1943

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• On 31 January, 300,000 German troops surrender at Stalingrad.

• On 10 July, Allied troops invade Sicily, which two weeks later leads to the fall of Benito Mussolini.

• On 20 July, Soviet troops win the battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history and the turning point in the war on the Eastern Front.

• On 3 September, Italy surrenders unconditionally. A week later, the Germans occupy Rome.

• From 28 November to 1 December, at the Tehran Conference, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill give Stalin an outline of the plan for the invasion of France the following year.

• Jacques-Yves Cousteau develops the first scuba diving gear.

• French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre publishes L'être and le neant (Being and Nothingness), the most complete statement of existentialism.

• The optimistic musical Oklahoma! by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein opens in New York.

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