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January[]
January 20 – The U.S. Army 36th Infantry Division, in Italy, attempts to cross the Gari River.
January 22 – World War II – Battle of Anzio: the Allies begin the assault on Anzio, Italy. The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division stands their ground at Anzio against violent assaults for 4 months.
January 30 – World War II: United States troops invade Majuro, Marshall Islands.
January 31 –
World War II: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.
USS Franklin is commissioned.
February[]
February 1 – World War II: United States troops land in the Marshall Islands.
February 3 – World War II: United States troops capture the Marshall Islands.
February 14 – SHAEF headquarters is established in Britain by General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
February 17 – World War II: the Battle of Eniwetok Atoll begins; it ends in an American victory on February 22.
February 20 – The United States takes Eniwetok Island.
February 22 – United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe organized from the Eighth Air Force's strategic planning staff; subsuming strategic planning for all US Army Air Forces in Europe and Africa.
February 29 – World War II – Battle of Los Negros and Operation Brewer: the Admiralty Islands are invaded by U.S. forces.
March[]
March 1 – Essex-class aircraft carriersUSS Tarawa(CV-40) and USS Kearsarge(CV-33) are laid down, at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and Brooklyn Navy Yard respectively.
March 2 – The 16th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Jack Benny, is held, the first Oscar ceremony held at a large public venue, Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Michael Curtiz's Casablanca wins the Outstanding Motion Picture, with Curtiz winning Best Director. Henry King's The Song of Bernadette receives the most nominations with 12 and wins the most awards with four.
March 4 – In Ossining, New York, Louis Buchalter, the leader of 1930s crime syndicate Murder, Inc., is executed at Sing Sing prison, along with Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss and Louis Capone.
April[]
April 3 – Smith v. Allwright decided in the Supreme Court prohibits white primaries.
April 25 – The United Negro College Fund is incorporated.
April 28 – World War II: 749 American troops are killed in Exercise Tiger at Start Bay, Devon, England.
May[]
May 8 – World War II: USS Ticonderoga is commissioned.
May 24 – World War II: Six LSTs are accidentally destroyed and 163 men killed in Pearl Harbor's West Loch disaster.
May 31 – World War II: Destroyer escort USS England sinks the sixth Japanese submarine in two weeks. This anti-submarine warfare performance remains unmatched through the twentieth century.
June[]
June 6: Normandy Landings
June 4 – A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures the German submarine U-505, marking the first time a U.S. Navy vessel has captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century.
June 5 – US and British paratrooper divisions jump over Normandy, in preparation for D-Day. All including 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions of the United States.
June 6 – World War II – Battle of Normandy: Operation Overlord, commonly known as 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 helps liberate France from Germany and also weakens the Nazi hold on Europe.
June 15
Battle of Saipan: the United States invades Saipan.
American forces push back the Germans in Saint-Lô, capturing the city.
June 16 - George Stinney, a 14-year old African-American, is executed for being accused of killing two white girls in his hometown, Alcolu, South Carolina. The execution took place in South Carolina Penitentiary in Columbia, South Carolina by electric chair.
June 26 – World War II: American troops enter Cherbourg.
July[]
July 1 – The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference begins at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.
July 6
Hartford Circus Fire: More than 100 children die in one of the worst fire disasters in the history of the United States.
World War II: 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 17 – Port Chicago disaster: The SS E. A. Bryan, loaded with ammunition, explodes at the Port Chicago, California, Naval Magazine, killing 320 sailors and civilian personnel.
July 19 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt is renominated for a fourth term at the 1944 Democratic National Convention. Missouri Senator Harry Truman is selected to be the vice presidential nominee.
July 21 – Battle of Guam: American troops land on Guam (the battle ends August 10).
August[]
August 6 – USS Bennington is commissioned.
August 7 – IBM dedicates the first program-controlled computer, the electromechanical 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 Bear for the first time.
August 12 – Major fire at Luna Park, Coney Island, New York.
August 14 – Fort Lawton riot
August 15 – World War II: Operation Dragoon lands Allies in southern France. The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division participates in its fourth assault landing at St. Maxime, spearheading the drive for the Belfort Gap.
August 20 – World War II: American forces successfully defeat Nazi forces at Chambois, closing the Falaise Gap.
August 22 – World War II: Tsushima Maru, an unmarked Japanese passenger/cargo ship, is sunk by torpedoes launched by the submarineUSS Bowfin off Akuseki-jima, killing 1,484 civilians including 767 schoolchildren.
August 31 – The mysterious "Mad Gasser of Mattoon" attacks in Mattoon, Illinois, apparently resume.
September[]
September 17–25: Operation Market Garden
September 3 – Black mother Recy Taylor is kidnapped and gang raped by six white men in Abbeville, Alabama; failure to indict any of her assailants provokes nationwide protest and activism among the African American community.
September 5 – The 5.8 MwCornwall–Massena earthquake affects the northern New York town of Massena at the Canada–United States border with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong), causing $2 million in damage, but no deaths. Across the border, Cornwall, Ontario suffers greater damage.
September 14 – USS Shangri-La is commissioned.
September 17 – World War II: Operation Market Garden begins.
September 24 – World War II: 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 25 – World War II: Operation Market Garden ends in an Allied withdrawal.
October[]
October 20: Douglas MacArthur returns to the Philippines
October 8 – The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet radio show debuts in the United States.
October 9 -
The St. Louis Cardinals defeat the St. Louis Browns, 4 games to 2, to win their 5th World Series Title. This is the only all St. Louis World Series.
USS Randolph is commissioned.
October 20
World War II: American and Filipino troops (with Filipino guerrillas) begin the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines. American forces land on Red Beach in Palo, Leyte, as General Douglas MacArthur returns to the Philippines with Philippine Commonwealth president Sergio Osmeña and Armed Forces of the Philippines Generals Basilio J. Valdes and Carlos P. Romulo. American forces land on the beaches in Dulag, Leyte, accompanied by Filipino troops entering the town, and fiercely opposed by the Japanese occupation forces. The combined forces liberate Tacloban.
An LNG explosion destroys a square mile (2.6 km2) of Cleveland, Ohio.
October 21 – World War II: Aachen, the first German city to fall, is captured by American troops.
October 23–26 – World War II: Naval Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines – In the largest naval battle in history by most criteria and the last naval battle in history between battleships,[1] combined U.S. and Australian naval forces decisively defeat the Imperial Japanese Navy.[2]
October 25 – Florence Foster Jenkins gives a notorious recital in Carnegie Hall, New York City.
October 30 – Appalachian Spring, a ballet by Martha Graham with music by Aaron Copland, debuts at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., with Graham in the lead role.
November[]
November 6 – Hanford Site in Washington (state) produces its first plutonium.
November 7
U.S. presidential election, 1944: Franklin D. Roosevelt wins reelection over Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey, becoming the only U.S. president elected to a fourth term.
A passenger train derails in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, due to excessive speed on a declining hill; 16 are killed, 50 injured.
November 26 – USS Bon Homme Richard is commissioned.
December[]
December 10 – Legendary Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini leads a concert performance of the first half of Beethoven's Fidelio (minus its spoken dialogue) on NBC Radio, starring Rose Bampton. He chooses this opera for its political message – a statement against tyranny and dictatorship. Conducting it in German, Toscanini intends it as a tribute to the German people who are being oppressed by Hitler. The second half is broadcast a week later. The performance is later released on LP and CD, the first of 7 operas that Toscanini conducts on radio.
December 13 – Battle of Mindoro: United States, Australian and Philippine Commonwealth troops land in Mindoro Island, the Philippines.
December 16 – General George C. Marshall becomes the first Five-Star General.
December 22 – World War II: 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 24–26 – Agana race riot
December 26
World War II: American troops repulse German forces at Bastogne.
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams premieres in Chicago.
December 30 – Edward Stettinius Jr. becomes the last United States Secretary of State of the Roosevelt administration, filling the seat left by Cordell Hull.
Undated[]
14-year-old Warren Buffett's father introduces him to a newspaper office to do the job of taking a newspaper to the subscriber. Then, with a salary of US$1,200, he buys 40 acres of land and starts a sub-leased tenant farming business.
Ongoing[]
World War II, U.S. involvement (1941–1945)
Births[]
January[]
Joe Frazier
Angela Davis
January 1 – Bob Minor, American actor, stunt performer
January 3 – Chris von Saltza, American swimmer
January 4
Frank Alesia, American actor and television director (d. 2011)
Charlie Manuel, American baseball player and manager
January 5 – Carolyn McCarthy, American nurse and politician[3]
January 6 – Bonnie Franklin, American actress, singer, dancer and television director (d. 2013)
January 9 – Ian Hornak, American painter (d. 2002)
January 10 – Frank Sinatra Jr., American singer, songwriter and actor (d. 2016)[4]
January 12 – Joe Frazier, African American boxer, world heavyweight champion from 1970 to 1973 (d. 2011)
January 19
Shelley Fabares, American actress, singer
Dan Reeves, American football player and coach
January 20 – Linda Moulton Howe, American journalist and producer