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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 art 1944 in aviation 1944 in film 1944 in literature 1944 in music 1944 in radio 1944 in science 1944 in sports 1944 in television 1944 state leaders 1944 in Canada

Events

World War II

January

January 4 - The Battle of Monte Cassino begins.
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

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

March 1 - USS Tarawa and USS Kearsarge laid down
March 15 - Battle of Monte Cassino - Allied aircraft bomb German-held monastery and stage an assault.
March 18 - German forces occupy Hungary.
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.
March 24 - Tragedy in village Markowa.

April

May

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 4 - 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 25 - The Battle of Tali-Ihantala between Finnish and Soviet troops begins. Largest battle ever to be fought in the Nordic countries.

July

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

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 20 - Belgrade is liberated by Yugoslav Partisans and the Red Army.
October 23 - Naval Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines begins (lasts until October 26).

November

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

December 16 - Germany begins 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 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 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 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.

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.