
December 28 - Richard Whiteley, British television presenter (d. 2005)
December 31 - John Denver, American singer (d. 1997)
December 31 - Ben Kingsley, British actor

Deaths 
January 5 – George Washington Carver, American educator, activist, and botanist
January 7 – Nikola Tesla, physicist
January 23 – Alexander Woollcott, bon vivant
February 14 – David Hilbert, mathematician
February 17 – Armand J. Piron, jazz musician (born 1888)
March 3 – George Thompson, English cricketer (b. 1877)
March 12 – Gustav Vigeland, Norwegian sculptor
March 13 – Stephen Vincent Benet, American poet (born 1898)
March 28 – Sergei Rachmaninoff, Russian composer and pianist
April 18 – Isoroku Yamamoto, Japanese admiral
May 26 – Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford
July 2 – Michel Velleman
July 21 – Charlie Paddock, American athlete
August 12 – Bobby Peel, English cricketer (born 1857).
August 14 – Joe Kelley, Baseball Hall of Famer (born 1871)
August 28 – King Boris III of Bulgaria
October 5 – Leon Roppolo, jazz musician (born 1902)
October 7 – Eugeniusz Bodo, Polish actor (murdered)
October 19 – Camille Claudel, French sculptor 
December 1 – Damrong Rajanubhab, Thai prince and historian (born 1862)
Eidegenegen Eidagaruwo, first Angam Baby
Esteban Huertas, Panamanian independence fighter

Movies released 
Casablanca

Hit songs 
"As Time Goes By" by Rudy Vallee
"I've Heard That Song Before" by Harry James
"In the Blue of the Evening" by Tommy Dorsey
"Paper Doll" by Mills Brothers
"Pistol Packin' Mama" by Al Dexter
"Sunday, Monday or Always" by Bing Crosby
"Taking a Chance On Love" by Benny Goodman
"There Are Such Things" by Tommy Dorsey
"When the Lights Go On Again" by Vaughn Monroe
"You'll Never Know" by Dick Haymes

New books 
Adam of the Road – Elizabeth Janet Gray
The Apostle – Sholem Asch
Citizen Tom Paine – Howard Fast 
Claudius the God – Robert Graves
Crux Ansata – H. G. Wells
Earth's Last Citadel – C. L. Moore
The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand
Gremlins – Roald Dahl
A Haunted House and other stories – Virginia Woolf (published anonymously)
Le Képi – Colette
The Lady in the Lake – Raymond Chandler
The Last of Summer – Kate O'Brien
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Nature and Destiny of Man – Reinhold Niebuhr
Mr. Mirakel – E. Phillips Oppenheim
The Ship – C.S. Forester
The Raven – Chancellor Williams 
Rhadopis of Nubia – Naguib Mahfouz
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
Victoria Grandolet – Henry Bellamann 
The White Face – Carl Offord

Nobel Prizes
 Henrik Dam and Edward Adelbert Doisy, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicinefor the discovery of Vitamin K.