page_title: May 1943
section_title: May 19, 1943 (Wednesday)
hierarchical_section_title: May 1943 / May 19, 1943 (Wednesday)
caption_attribution_description: English: Winston Churchill addresses the United States Congress in 1943.
context_page_description: The following events occurred in May 1943:
context_section_description: Following years of experimentation to test the safety of the first antibiotic drug, the United States Army Medical Corps cleared the release of penicillin for use in all military hospitals. Two days later, the first patient to receive the drug would be an unidentified U.S. Army soldier. Although the bacteria-killing properties of the mold Penicillium chrysogenum had been discovered by Alexander Fleming 15 years earlier, production was limited until 1942, when a potent strain of the mold was discovered on a cantaloupe that had been discarded from a market in Peoria, Illinois, where research was being performed on synthesizing the drug. The "Peoria strain" was found by microbiologist Dorothy I. Fennell to yield 50 times as much penicillin as previously tested strains, making mass production possible. Mary Hunt, a technician of the lab, is usually given credit for discovering the cantaloupe that contained the mold  although the laboratory's supervisor, Kenneth B. Raper, would tell a reporter in 1976 that "A housewife in town knew we were looking for moldy food, and she brought in the moldy canteloupe," and handed it over to a guard, then departed without ever leaving her name.
  Winston Churchill addressed a joint session of the United States Congress (as well as a national radio audience), reviewing the course of the war and reassuring his audience of Britain's dedication to its alliance with the United States.  Churchill noted that "We will wage war at your side against Japan while there is breath in our bodies and while blood flows in our veins."
  German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declared that, after 60 days of work, Berlin was now Judenfrei—free of Jews.
  The German submarine U-273 was depth charged and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by a Lockheed Hudson of No. 269 Squadron RAF.
  German submarine U-954 was sunk southeast of Cape Farewell, Greenland by British warships. Among the crew who perished in the sinking was the son of Admiral Karl Dönitz, Peter Dönitz.
  Born: Helena Quinn, Australian-born American theoretical physicist,in Melbourne
  Died: Kristjan Raud, 77, Estonian painter
caption: Prime Minister Churchill at the U.S. Capitol
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