Poon Lim's 133 Day South Atlantic Odyssey
Apr 5 Chinese steward Poon Lim is found off the coast of Brazil by a Brazilian fisherman family after being adrift 133 days, after British ship SS Benlomond torpedoed by german U-boat
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Conference of Interest
Apr 7 Adolf Hitler & Benito Mussolini met for an Axis conference in Salzburg
Adolf Hitler
Benito Mussolini
- Apr 7 British and US troops make contact at Wadi Akarit, South-Tunisia
- Apr 7 Lt colonel Claus von Stauffenberg seriously wounded at allied air raid
- Apr 7 NFL adopts free substitution rule
- Apr 8 Hakuun Yasutani Roshi, founder of Sanbo Kyodan, receives dharma
- Apr 8 Stanley Cup Final, Boston Garden, Boston, MA: Detroit Red Wings beat Boston Bruins, 2-0 for a 4-0 series sweep and their 3rd SC Championship
Event of Interest
Apr 8 U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, in an attempt to check inflation, freezes wages and prices, prohibits workers from changing jobs unless the war effort would be aided thereby, and bars rate increases to common carriers and public utilities.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Apr 8 1943 NFL Draft: Frank Sinkwich from University of Georgia first pick by Detroit Lions
- Apr 10 12 Jewish patients of Herren Loo-Lozenoord escape nazis
- Apr 10 General Montgomery occupies Sfax, Tunisia
- Apr 11 Frank Piasecki, Vertol founder, flies his 1st (single-rotor) craft
- Apr 12 Allies conquer Soussa, North-Africa
- Apr 12 Dutch Catholic University Nijmegen closed
- Apr 13 Catholic University Nijegen closes
- Apr 13 FDR dedicates Jefferson Memorial
- Apr 13 Nazis discover mass grave of Polish officers near Katyn
Event of Interest
Apr 14 Gen Alexander/Eisenhower/Anderson/Bradley discuss assault on Tunis
Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Apr 14 James Gow & A d'Usseau's "Tomorrow the World" premieres in NYC
- Apr 14 A JN-25 decrypt by American intelligence detailing a forthcoming visit by Marshal Admiral Yamamoto to Balalae Island results in his plane shot down 4 days later
- Apr 15 Metropolitan Life Insurances issues a $225 million check to Chase
- Apr 16 40 NZ bombers attack Haarlem, Netherlands (85 killed)
- Apr 16 Swiss scientist Dr. Albert Hofmann discovers the psychedelic effects of LSD
- Apr 17 Marshal Admiral Yamamoto flies from Truk to Rabaul
- Apr 17 SS General Jürgen Stroop arrives in Warsaw
- Apr 19 47th Boston Marathon won by Gerard Cote of Canada in 2:28:25.8; his 2nd of 4 wins in the event
Event of Interest
Apr 19 Jews refuse to surrender the Warsaw Ghetto to SS officer Jürgen Stroop, who then orders its destruction, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Mordecai Anielewicz
- Apr 19 Bicycle Day - Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time.
- Apr 20 Braves manager Casey Stengel is struck by a taxi, fractures a leg
- Apr 22 German counter attack in North-Tunisia
- Apr 22 RAF shoots down 14 German transport planes over Mediterranean Sea
- Apr 23 British & US offensive directed at Tunis and Bizerta
- Apr 25 The Demyansk Shield for German troops in commemoration of Demyansk Pocket instituted
- Apr 27 Lou Jansen & Jan Dieters, leaders of the illegal CPN party in Holland, arrested
- Apr 27 Soviet Union breaks contact with Polish government exiled in London
Event of Interest
Apr 27 Witold Pilecki escapes from Auschwitz after having voluntarily been imprisoned there to gain information about the Holocaust
Witold Pilecki
- Apr 28 1st performance of Marc Blitzstein's "Freedom Morning"
- Apr 28 German-Italian counter offensive in North Africa
- Apr 28 US 34th Division occupies Djebel el Hara North Tunisia
- Apr 29 Dietrich Bonhoeffer arrested by nazis
- Apr 29 Noel Coward's "Present Laughter" premieres in London
- Apr 29 US 34th Division occupies Hill 609, North Tunisia
- Apr 30 Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp for Jews forms
- Apr 30 Dutch strike against forced labor in Nazi Germany's war industry
- Apr 30 Noel Coward's "This Happy Breed" premieres in London