The Cairo Declaration was released after the departure of American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and China's President Chiang Kai-shek. For the first time, the Allies demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 450+ aircraft attack on Berlin, Germany. Results were poor due to incorrect forecast of wind speeds

At least 83 people were killed by the release of gas from chemical weapons in the Italian port of Bari, and another 545 were injured, after a surprise air raid by 88 bombers from Germany's Luftwaffe. Unbeknownst to anyone except its commanding officers, the American merchant marine ship SS John Harvey had been carrying a cargo of 2,000 M-47A1 mustard gas bombs.

British Labour Minister Ernest Bevin MP announced that one out of every ten men called up between the ages of 18 and 25 would be ordered to work in British coal mines without exception of any sort. These conscript miners would be known as "Bevin Boys".

Edward R. Murrow delivered his classic "Orchestrated Hell" broadcast over CBS Radio, describing a night-time bombing raid on Berlin, by 619 Squadron, RAF, based at RAF Woodhall Spa. The night before, Murrow had been allowed to fly on board a 619 Sqn Avro Lancaster, codenamed "D for Dog", during the raid.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 530+ aircraft attack on Leipzig, Germany. First successful raid on a target

The Eastern Front: Soviet forces captured Dovsk north of Gomel and moved towards Rogachev.

The Congress of Bolivia ratified the executive decree by President Enrique Peñaranda after a six-month debate and declared war against the Axis Powers Germany, Japan, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Thailand & Finland.

With unemployment figures falling fast due to war-related employment, President Franklin D. Roosevelt closed the Works Progress Administration, bringing a symbolic end to the Great Depression in the United States.

The Italian Campaign: Beginning of the British Moro River campaign

Operation Crossbow:Major day-time American air raid, 30+ aircraft attack on Ligescourt, France. Numerous V-1 launch sites being prepared by the German LXV Army Corps were attacked. Results poor

The Pacific Campaign: The Beginning of the Battle of Sio, Papua New Guinea

Football International: The 1943 CCCF Championship Costa Rica 7-0 Nicaragua, Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador

Football International: The 1943 CCCF Championship El Salvador 2-2 Guatemala, Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador

The Eastern Front: Soviet forces in the Ukrainian sector captured Znamianka and cut the rail line to Smela.

The first Jews were shipped out of Italy, as a train took prisoners from Milan and Verona to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The Western Front: At Tunis, President Roosevelt personally informed American Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower of a transfer from the command of forces in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations to the newly established Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in London. According to witnesses at the scene, the President told General Eisenhower, "Well, Ike, you are going to command Overlord," the forthcoming Allied invasion of continental Europe.

The Italian Campaign: British forces capture the town of Poggiofiorito.

Football International: The 1943 CCCF Championship Costa Rica 2-3 Guatemala, Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador

Football International: The 1943 CCCF Championship El Salvador 8-1 Nicaragua, Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador

The Pacific Campaign: The Battle of Wareo, New Guinea ends in victories for Australian forces

Football International: The 1943 CCCF Championship El Salvador 4-2 Costa Rica, Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador

Football International: The 1943 CCCF Championship Guatemala 6-2 Nicaragua, Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador

The Italian Campaign: British forces crossed the Moro River

Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, leader of Germany's Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), ordered that V-1 rocket attacks be made on London beginning January 15, 1944, although there were no V-1s yet in production.

President of the government in exile for Czechoslovakia Edvard Benes, signed a "Treaty of Friendship, Mutual Aid, and Postwar Cooperation" with President Mikhail Kalinin of the Soviet Union for an alliance between the two nations that would begin after the war. President Benes would be forced out of office by the Soviet-backed Communist Party of Czechoslovakia after the war.

The Pacific Campaign: the Battle of Hellzapoppin Ridge and Hill 600A began on Bougainville Island.

Football International: The 1943 CCCF Championship Costa Rica 3-2 Nicaragua, Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador

Football International: The 1943 CCCF Championship El Salvador 2-1 Guatemala, Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy day-time American air raid, 1,460+ aircraft attack on Breman, Hamburg & Kiel, Germany. Carpet bombing of population centres

The Eastern Front: Soviet forces capture Cherkasy.

The Pacific Campaign: The New Britain campaign begins. American & Australian forces began the Battle of Arawe as a diversion before a larger landing at Cape Gloucester on New Britain in Papua New Guinea.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 480+ aircraft attack on Berlin, Germany. Damage to housing & railways, but industrial targets missed

Operation Crossbow:Major night-time British air raid, 50+ aircraft attack on Abbeville, France. Numerous V-1 launch sites being prepared by the German LXV Army Corps were attacked. Results poor

Seventy-three train passengers were killed and another 187 injured in the collision of two Atlantic Coast Line Railroad trains near Lumberton, North Carolina. At about 1:15 a.m., the Tamiami West Coast Champion, with 18 cars, derailed as it was travelling south during a snowstorm, and two Pullman sleeper cars and the diner car were knocked across the northbound track. Thirty-five minutes later, the Tamiami East Coast Champion, with 16 cars, moved past warning signals and crashed at full speed into the first train. Both trains had been travelling between New York City and Miami when their paths crossed in North Carolina.

Elfriede Remark Scholz, the sister of Erich Maria Remarque, the German-born author of All Quiet on the Western Front, was executed at the Plotzensee Prison, Berlin after being convicted in the German "People's Court" (Volksgerichtshof) of "undermining the war effort" by failing to denounce her famous brother, who had become successful in the United States. Judge Roland Freisler said, "Your brother is beyond our reach, but you will not escape us."

Football International: The 1943 CCCF Championship Costa Rica 2-4 Guatemala, Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador

Football International: The 1943 CCCF Championship El Salvador 10-1 Nicaragua, Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador

The Italian Campaign: The Battle of San Pietro Infine ended in Allied victory.

Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler ordered new rules for the arrest and deportation of Jews in Germany, revoking most previous exemptions for Jews who had married Gentiles. Most Jewish spouses were ordered deported to the nominally Jewish city of Theresienstadt in January, rather than immediately to concentration camps. Exceptions continued to be made, however, for intermarried couples who had lost a son in combat, and for those who had very young children at home.

German SS soldiers carried out the Drakeia massacre in Greece, executing 118 men as part of so-called anti-partisan reprisals.

The Pacific Campaign: American forces at Arawe, New Guinea captured the Japanese airstrip and held it against counter attacks.

On the Philippines' Panay Island, ten American Baptist missionaries, three other Americans and two children were captured by the Japanese Army after having hidden for two years, and became the Hopevale Martyrs the next day, volunteering to be executed in return for the Japanese allowing their Filipino captives to go free. The following day, after being granted an hour to pray, the adults, ranging in age from 59 to 39, were beheaded by sword, and the two children, including a nine-year-old boy, were bayoneted.

Football International: The 1943 CCCF Championship El Salvador 2-4 Costa Rica, Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador

Football International: The 1943 CCCF Championship Guatemala 5-1 Nicaragua, Flor Blanca Stadium, San Salvador

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 650+ aircraft attack on Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Poor results due to cloud & dummy target indicators by the Germans

German SS intelligence division prepared a special report to his superiors outlining the requirements for a future invasion of Switzerland

The Eastern Front: The Second Battle of Kiev ended in Soviet victory.

Operation Crossbow:Major night-time British air raid, 50+ aircraft attack on Abbeville & Amiens, France. Numerous V-1 launch sites being prepared by the German LXV Army Corps were attacked. One site was destroyed but others could not be located

German Reich Fuhrer Adolf Hitler issued a "Führer Order" (Führerbefehl) creating the "National Socialist Leadership Officers", charged with disseminating propaganda for "getting soldiers to believe in final victory" in the war "even if they did not know how it was going to be achieved".

The German government ordered that all boys aged 16 and older would be required to register for military duty in January.

The Eastern Front: The Battle of the Dnieper ended in Soviet victory.

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 380+ aircraft attack on Berlin, Germany. Poor results because of misplaced markers

The Eastern Front: The Battle of the Dnieper ended in Soviet victory.

In a nationwide radio address on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, President Roosevelt announced that American General Dwight D. Eisenhower would command the Allied invasion of continental Europe during the coming year.

The Eastern Front: Soviet forces began the Dnieper–Carcheathian Offensive.

Allied bombardment of Berlin was temporarily halted after a week of raids by the Royal Air Force and the American Army Air Forces that had ended with a heavy attack on the morning of Christmas Eve that killed more than 2,000 people. At the same time, no German bombers flew over the United Kingdom

The Battle of the North Cape

The Battle of Cape Gloucester began between Japanese and Allied forces in New Britain.

President Roosevelt signed an order seizing the railroads of the United States in advance of a December 30 strike of rail workers, and at 7:00 pm Washington time, soldiers from the American Army began taking control of lines affected by the impending walkout. It was the first government control of the rails since December 26, 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson had acted during World War One. Control would end after an agreement between the unions and management on January 18.

The Battle of the Bay of Biscay, Operation Stonewall

One day after abolishing the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Soviet Union began the forced relocation of the roughly 100,000 people of the Kalmyk ethnic group to various locations in Siberia, after accusing members of the predominantly Buddhist minority of collaboration with the Germans during the war. Over four days, the Kalmyks of the former ASSR and from the Rostov oblast would be removed. Soviet authorities renamed the former republic's towns and villages.

Leo Pasvolsky of the American State Department finished the draft proposal for the basic organization of the United Nations Charter, which Secretary of State Cordell Hull presented to President Roosevelt. Under Pasvolsky's plan, a "General Assembly", with representatives from all nations, would vote on most matters; a four-member "Executive Council" (composed of the four Allied Powers, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and France) would vote on security matters, with the right of any one member to veto a decision; and a World Court would decide matters of international law. In the final version of the UN Charter, the Executive Council would be renamed the Security Council and would include China as a fifth member.

In his first acts as the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, General Eisenhower cabled an order to all of the Allied Commanders directing them to, as far as possible, avoid attacking the historic monuments of Italy. "Today we are fighting in a country which has contributed a great deal to our cultural inheritance," "We are bound to respect those monuments so far as war allows. If we have to choose between destroying a famous building and sacrificing our men, then our men's lives count infinitely more and the buildings must go. But the choice is not always so clear-cut as that. In many cases, the monuments can be spared without any detriment to operational needs."

Allied Bomber Offensive: Heavy night-time British air raid, 710+ aircraft attack on Berlin, Germany. Poor results due to cloud cover

The Eastern Front: Soviet forces recapture Korosten & Skvyra.

The Burma Campaign: Leader of the Indian National Army Subhas Chandra Bose declares a small portion of India independent in a flag-raising ceremony at Port Blair on the Japanese-occupied South Andaman Island, more than 200 miles from the mainland of British India at Burma, and 500 miles from the mainland of modern-day India. Japan's occupation of India was limited to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which President Bose renamed "Swaraj" and "Shahid", respectively.

The Eastern Front: Soviet forces recapture Korosten & Skvyra.

Operation Crossbow:Major night-time British air raid, 16+ aircraft attack on Abbeville & Amiens, France. Numerous V-1 launch sites being prepared by the German LXV Army Corps were attacked. The sites were undamaged

German Reich Fuhrer Adolf Hitler delivered a New Year's message to the German people admitting that 1943 "brought us our heaviest reverses," and that 1944 "will make heavy demands on all Germans. This vast war will approach a crisis this year. We have every confidence that we will survive." Hitler stated that it was no news that the English intended to carry out a landing somewhere, but assured the German people that defences had been prepared that would "surprise our enemies more than their landings would surprise us."

British Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee broadcast a New Year's Eve message of his own to the people of the United Kingdom. Attlee declared that the "hour of reckoning has come" for the Nazis but urged the British people not to be complacent, stating: "We do know that in 1944 the war will blaze up into greater intensity than ever before and that we must be prepared to face heavier casualties. Nineteen-forty-four may be the victory year; it will only be so if we continue to put forward our utmost efforts, and if we allow nothing to divert us from our main purpose."

The Eastern Front: Soviet forces recapture Zhytomyr.