1944

1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1944th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 944th year of the 2nd millennium, the 44th year of the 20th century, and the 5th year of the 1940s decade.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1910s  1920s  1930s  – 1940s –  1950s  1960s  1970s
Years:	1941 1942 1943 – 1944 – 1945 1946 1947

Events

• 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 17 – Meat Rationing ends in Australia
• 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.

Births

• January 9 - Jimmy Page, English guitarist (Led Zeppelin)
• February 23 – Johnny Winter
• March 1 - Roger Daltrey, English singer (The Who)
• March 28 – Ken Howard (d. 2016)
• April 7 – Gerhard Schröder
• April 9 – Leila Khaled
• May 8 – Gary Glitter
• May 14 – George Lucas
• May 19 – Peter Mayhew (d. 2019)
• June 4 - Michelle Phillips, American singer and musician (The Mamas & the Papas)
• July 13 – Ernő Rubik
• July 19 - Tim McIntire (d. 1986)
• June 29 – Gary Busey
• September 10 – Judit Pogány, Hungarian actress
• October 9 - John Entwistle, English bass guitarist (The Who) (d. 2002)
• October 24 – Ray Downs
• November 2 - Keith Emerson, English keyboardist (Emerson, Lake & Palmer) (d. 2016)
• November 10 - Sir Tim Rice, English lyricist
• November 25 – Ben Stein

Deaths

• January 7 – Lou Henry Hoover, First Lady of the United States
• July 21 – Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, German army officer
• October 14 – Erwin Rommel, German army officer

New books

• An American Dilemma – Gunnar Myrdal
• Au rendez-vous allemand – (To the German Rendezvous) – Paul Éluard
• A Bell for Adano – John Hersey
• Beyond the Palisade (poetry) – James K. Baxter
• The Book of Imaginary Beings – Jorge Luis Borges
• Book of Naturalists – Charles William Beebe
• The Case of Mrs. Wingate – Oscar Micheaux
• Dangling Man – Saul Bellow
• The Dawn Appears – Annie Greene Nelson
• Friday's Child – Georgette Heyer
• The Golden Fleece – Robert von Ranke Graves
• The Horse's Mouth – Joyce Cary
• Johnny Tremain – Esther Forbes
• The Lost Weekend – Charles R. Jackson
• Our Lady of the Flowers – Jean Genet
• The Razor's Edge – W. Somerset Maugham
• The Tall Book of Nursery Tales – Feodor Rojankovsky
• Terras do Sem Fim (The Violent Land) – Jorge Amado
• Thou That Dwellest in the Gardens – Hayyim Hazaz
• Two Frontiers (poetry) – Edwin James Bradley

Nobel prizes

• Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Joseph Erlanger, American doctor, (1874-1965), and Herbert Gasser, American doctor (1888-1963)