Critic and commentator Alexander Woollcott suffers an eventually fatal heart attack during a regular broadcast of the CBS Radio roundtable program "People's Platform".
Februaryedit
February 3 – The legendary Four Chaplains of the U.S. Army are drowned when their ship (Dorchester) is struck by a German torpedo.
March 31 – Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! opens on Broadway, heralds a new era in "integrated" stage musicals, becomes an instantaneous stage classic, and goes on to be Broadway's longest-running musical up to that time (1948).
Apriledit
April 13 – The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birthday. The bronze statue is added in 1947.
May 31 – The Zoot Suit Riots erupt between military personnel and Mexican American youths in East Los Angeles.
Juneedit
June 3-10 The Zoot Suit Riots; The notorious riots lasted 10 days and carry the name of the targeted victims — young people dressed in wide trousers pegged at the ankle and long coats — but the violent rampage was led by sailors, soldiers and Marines.
WWII: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian airplanes 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.
September 5 – WWII: The 503rd Parachute Regiment under American General Douglas MacArthur lands and occupies Nadzab, just east of the port city of Lae in northeastern Papua New Guinea.
September 7 – A fire at the Gulf Hotel in Houston, Texas, kills 55 people.
November 14 – Leonard Bernstein, substituting at the last minute for ailing principal conductor Bruno Walter, directs the New York Philharmonic in its regular Sunday afternoon broadcast concert over CBS Radio. The event receives front-page coverage in The New York Times the following day.
^"UPI Almanac for Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019". United Press International. January 1, 2019. Archived from the original on September 2, 2019. Retrieved September 2, 2019. businessman Ron Perelman in 1943 (age 76)
^Elizabeth A. Brennan; Elizabeth C. Clarage (1999). Who's who of Pulitzer Prize Winners. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 323. ISBN 978-1-57356-111-2.
^Sharon Davis (1997). The Sixties. Mainstream. p. 184. ISBN 978-1-85158-836-7.
^Steve Hochman (1999). Popular Musicians. Salem Press. p. 263. ISBN 978-0-89356-987-7.
^Mayorquin, Orlando (October 27, 2023). "Richard Moll, Towering Bailiff on 'Night Court,' Dies at 80". The New York Times. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
^"Former NM Chief Justice Charles Daniels dies". Albuquerque Journal. 1 September 2019. Retrieved 2 September 2019.