1944

Years:
1941 1942 1943 – 1944 – 1945 1946 1947

Decades:
1910s 1920s 1930s – 1940s – 1950s 1960s 1970s

Centuries:
19th century – 20th century – 21st century

1944 in topic:
Arts
Architecture - Art - Film - Literature - Music - Television
Science and technology
Aviation - Rail transport - Science
Other topics
Canada – Ireland – South Africa – Sport

Lists of leaders:
State leaders - Religious leaders

1944 was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar).

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 U.S. Army 36th Infantry Division, in Italy, attempts to cross the Rapido River.
January 22 – Allies begin Operation Shingle, the assault on Anzio, Italy. The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division stand their ground at Anzio against violent assaults for 4 months.
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

Allied troops land on the beaches of Normandy during D-Day

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. U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division participate in its fourth assault landing at St. Maxime, spearheading the drive for the Belfort Gap.
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 24 – The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division take the strongly defended city of Epinal before crossing the Moselle River and entering the western foothills of the Vosges.
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 12 – The Allies land at Athens.
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 Fuehrer 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.
April 25 – The United Negro College Fund is incorporated.
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
Hans Asperger publishes his paper on Asperger's Syndrome
The Mad Gasser of Mattoon carries out a series of mysterious attacks in Mattoon, Illinois.

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

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-October

June 3 – Edith McGuire, American sprinter
June 5 – Tommie Smith, American athlete
June 24 – Jeff Beck, British musician
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 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 1 – Leonard Slatkin, American conductor
September 2 – Al Matthews, American actor (d. 2002)
September 7 – Bora Milutinovic, Serbian football coach
September 12 – Leonard Peltier, later United States Peace and Freedom Party Presidential candidate
September 25 – Michael Douglas, American actor
September 26 – Anne Robinson, British television host
October 9 – John Entwistle, bassist, The Who (d. 2002)
- Peter Tosh, Reggae singer, musician (d. 1987)
October 15 – David Trimble, Ulster Unionist and Nobel Prize winner
October 28 – Dennis Franz, actor

November-December

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 7 – Daniel Chorzempa, organist
December 17 – Jack L. Chalker science fiction novelist (d. 2005)
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 1 – Charles Turner, Australian cricketer (b. 1862)
January 11 – Edgard Potier, Belgian spy (b. 1903)
January 20 – James McKeen Cattell, American psychologist
January 31 – Jean Giraudoux, French writer (b. 1882)
January 31 – William Allen White, journalist (b. 1868)
February 1 – Piet Mondriaan, Dutch painter
February 4 – Yvette Guilbert, French singer and actress (b. 1867)
February 11 – Carl Meinhof, German linguist
February 11 – Ivan Sollertinsky, friend of Dmitri Shostakovich
February 21 – Ferenc Szisz, Hungarian-born French race car driver (b. 1873)
February 23 – Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter (b. 1863)
March 5 – Max Jacob, French poet (b. 1876)
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 (executed)
April 17 – J.T. Hearne English cricketer (b. 1867)
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 1 – Tanya Savicheva, young Russian girl
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-December

September 6 – Gustave Biéler, heroic SOE agent (executed)
September 8 ? Lela Carayannis, Greek resistance fighter during World War II (executed)
September 9 – Robert Benoist, Grand Prix driver/war hero (executed)
September 11 – Madeleine Damerment, WW II heroine (executed)
September 11 – Eliane Plewman, WW II heroine (executed)
September 11 – Noor Inayat Khan, WW II heroine (executed)
September 11 – Yolande Beekman, WW II heroine (executed)
September 13 – Heath Robinson, British cartoonist and illustrator
September 14 – John Kenneth Macalister, SOE agent (executed)
September 14 – Frank Pickersgill, SOE agent (executed)
September 14 – Roméo Sabourin, SOE agent (executed)
October 14 – Erwin Rommel, German Feldmarschall (b. 1891)
October 21 – Alois Kayser, German missionary in Nauru
November 2 – Thomas Midgley, chemist and inventor
November 7 – Hannah Szenes, WW II heroine (executed)
December 2 – Josef Lhévinne, pianist
December 4 – Roger Bresnahan, baseball Hall of Famer
December 30 – Romain Rolland, French writer
William Temple, Archbishop of Canberbury (b. 1881)

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.

Categories: 1944

1944

Table of contents

Events

World War II

January

February-March

May

June

July-August

September

October

November-December

Other events

January-July

August-November

December

Unknown dates

Ongoing events

Year in topic

Births

January

February

March-April

May

June-October

November-December

Deaths

January-May

July-August

September-December

Nobel Prizes