Major Events
- Jan 27 Siege of Leningrad lifted by the Soviets after 880 days and more than 2 million Russians killed
- Feb 20 Battle of Eniwetok: US forces take Enewetak Atoll at the cost of 37 Americans killed or missing and 94 wounded, Japanese losses were 800 dead and 23 prisoners
- May 16 1st of 180,000+ Hungarian Jews reach Auschwitz
- Jun 6 Operation Overlord: D-Day begins as the 156,000-strong Allied Expeditionary Force lands in Normandy, France, during World War II
- Jun 19 World War II: First day of the 2 day Battle of the Philippine Sea, US naval forces defeat Japanese fleet
- Jul 11 Franklin Roosevelt announces that he will run for a fourth term as President of the United States
- Jul 23 Conference of Bretton Woods signed; IMF operations begin
- Jul 25 World War II: Operation Spring - one of Canada's bloodiest days, 18,444 casualties and 5,021 killed
- Aug 4 Anne Frank arrested in Amsterdam by German Security Police (Grüne Polizei) following a tip-off from an informer who was never identified
- Aug 25 German commander Dietrich von Choltitz surrenders Paris to the Free French forces of Philippe Leclerc, disobeying Adolf Hitler's orders to destroy the city. President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic Charles de Gaulle gives a famous speech at the Hôtel de Ville.
- Sep 3 Holocaust diarist Anne Frank sent to Auschwitz concentration camp [1]
- Oct 2 Polish resistance fighters capitulate in the Warsaw Uprising, with some 250,000 people killed
- Oct 13 US 1st army begins battle of Aachen, first German city captured during World War II
- Oct 20 US forces under General Douglas MacArthur return to the Philippines with the landing of the US 6th army on Leyte
- Oct 21 World War II: US troops capture Aachen, 1st large German city to fall
- Dec 16 Nazi Germany launches a counteroffensive against the Allies in the Ardennes region of Belgium, beginning the 'Battle of the Bulge'
- More 1944 Events
1944 in Film & TV
- May 3 "Going My Way", directed by Leo McCarey and starring Bing Crosby premieres in New York (Academy Award for Best Picture, 1945)
- Dec 28 Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolf Green's musical "On the Town", with choreography by Jerome Robbins, opens at the Adelphi Theater, NYC; runs for 462 performances
1944 in Music
- Oct 30 Aaron Copland's ballet score "Appalachian Spring" premieres in Washington, D.C. with Martha Graham dancing lead role
Alice Walker
Carl Bernstein
Sirhan Sirhan
Robert Hanssen
Ernő Rubik
Chico Mendes
Jerry Springer
Pattie Boyd
Diana Ross
George Lucas
Michael Douglas
Danny DeVito
Jimmy Page
Joe Cocker
Ray Davies
Jeff Beck
Joe Frazier
Denny McLain
Tommie Smith
Ard Schenk
Tom Seaver
Steve CarltonMore People Born in 1944
Fun Fact About 1944
RAF rear gunner Nicholas Alkemade survives a jump from his Lancaster bomber 18,000 feet over Germany without a parachute; his fall broken by pine trees and soft snow, suffers only a sprained leg
Edvard Munch
Leo Baekeland
Manuel L. Quezon
Günther von Kluge
Erwin Rommel
Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Glenn Miller
Amy BeachMore 1944 Deaths
Articles About 1944
Battle of Eniwetok
US landing craft pass supporting warships on their way to Eniwetok AtollFebruary 19
D-Day Fake News Fools Hitler
The D-Day Allied invasion of France triggered the end of the Second World War. But it could not have worked without a massive subterfuge operation in England.June 6
D-Day
Into the Jaws of Death by Robert F. SargentJune 6
George Stinney is Executed
The mug shot of 14-year-old African American boy George Stinney who was the youngest American to be executedJune 16
Liberation of Paris
Crowds line the Champs Elysees to view the Free French forces of General Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division pass through the Arc de TriompheAugust 26
Famous Weddings in 1944
- Jan 26 Actor Ralph Richardson (41) weds actress Meriel Forbes (30)
- Mar 17 American actor Charlton Heston (20) weds American actress and photographer Lydia Clarke (20)
- May 4 Baseball player Ted Williams marries Doris Soule (divorced 1954)
More Weddings in 1944
Bing Crosby
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Ingrid Bergman
Adolf Hitler
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Joseph Stalin
Winston Churchill