World War II: Germany invades Vichy France following French Admiral François Darlan's agreement to an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.

World War II: First flight of the Heinkel He 219.

World War II: Yugoslav Partisans convene the first meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia at Bihać in northwestern Bosnia.

World War II: Guadalcanal Campaign: Battle of Tassafaronga — A smaller squadron of Japanese destroyers led by Raizo Tanaka defeats a US cruiser force under Carleton H. Wright.

World War II: Carlson's patrol during the Guadalcanal Campaign ends.

World War II: Operation Ke, the successful Japanese operation to evacuate their forces from Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal campaign, begins.

World War II: The Soviet counter-offensive at Voronezh begins.

World War II: Troops of Montgomery's 8th Army capture Tripoli in Libya from the German-Italian Panzer Army.

World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill conclude a conference in Casablanca.

World War II: The VIII Bomber Command dispatched ninety-one B-17s and B-24s to attack the U-Boat construction yards at Wilhemshafen, Germany. The first American bombing attack on Germany.

World War II: Second day of the Battle of Rennell Island. The USS Chicago is sunk and a U.S. destroyer is heavily damaged by Japanese torpedoes.

German Field Marshall Friedrich Paulus surrenders to the Soviets at Stalingrad, followed 2 days later by the remainder of his Sixth Army, ending one of World War II's fiercest battles.

World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad comes to conclusion as Soviet troops accept the surrender of 91,000 remnants of the Axis forces.

World War II: Rostov-on-Don, Russia is liberated.

World War II: The Battle of the Bismarck Sea in the South West Pacific comes to an end.

World War II: In Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700.

World War II: The discovery of a mass grave of Polish prisoners of war executed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, alienating the Western Allies, the Polish government in exile in London, from the Soviet Union.

World War II: Operation Mincemeat: The submarine HMS Seraph surfaces in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain to deposit a dead man planted with false invasion plans and dressed as a British military intelligence officer.

World War II: American troops invade Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.

World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set Monday, May 1, 1944 as the date for the Normandy landings ("D-Day"). It would later be delayed over a month due to bad weather.

World War II: An Allied invasion fleet sails for Sicily (Operation Husky, July 10, 1943).

World War II: Operation Husky

World War II: Battle of Prokhorovka

World War II: Allied forces capture the Italian city of Palermo.

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.

World War II: Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by his own Italian Grand Council and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.

World War II: the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed by the Japanese destroyer ''Amagiri'' and sinks. Lt. John F. Kennedy, future U.S. President, saves all but two of his crew.

Japanese forces evacuate New Georgia Island in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.

World War II: in Denmark, a general strike against the Nazi occupation is started.

World War II: The German 17th Army begins its evacuation of the Kuban River bridgehead (Taman Peninsula) in southern Russia and moves across the Strait of Kerch to the Crimea.

World War II: German troops occupy Corsica and Kosovo-Metohija.

World War II: Naples falls to Allied soldiers.

World War II: U.S. captures Solomon Islands.

World War II: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.

Prisoners at the Nazi German Sobibor extermination camp in Poland revolted against the Germans, killing eleven SS troops who were guards there, and wounding many more. About 300 of the Sobibor Camp's 600 prisoners escaped from this Nazi extermination camp, and about 50 of these survived past the end of World War II (on May 8, 1945, European time).

World War II: Battle of Empress Augusta Bay, United States Marines, the 3rd Marine Division, land on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.

World War II: Tehran Conference

World War II: German warship ''Scharnhorst'' is sunk off of Norway's North Cape after a battle against major Royal Navy forces.

World War II: Top Ace Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington is shot down in his Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Zero.

World War II: Operation Carpetbagger, involving the dropping of arms and supplies to resistance fighters in Europe, begins.