1944 - Definition and Overview

Events

World War II

January

• January 4 - The Battle of Monte Cassino begins.
• January 5 - Murder of Danish playwright Kaj Munk
• January 17 - British forces, in Italy, cross the Garigliano River.
• January 20 - The Royal Air Force drops 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin; the US 36th Infantry Division, in Italy, attempts to cross the Rapido River.
• January 22 - Allies begin Operation Shingle, the assault on Anzio, Italy.
• January 27 - The two year Siege of Leningrad is lifted.
• January 29 - The Battle of Cisterna takes place.
• January 30 - United States troops invade Majuro, Marshall Islands.
• January 31 - American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.

February-March

• February 3 - United States troops capture the Marshall Islands.
• February 7 - In Anzio, Italian forces launch a counteroffensive.
• February 14 - Anti-Japanese revolt on Java.
• February 15 - Battle of Monte Cassino - the monastery atop Monte Cassino is destroyed by Allied bombing.
• February 17 - Battle of Eniwetok Atoll begins. The battle ended in an American victory on February 22.
• February 20 - "Big Week" begins with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers.
• February 20 - The United States takes Eniwetok Island.
• February 29 - The Admiralty Islands are invaded in the American General Douglas MacArthur-led Operation Brewer.
• March 1 - USS Tarawa and USS Kearsarge laid down
• March 10 - In Britain the Education Act lifts the ban on women teachers marrying
• March 15 - Battle of Monte Cassino - Allied aircraft bomb German-held monastery and stage an assault.
• March 18 - German forces occupy Hungary.
• March 24 - Tragedy in village Markowa.

May

• May 5 - Mohandas Gandhi released in India
• May 17 - Type IX U-boat: U-884 is launched.
• May 18 - Battle of Monte Cassino - Germans evacuate Monte Cassino and Allied forces take the stronghold after a struggle that claimed 20,000 lives.
• May 18 - Deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union government.

June

• June 4 - A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy capture the German submarine U-505, marking the first time a U.S. Navy vessel had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century.
• June 5 - Rome falls to the Allies. It is the first capital of an Axis nation to fall.
• June 5 - More than 1000 British bombers drop 5000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.
• June 6 - Battle of Normandy begins - Operation Overlord, code named D-Day, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.
• June 9 - Stalin launches an offensive against Finland with the intent of defeating Finland before pushing for Berlin.
• June 10 - 642 men, women and children are killed in the Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre in France.
• June 13 - Germany launches a V1 Flying Bomb attack on England.
• June 15 - Battle of Saipan: The United States invades Saipan.
• June 22 - Operation Bagration: General attack by Soviet forces to clear the German forces from Belorussia which resulted in the destruction of the German Army Group Centre, possibly the greatest defeat of the Wehrmacht during the war.
• June 25 - The Battle of Tali-Ihantala between Finnish and Soviet troops begins. Largest battle ever to be fought in the Nordic countries.

July-August

• July 9 - British and Canadian forces capture Caen.
• July 17 - The largest convoy of the war embarks from Halifax, Nova Scotia under Royal Canadian Navy protection.
• July 18 - Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.
• July 20 - Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt. See Claus von Stauffenberg
• July 21 - Battle of Guam - American troops land on Guam starting the battle (ends on August 10).
• July 25 - Operation Spring - One of the bloodiest days for Canadians during the war: 18,444 casualties, including 5,021 killed.
• August 1 - Warsaw Uprising begins.
• August 12 - Allies capture Florence, Italy.
• August 12 - World's first undersea oil pipeline laid, between England and France in Operation Pluto
• August 15 - Operation Dragoon lands Allies in southern France.
• August 24 - Allies enter Paris.

September

• September 2 - Allies liberate Brussels.
• September 4 - The British 11th Armored Division liberate the city of Antwerp in Belgium.
• September 8 - London is hit by a V2 rocket for the first time.
• September 8 - The French town of Menton is liberated from Germany.
• September 11 - Northern and southern France invasion forces link up near Dijon.
• September 17 - Operation Market Garden begins.
• September 19 - Armistice between Finland and Soviet Union signed. (End of the Continuation War)
• September 26 - Operation Market Garden ends in a withdrawal.

October

• October 2 - Warsaw Uprising ends.
• October 5 - Canadian Air Force pilots shoot down the first German jet fighter over France.
• October 9 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin begin a nine-day conference in Moscow to discuss the future of Europe.
• October 14 - Given the choice between a public treason trial and a certain death by firing squad or suicide with honor, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel chooses the latter.
• October 18 - Volkssturm founded on Hitler?s orders.
• October 20 - Belgrade is liberated by Yugoslav Partisans and the Red Army.
• October 20 - LNG explosion destroys a square mile (2.6 km²) of Cleveland, Ohio
• October 23 - Naval Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines begins (lasts until October 26).
• October 25 - Florence Foster Jenkins recital in the Carnegie Hall
• Aachen is the first German city to fall.

November-December

• November 12 - The Royal Air Force launches one of the most successful precision bombing attacks of the war and sinks the German battleship Tirpitz off the coast of Norway.
• November 19 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the 6th War Loan Drive, aimed at selling US$14 billion in war bonds to help pay for the war effort.
• November 24 - Bombing of Tokyo - The first bombing raid against the Japanese capital of Tokyo from the east and by land was made by 88 American aircraft.
• November 25 - A German V-2 rocket hits a Woolworth's store in Deptford, killing 160 shoppers.
• November 26 - Gas chambers at Auschwitz and Stutthof are destroyed.
• December 16 - Germany begins the Ardennes offensive, later to become known as Battle of the Bulge.
• December 16 - General George C. Marshall becomes the first Five-Star General
• December 17 - German troops carry out the Malmédy massacre.
• December 24 - The Bulge reaches its deepest point at Celles.
• December 26 - American troops repulse German forces at Bastogne.
• November 29 - Albania is liberated from German occupation.
• December 31 - Hungary declares war on Germany

Other events

January-July

• January 5 - The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper.
• February 26 - - Shooting begins of the Nazi propaganda film, "The Fuhrer Gives a Village to the Jews" in Theresienstadt.
• March 1 - USS Tarawa laid down
• March 4 - In Ossining, New York, Louis Buchalter, the leader of 1930s crime syndicate Murder, Inc., is executed at Sing Sing.
• May 30 - Princess Charlotte Louise Juliette Louvet Grimaldi of Monaco, heir to the throne resigns from her rights in favor of her son Prince Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand Grimaldi, later reigning Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
• June 17 - Iceland declares full independence from Denmark.
• July 17 - Port Chicago disaster: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California killing 232.

August-November

• August 4 - Holocaust: A tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse where they find Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family.
• August 5 - Holocaust: Polish insurgents liberate a German labor camp in Warsaw, freeing 348 Jewish prisoners.
• August 7 - IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I).
• August 9 - The United States Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council release posters featuring Smokey the Bear for the first time.
• September 2 - Holocaust: Diarist Anne Frank and her family are placed on the last transport train from Westerbork to Auschwitz. They arrive three days later.
• October 2 - Holocaust: Nazi troops end the Warsaw Uprising.
• October 8 - The radio show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet debuts.
• October 10 - Holocaust: 800 Gypsy children are systematically murdered at Auschwitz death camp
• November 7 - U.S. presidential election, 1944: Franklin D. Roosevelt wins reelection over Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey to become the only U.S. president to be elected to a fourth term.
• November 22 - William Lyon Mackenzie King introduces conscription in Canada (see Conscription Crisis of 1944).

December

• December 3 - Civil war breaks out in a newly-liberated Greece, between Communists and royalists.
• December 1 - Edward Stettinius Jr. becomes becomes the last United States Secretary of State of the Roosevelt administration, by filling the seat left by the Cordell Hull.
• December 26 - The play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams was first publicly performed.
• December 30 - King George II of Greece declares a regency, leaving his throne vacant.

Unknown dates

• In Sweden, the law of 1864 that criminalizes homosexuality is abolished.
• Swedish author of children's books Astrid Lindgren publishes her first book Pippi Longstocking.
• In Sweden, Erik Wallenberg and Ruben Rausing invent a way to package milk in paper and start the company Tetra Pak.
• Barbados General election - Grantley Adams, black lawyer, first majority party leader in the House of Assembly, as leader of Barbados Labour Party
• Bretton Woods Agreement

Ongoing events

• Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)

Year in topic

• 1944 in film
  • Going My Way
  • Double Indemnity
• 1944 in literature
  • An American Dilemma by Gunnar Myrdal
  • Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
• 1944 in music
  • January 18 - The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City for the first time hosts a jazz concert; the performers are Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge and Jack Teagarden.
• 1944 in rail transport
• 1944 in sports
• 1944 in television
  • May 22 - The FCC increases its limits for single ownership of television stations from three to five.
• 1944 in science

Births

For more 1944 births see Category:1944 births

January

• January 6 - Bonnie Franklin, actress
• January 9 - Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin guitarist
• January 12 - Joe Frazier, boxing champion
• January 18 - Paul Keating, twenty-fourth Prime Minister of Australia
• January 23 - Rutger Hauer, actor
• January 24 - Neil Diamond, singer
• January 26 - Angela Davis, feminist and activist
• January 27 - Nick Mason, drummer for Pink Floyd

February

• February 3 - Dave Davies, musician
• February 5 - Al Kooper, musician
• February 5 - Michael Mann, director, writer, producer
• February 9 - Alice Walker, writer
• February 10 - Vernor Vinge (science fiction novelist)
• February 11 - Michael G. Oxley, American politician
• February 13 - Jerry Springer, television host
• February 14 - Carl Bernstein, journalist
• February 14 - Alan Parker, director, writer
• February 16 - Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist
• February 22 - Jonathan Demme, director
• February 23 - Johnny Winter, musician

March

• March 1 - Roger Daltrey, musician (The Who)
• March 1 - John Breaux, United States Senator from Louisiana
• March 2 - Uschi Glas, actress
• March 6 - Kiri Te Kanawa, opera singer
• March 15 - Sly Stone, singer
• March 17 - John Sebastian, singer-songwriter, also a member of the Lovin' Spoonful
• March 19 - Said Musa, Prime Minister of Belize
• March 19 - Sirhan Sirhan, assassin
• March 24 - R. Lee Ermey, actor and retired USMC gunnery sergeant
• March 26 - Diana Ross, singer
• March 28 - Rick Barry, basketball star
• March 29 - Denny McLain, baseball pitcher

April

• April 3 - Tony Orlando, musician
• April 4 - Craig T. Nelson, actor
• April 6 - Felicity Palmer, English soprano
• April 7 - Gerhard Schröder, German Bundeskanzler (chancellor) since 1998
• April 11 - John Milius, director, producer, and screenwriter
• April 30 - Jill Clayburgh, actress

May

• May 1 - Suresh Kalmadi, politician
• May 5 - John Rhys-Davies, actor
• May 8 - Gary Glitter, singer
• May 9 - Richie Furay, musician ("Poco", "Buffalo Springfield")
• May 10 - Jim Abrahams, director
• May 13 - Armistead Maupin, author
• May 14 - George Lucas, film director and producer
• May 18 - Justus Frantz, pianist
• May 20 - Joe Cocker, British singer
• May 20 - Boudewijn de Groot, Dutch singer
• May 20 - Dietrich Mateschitz, Austrian businessman and founder of Red Bull
• May 21 - Mary Robinson, first female President of Ireland
• May 25 - Frank Oz, puppeteer, director
• May 28 - Rudy Giuliani, mayor of New York City, 1993-2001
• May 28 - Gladys Knight singer

June

• June 3 - Edith McGuire, American sprinter
• June 5 - Tommie Smith, American athlete
• June 30 - Raymond Moody, parapsychologist
• July 13 - Ernő Rubik, inventor of Rubik's Cube
• July 21 - Tony Scott, film director
• July 21 - Paul Wellstone, U.S. Senator: a Democrat from Minnesota (d. 2002)

August

• August 4 - Richard Belzer, actor, comedian
• August 11 - Ian McDiarmid, actor
• August 21 - Peter Weir, film director
• August 26- His Royal Highness Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester

September

• September 1 - Leonard Slatkin, American conductor
• September 2 - Al Matthews, American actor (d. 2002)
• September 12 - Leonard Peltier, later United States Peace and Freedom Party Presidential candidate
• September 26 - Anne Robinson, British television host

October

• October 9 - John Entwistle, bassist, The Who (d. 2002)
• October 15 - David Trimble, Ulster Unionist and Nobel Prize winner
• October 28 - Dennis Franz, actor

November

• November 10 - Silvestre Reyes, American politician
• November 12 - Booker T. Jones, musician, singer, songwriter ("Booker T. and the M.G.'s")
• November 12 - Al Michaels, sportscaster
• November 17 - Danny DeVito, actor
• November 17 - Rem Koolhaas, Dutch architect
• November 17 - Lorne Michaels, producer
• November 17 - Tom Seaver, Baseball Hall of Fame player
• November 25 - Ben Stein, law professor, actor, and author.

December

• December 7 - Daniel Chorzempa, organist
• December 17 - Jack L. Chalker science fiction novelist
• December 21 - Michael Tilson Thomas, American conductor
• December 22 - Steve Carlton, Baseball Hall of Famer
• December 23 - Wesley Clark, US General and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander
• December 25 - Jairzinho, football player

Deaths

For more 1944 deaths see Category:1944 deaths

January-May

• January 11 - Edgard Potier, Belgian MI9 agent - Head of Possum Escape Line (b. 1903)
• January 20 - James McKeen Cattell, first professor of psychology in U.S.
• January 23 - Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter
• January 31 - William Allen White, journalist (b. 1868)
• February 1 - Piet Mondriaan, Dutch painter
• February 11 - Carl Meinhof, German linguist
• February 11 - Ivan Sollertinski, friend of Dmitri Shostakovich
• March 12 - Werner Drechsler, of U-118
• March 22 - Pierre Brossolette, journalist, French Resistance fighter
• March 24 - Orde Wingate, British soldier
• April 9 - Evgeniya Rudneva, Soviet World War II heroine, killed by Nazis
• April 19 - Thomas Hitchcock Jr, polo player
• April 28 - Paul Poiret, French couturier
• May 12 - Max Brand, author
• May 12 - Q, British writer
• May 16 - George Ade, author

July-August

• July 6 - Andrée Borrel, SOE agent, WW II heroine executed by the Nazis
• July 6 - Vera Leigh, SOE agent, WW II heroine executed by the Nazis
• July 6 - Sonia Olschanezky, SOE recruit, WW II heroine executed by the Nazis
• July 6 - Diana Rowden, SOE agent, WW II heroine executed by the Nazis
• July 26 - Reza Pahlavi, deposed Shah of Iran
• July 31 - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French pilot and writer
• August 8 - Chaim Soutine, painter
• August 12 - Suzanne Spaak, Belgian heroine of WW II, executed by the Nazis
• August 23 - Abdul Mejid II, Deposed Caliph of the Ottoman Empire
• August 26 - Adam von Trott zu Solz, lawyer, diplomat executed by the Nazis
• August 27 - Princess Mafalda Maria Elisabetta of Savoy, executed by the Nazis

September-November

• September 6 - Gustave Biéler, heroic SOE agent, executed by the Nazis
• September 8 ? Lela Carayannis, who led Greece?s largest anti-fascist resistance movement during World War II, executed by the Nazis
• September 9 - Robert Benoist, Grand Prix driver/war hero, executed by the Nazis
• September 11 - Madeleine Damerment, WW II heroine, executed by the Nazis
• September 11 - Eliane Plewman, WW II heroine, executed by the Nazis
• September 11 - Noor Inayat Khan, WW II heroine, executed by the Nazis
• September 11 - Yolande Beekman, WW II heroine, executed by the Nazis
• September 13 - Heath Robinson, British cartoonist and illustrator
• September 14 - John Kenneth Macalister, SOE agent, executed by the Nazis
• September 14 - Frank Pickersgill, SOE agent, executed by the Nazis
• September 14 - Roméo Sabourin, SOE agent, executed by the Nazis
• October 14 - Erwin Rommel, German Feldmarschall (b. 1891)
• October 21 - Alois Kayser, German missionary, working in Nauru
• November 2 - Thomas Midgley, chemist and inventor
• November 7 - Hannah Szenes, WW II heroine, executed

December

• December 2 - Josef Lhévinne, pianist
• December 4 - Roger Bresnahan, baseball Hall of Famer

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Isidor Isaac Rabi
• Chemistry - Otto Hahn
• Medicine - Joseph Erlanger, Herbert Spencer Gasser
• Literature - Johannes Vilhelm Jensen
• Peace - International Committee of the Red Cross.