1944

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Centuries:	19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades:	1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s
Years:	1941 1942 1943 - 1944 - 1945 1946 1947

1944 by topic:
Arts
Architecture - Art - Film - Literature Music (Country ) - Television
Science and technology
Archaeology - Aviation Meteorology - Rail transport - Science
By country
Australia - Canada - India Ireland - Malaysia - New Zealand - Singapore - South Africa - UK - Wales - Zimbabwe
Other topics
Awards - Sport - Law - State leaders - Sovereign states - Religious leaders
Birth and death categories
Births - Deaths
Establishments and disestablishments categories
Establishments - Disestablishments
Works category
Works v • d • e

1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday.

[edit] Events

(Below, events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.)

[edit] World War II

[edit] January

January 4 - WWII: The Battle of Monte Cassino begins.
January 5 - WWII: Murder of Danish playwright Kaj Munk.
January 14 - WWII: The Soviet troops start the offensive at Leningrad and Novgorod.
January 15 - WWII: The 27th Polish Home Army Infantry Division recreated, marking the start of Operation Tempest by the Polish Home Army.
January 15 - An earthquake hits San Juan, Argentina killing an estimated 10,000 people in the worst natural disaster in Argentina's history.
January 17 - WWII: British forces, in Italy, cross the Garigliano River.
January 17 - WWII: Meat Rationing ends in Australia.
January 20 - WWII: 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 Rapid River.
January 22 - WWII: 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 - WWII: The two year Siege of Leningrad is lifted.
January 29 - WWII: The Battle of Cisterna takes place.
January 30 - WWII: United States troops invade Majuro, Marshall Islands.
January 31 - WWII: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.

[edit] February

February 1 - WWII: United States troops land in the Marshall Islands.
February 3 - WWII: United States troops capture the Marshall Islands.
February 7 - WWII: In Anzio, Italian forces launch a counteroffensive.
February 14 - WWII: SHAEF headquarters established in Britain by General Eisenhower.
February 14 - WWII: Anti-Japanese revolt on Java.
February 15 - WWII: Battle of Monte Cassino - the monastery atop Monte Cassino is destroyed by Allied bombing.
February 17 - WWII: Battle of Eniwetok Atoll begins. The battle ended in an American victory on February 22.
February 20 - WWII: "Big Week" begins with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers.
February 20 - WWII: The United States takes Eniwetok Island.
February 29 - WWII: The Admiralty Islands are invaded by U.S. forces in the Battle of Los Negros and Operation Brewer.

[edit] March

March - WWII: The Japanese launch an offensive in central and south China.
March 1 - WWII: USS Tarawa and USS Kearsarge laid down.
March 1 - WWII: Anti-fascist strike in northern Italy.
March 2 - WWII: Train stalls inside a railway tunnel outside Salerno, Italy - 426 choke to death
March 3 - WWII: The Order of Nakhimov and the Order of Ushakov were instituted in USSR
March 9 - WWII: Soviet Army planes attack Tallinn, Estonia.
March 10 - WWII: In Britain the Education Act lifts the ban on women teachers marrying.
March 12 - WWII: The Creation of the politic Committee of national liberation in Greece.
March 15 - WWII: Battle of Monte Cassino - Allied aircraft bomb German-held monastery and stage an assault.
March 15 - WWII: The National Council of the French Resistance approves the Resistance programme.
March 17 - WWII: The hitlerists assassinate at Rîbniţa almost 400 prisoners, Soviet citizens and anti-fascist Romanians.
March 19 - WWII: German forces occupy Hungary.
March 18 - The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy kills 26 and causes thousands to flee their homes.
March 20 - WWII: RAF Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade's bomber is hit over Germany and he has to bail out without a parachute from the height of over 4000 meters. Tree branches interrupt his fall and he lands safely on deep snow
March 23 - WWII: members of the Italian Resistance attack Nazis marching in via Rasella. 33 Nazis are killed.
March 24 - WWII: the Fosse Ardeatine massacre in Rome, Italy. 335 Italians are killed, including 75 Jews and over 200 members of the Italian Resistance from various groups.

[edit] April

April 25 - WWII: The United Negro College Fund is incorporated.
April 28 - WWII: 749 American troops are killed in Exercise Tiger at Start Bay, Devon, England.

[edit] May

May 5 - WWII: Mohandas Gandhi released in India.
May 9 - WWII: In the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol, Soviet troops had completely driven out the German forces. The besieged German troops had been ordered by Hitler to “fight to the last Man.”^[1]
May 12 - WWII: Soviet troops finalize the liberation of Crimea.
May 18 - WWII: Battle of Monte Cassino - Germans evacuate Monte Cassino and Allied forces take the stronghold after a struggle that claimed 20,000 lives.
May 18 - WWII: Deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union government.

[edit] June

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

June 1 - WWII: The BBC transmits a coded message (the first line of a poem by Paul Verlaine) to underground resistance fighters in France warning that the invasion of Europe is imminent.
June 2 - WWII: The provisional French government is established.
June 4 - WWII: A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures 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 4 - WWII: American, English and French troops enter Rome.
June 5 - WWII: Rome falls to the Allies. It is the first capital of an Axis nation to fall.
June 5 - WWII: More than 1000 British bombers drop 5000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.
June 5 - WWII: At 10:15 p.m. local time, the BBC transmits the second line of the Paul Verlaine poem to the underground resistance indicating that the invasion of Europe is about to begin.
June 6 - WWII: 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. This operation was used to help liberate France from Germany. It also weakens Nazi Germany hold on Europe.
June 7 - WWII: Bayeux liberated by British troops.
June 9 - WWII: Stalin launches an offensive against Finland with the intent of defeating Finland before pushing for Berlin.
June 10 - WWII: 642 men, women and children are killed in the Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre in France.
June 13 - WWII: Germany launches a V1 Flying Bomb attack on England.
June 15 - WWII: Battle of Saipan: The United States invades Saipan.
June 17 - WWII: The proclamation and discovery of the Republic of Iceland.
June 22 - WWII: Operation Bagration: General attack by Soviet forces to clear the German forces from Belarus which resulted in the destruction of the German Army Group Centre, possibly the greatest defeat of the Wehrmacht during WWII.
June 22 - WWII: Burma Campaign: The Battle of Kohima ends in a British victory.
June 25 - WWII: The Battle of Tali-Ihantala between Finnish and Soviet troops begins. Largest battle ever to be fought in the Nordic countries.
June 26 - WWII: American troops enter Cherbourg.

[edit] July

July 3 - WWII: Soviet troops liberate Minsk.
July 3 - WWII: Battle of Imphal: Japanese forces call off their advance, ending the battle in a British victory.
July 6 - WWII: Hartford Circus Fire: More than 100 children died in one of the worst fire disasters in the history of the United States.
July 6 - WWII: At Camp Hood, Texas, future baseball star and 1st Lt. Jackie Robinson is arrested and later court-martialed for refusing to move to the back of a segregated U.S. Army bus. He is eventually acquitted.
July 9 - WWII: British and Canadian forces capture Caen.
July 10 - WWII: Soviet troops start the operations for occupying the Baltic countries.
July 13 - WWII: Liberation of Vilnius.
July 17 - WWII: The largest convoy of the war embarks from Halifax, Nova Scotia under Royal Canadian Navy protection.
July 17 - WWII: SS E.A.Bryan, loaded with ammunition, explodes in the Port Chicago naval base - 320 dead.
July 18 - WWII: Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.
July 20 - WWII: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt. See Claus von Stauffenberg
July 21 - WWII: Battle of Guam - American troops land on Guam starting the battle (ends on August 10).
July 21 - WWII: The creation of the Polish Committee for national liberation.
July 25 - WWII: Operation Spring - One of the bloodiest days for Canadians during the war: 18,444 casualties, including 5,021 killed.

[edit] August

Szare Szeregi Scouts also fought in the Warsaw Uprising.

August 1 - WWII: Warsaw Uprising begins.
August 2 - WWII: Turkey ends diplomatic and economic relations with Germany.
August 7 - WWII: IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I).
August 12 - WWII: Allies capture Florence, Italy.
August 12 - WWII: World's first undersea oil pipeline laid, between England and France in Operation Pluto
August 15 - WWII: Operation Dragoon lands Allies in southern France. U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division participates in its fourth assault landing at St. Maxime, spearheading the drive for the Belfort Gap.
August 19 - (August 25) - WWII: Victorious insurrection in Paris.
August 23 - WWII: Ion Antonescu, prime minister of Romania, is arrested and a new government is established. Romania exits the war against Soviet Union joining the Allies.
August 24 - WWII: Allies enter Paris.
August 25 - WWII: Hungary decides to continue the war together with Germany.

[edit] September

September 1 - WWII: In Bulgaria, the Bagrianov government resigns.
September 2 - WWII: Holocaust: Diarist Anne Frank and her family are placed on the last transport train from Westerbork to Auschwitz. They arrive three days later.
September 3 - WWII: Allies liberate Brussels.
September 4 - WWII: The British 11th Armored Division liberates the city of Antwerp in Belgium.
September 4 - WWII: Finland breaks off relations with Germany.
September 5 - WWII: The Soviets declare war on Bulgaria.
September 7 - WWII: The Belgian government returns from exile in Britain.
September 8 - WWII: London is hit by a V2 rocket for the first time.
September 8 - WWII: The French town of Menton is liberated from Germany.
September 9 - WWII: Insurrection in Sofia.
September 11 - WWII: Northern and Southern France invasion forces link up near Dijon.
September 17 - WWII: Operation Market Garden begins.
September 19 - WWII: Armistice between Finland and Soviet Union signed. (End of the Continuation War)
September 20 - WWII: Jüri Uluots, prime minister in capacity of president of Estonia, escapes to Sweden
September 24 - WWII: The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division takes the strongly defended city of Epinal before crossing the Moselle River and entering the western foothills of the Vosges.
September 26 - WWII: Operation Market Garden ends in an Allied withdrawal.

[edit] October

October 2 - WWII: Warsaw Uprising ends.
October 5 - WWII: Royal Canadian Air Force pilots shoot down the first German jet fighter over France.
October 6 - WWII: Battle of Debrecen starts on the Eastern Front (lasts until October 29)
October 9 - WWII: 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 - WWII: The Allies land at Athens.
October 13 - WWII: Riga, the capital of Latvia is taken over by the Red Army.
October 14 - WWII: German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel committed suicide rather than face execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler.
October 18 - WWII: Volkssturm founded on Hitler's orders.
October 20 - WWII: Belgrade is liberated by Yugoslav Partisans and the Red Army.
October 20 - WWII: LNG explosion destroys a square mile (2.6 km²) of Cleveland, Ohio.
October 21 - WWII: Aachen is the first German city to fall.
October 23 - WWII: Naval Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines begins (lasts until October 26).
October 25 - Florence Foster Jenkins recital in the Carnegie Hall
October 25 - WWII: Red Army liberates Kirkenes, the first town in Norway to be liberated from German occupation.
October 31 - Mass murderer Marcel Petiot is apprehended in Paris metro station

[edit] November

November 3 - WWII: Two supreme commanders of the Slovak National Uprising, Generals Ján Golian and Rudolf Viest are captured, tortured and later executed by German forces.
November 7 - WWII: 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 7 - Passenger train derails in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico due to excessive speed in a declining hill. 16 killed; 50 injured.

[edit] December

December 1 - WWII: Edward Stettinius Jr. becomes the last United States Secretary of State of the Roosevelt administration, by filling the seat left by Cordell Hull.
December 3 - WWII: Civil war breaks out in a newly-liberated Greece, between Communists and royalists.
December 12 and 13 - WWII: British units attempt to take the hilltop town of Tossignano; they are repulsed.
December 16 - WWII: Germany begins the Ardennes offensive, later to become known as Battle of the Bulge.
December 16 - WWII: General George C. Marshall becomes the first Five-Star General.
December 17 - WWII: German troops carry out the Malmedy massacre.
December 22 - WWII: Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe, commander of the U.S. forces defending Bastogne, refuses to accept demands for surrender by sending a one-word reply, "Nuts!", to the German command.
December 24 - WWII: The Bulge reaches its deepest point at Celles.
December 26 - WWII: American troops repulse German forces at Bastogne.
December 30 - WWII: King George II of Greece declares a regency, leaving his throne vacant.
December 31 - WWII: Hungary declares war on Germany.

[edit] Other events

[edit] January-July

January 5 - The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper.
January 15 - Earthquake in San Juan, Argentina, kills 8000-10000 people.
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.
March 24 - In the Polish village of Markowa, German police kill Józef and Wiktoria Ulm, their six children and eight Jewish people they were hiding.
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 1 - Start of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.
July 6 - A fire broke out during a performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus in Hartford, Connecticut, resulting in the deaths of 168 people, most of them children. See Hartford Circus Fire
July 22 - End of Bretton Woods conference and signing of Agreements.

[edit] 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 22 - William Lyon Mackenzie King introduces conscription in Canada (see Conscription Crisis of 1944).

[edit] December

December 26 - The play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams was first publicly performed.

[edit] 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
Hans Asperger publishes his paper on Asperger's Syndrome
The Mad Gasser of Mattoon carries out a series of mysterious attacks in Mattoon, Illinois.
National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence established.
Canadian Arctic explorer Henry Larsen becomes the first person to successfully navigate the Northwest Passage in a schooner. He would chronicle the event in his autobiography, entitled “The Big Ship” (ASIN B000ETAS4K).^[2]

[edit] Ongoing events

Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
Second World War (1939-1945)

[edit] Births

**1944 in other calendars**
Gregorian calendar	1944 MCMXLIV
Ab urbe condita	2697
Armenian calendar	1393 ԹՎ ՌՅՂԳ
Bahá'í calendar	100 – 101
Buddhist calendar	2488
Chinese calendar	4580/4640-12-6 (癸未年十二月初六日) — to — 4581/4641-11-17 (甲申年十一月十七日)
Ethiopian calendar	1936 – 1937
Hebrew calendar	5704 – 5705
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1999 – 2000
- Shaka Samvat	1866 – 1867
- Kali Yuga	5045 – 5046
Holocene calendar	11944
Iranian calendar	1322 – 1323
Islamic calendar	1363 – 1364
Japanese calendar	Shōwa 19 (昭和19年)
- Imperial Year	Kōki 2604 (皇紀2604年)
- Jōmon Era	11944
Julian calendar	1989
Korean calendar	4277
Thai solar calendar	2487
v • d • e

For more 1944 births see Category:1944 births

[edit] January-February

January 1 - Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir President of the Sudan
January 2 - Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Cambodian politician
January 6
- Bonnie Franklin, American actress
- Rolf M. Zinkernagel, Swiss immunologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
January 9 - Jimmy Page, English guitarist (Led Zeppelin)
January 12 - Joe Frazier, American boxer
January 17 - Françoise Hardy, French singer
January 18 - Paul Keating, twenty-fourth Prime Minister of Australia
January 19 - Shelley Fabares, American actress and singer
January 23 - Rutger Hauer, Dutch actor
January 25 - Anita Pallenberg, Italian model and actress
January 26 - Angela Davis, American feminist and activist
January 27
- Mairead Corrigan, Northern Irish activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- Nick Mason, English drummer (Pink Floyd)
January 28 - Susan Howard, American actress

February 3 - Dave Davies, British musician (The Kinks)
February 5 - Al Kooper, American musician (Blood, Sweat, and Tears)
February 9 - Alice Walker, American writer
February 10 - Vernor Vinge, American writer
February 11 - Michael G. Oxley, American politician
February 12 - Moe Bandy, country music singer
February 13
- Stockard Channing, American actress
- Jerry Springer, English-born television host
February 14
- Carl Bernstein, American journalist
- Alan Parker, English-born film director, actor, and writer
February 16 - Richard Ford, American writer
February 17 - Karl Jenkins, Welsh composer
February 20 - Willem van Hanegem, Dutch football player and coach
February 22
- Jonathan Demme, American film director, producer, and writer
- Tom Okker, Dutch tennis player
February 23 - Johnny Winter, American musician
February 24 - Nicky Hopkins, British musician (d. 1994)
February 27 - Ken Grimwood, American writer (d. 2003)
February 28 - Sepp Maier, German footballer