January 3 - World War II: Top Ace Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington is shot down in his Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Zero.
January 4 - World War II: Operation Carpetbagger, involving the dropping of arms and supplies to resistance fighters in Europe, begins.
January 4 - World War II: The Battle of Monte Cassino begins.
January 5 - The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper.
January 18 - The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hosts a jazz concert for the first time. The performers were Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge and Jack Teagarden.
January 18 - Soviet forces liberate Leningrad, effectively ending a three year Nazi siege, known as the Siege of Leningrad.
January 20 - World War II: The Royal Air Force drops 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin.
January 22 - World War II: The Allies commence Operation Shingle which was an assault on Anzio, Italy.
January 27 - World War II: The two-year Siege of Leningrad is lifted.
January 29 - USS Missouri the last battleship commissioned by the US Navy is launched.
January 29 - World War II: The Battle of Cisterna takes place in central Italy.
January 29 - World War II: About 38 men, women, and children die in the Koniuchy massacre in Poland.
January 29 - In Bologna, Italy, the Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio is destroyed in an air-raid bombing
January 30 - World War II: United States troops land on Majuro.
January 31 - World War II: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.
January 31 - World War II: During Anzio campaign 1st Ranger Battalion (Darby's Rangers) was destroyed behind enemy lines in a heavily outnumbered encounter at Battle of Cisterna, Italy.
February 3 - World War II: United States troops capture the Marshall Islands.
February 7 - World War II: In Anzio, Italy, German forces launch a counteroffensive during the Allied Operation Shingle
February 14 - World War II: Anti-Japanese revolt on Java.
February 15 - World War II: The assault on Monte Cassino, Italy, begins.
February 17 - World War II: Battle of Eniwetok Atoll begins. The battle ends in an American victory on February 22.
February 17 - World War II: Operation Hailstone begins. U.S. naval air, surface, and submarine attack against Truk (Chuuk), Japan's main base in the central Pacific, in support of the Eniwetok invasion.
February 20 - World War II: The "Big Week" began with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers.
February 20 - World War II: The United States takes Eniwetok Island.
February 22 - American aircraft bombard the Dutch towns of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer by mistake, resulting in 800 dead in Nijmegen alone.
February 23 - Forced deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people to Central Asia.
February 29 - World War II: The Admiralty Islands are invaded in Operation Brewer led by American General Douglas MacArthur.
March 3 - The Order of Nakhimov and Order of Ushakov were instituted in USSR as the highest naval awards.
March 4 - First U.S. daylight bombing of Berlin and Anti-Germany strikes in northern Italy.
May 18 - Deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union government.
June 4 - World War II: A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures the German submarine U-505
June 4 - World War II: Rome falls to the Allies, the first Axis capital to fall.
June 5 - World War II: More than 1000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.
June 6 - World War II: Battle of Normandy begins. D-Day, code named Operation Overlord, 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 - World War II: the Soviet Union invades East Karelia and the previously Finnish part of Karelia, occupied by Finland since 1941.
June 10 - World War II: 642 men, women and children are killed in the Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre in France.
June 10 - World War II: In Distomo, Boeotia Prefecture, Greece 218 men, women and children are massacred by German troops.
June 10 - In baseball, 15-year old Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds becomes the youngest player ever in a major-league game.
June 13 - World War II: Germany launches a counter attack on Carentan.
June 13 - World War II: Germany launches a V1 Flying Bomb attack on England. Only four of the eleven bombs actually hit their targets.
June 15 - World War II: Battle of Saipan: The United States invades Saipan.
June 15 - In the Saskatchewan general election, 1944, the CCF, led by Tommy Douglas, is elected and forms the first socialist government of North America.
June 17 - Iceland declares independence from Denmark and becomes a republic
June 19 - World War II: First day of the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
June 20 - World War II: The Battle of the Philippine Sea concludes with a decisive U.S. naval victory. The lopsided naval air battle is also known as the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”.
June 22 - Opening day of the Soviet Union's Operation Bagration against Army Group Centre.
June 25 - The Battle of Tali-Ihantala, the largest battle ever fought in the Nordic Countries, begins.
June 30 - World War II: The Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces.
July 3 - World War II: Minsk was liberated from Nazi control by Soviet troops during Operation Bagration.
July 6 - The Hartford Circus Fire, one of America's worst fire disasters, kills approximately 168 people and injures over 700 in Hartford, Connecticut.
July 11 - Franklin D. Roosevelt announces that he will run for a fourth term as President of the United States.
July 17 - Port Chicago disaster: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California, killing 320.
July 17 - World War II: Napalm incendiary bombs were dropped for the first time by American P-38 pilots on a fuel depot at Coutances, near St. Lô, France.
July 18 - World War II: Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.
July 20 - World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt (known as the July 20 Plot) led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.
July 20 - World War II: American troops land on Guam near Port Apra.
July 20 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wins the Democratic nomination for the fourth and final time at the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
July 20 - Fifty are hurt in rioting in front of the presidential palace in Mexico City.
July 26 - World War II: Soviet army enters Lviv, major city of western Ukraine, liberating it from the Nazis. Only 300 Jewish survivors left, out of 160,000 Jews in Lviv prior to Nazi occupation.
July 26 - The first German V-2 rocket hits Great Britain.
August 1 - Anne Frank makes the last entry in her diary.
August 1 - Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation breaks out in Warsaw, Poland.
August 4 - The 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 - World War II: possibly the biggest prison breakout in history occurs as 545 Japanese POWs attempt to escape outside the town of Cowra, NSW, Australia.
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 Bear for the first time.
August 10 - World War II: American forces defeat the last Japanese troops on Guam.
August 12 - Waffen SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
August 12 - Alençon is liberated by General Leclerc, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
August 23 - World War II King Michael of Romania dismisses the pro-Nazi government of General Antonescu, who is arrested. Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies.
August 24 - World War II: Allied troops start the attack on Paris.
August 25 - World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies.
August 26 - World War II: Charles de Gaulle enters Paris.
August 28 - World War II: Marseille and Toulon are liberated.
August 29 - Slovak National Uprising takes place as 60,000 Slovak troops turn against the Nazis.
September 3 - Holocaust: Diarist Anne Frank and her family are placed on the last transport train from Westerbork to Auschwitz, arriving three days later.
September 4 - World War II: the British 11th Armoured Division liberates the Belgian city of Antwerp.
September 5 - Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg constitute Benelux.
September 6 - World War II: The city of Ypres, Belgium is liberated by allied forces.
September 8 - World War II: London is hit by a V2 rocket for the first time.
September 8 - World War II: Menton is liberated from Germany.
September 9 - World War II: The Fatherland Front takes power in Bulgaria through a military coup in the capital and armed rebellion in the country. A new pro-Soviet government is established.
September 11 - World War II: The first Allied troops of the U.S. Army cross the western border of Germany.
September 11 - World War II: RAF bombing raid on Darmstadt and the following firestorm kill 11,500.
September 12 - World War II: The liberation of Serbia from Nazi Germany and the Chetniks continues. Bajina Bašta in western Serbia is among those liberated cities. Near Trier, American troops enter Germany for the first time.
September 14 - World War II: Maastricht becomes the first Dutch city that is liberated by allied forces.
September 15 - Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet in Quebec as part of the Octagon Conference to discuss strategy.
September 17 - World War II: Allied Airborne troops parachute into the Netherlands as the "Market" half of Operation Market Garden.
September 18 - World War II: The British submarine HMS Tradewind torpedoes Junyō Maru, 5,600 killed.
September 19 - Armistice between Finland and Soviet Union is signed. (End of the Continuation War).
September 22 - World War II: the Red Army enters Tallinn.
September 25 - World War II: Surviving elements of the British 1st Airborne Division withdraw from Arnhem in the Netherlands, thus ending the Battle of Arnhem and Operation Market Garden.
September 26 - World War II: Operation Market Garden fails.
September 26 - World War II: On the central front of the Gothic Line Brazilian troops control the Serchio valley region after ten days of fighting.
September 27 - The Kassel Mission results in the largest loss by a USAAF group on any mission in World War II.
September 28 - Soviet Army troops liberate Klooga concentration camp in Klooga, Estonia.
October 2 - World War II: Nazi troops end the Warsaw Uprising.
October 5 - Canadian Air Force pilots shoot down the first German jet fighter over France.
October 5 - Suffrage is extended to women in France.
October 7 - World War II: Uprising at Birkenau concentration camp, Jews burn down the crematoria.
October 8 - World War II: The Battle of Crucifix Hill occurs on Crucifix Hill just outside Aachen. Capt. Bobbie Brown receives a Medal of Honor for his heroics in this battle.
October 10 - Holocaust: 800 Gypsy children are systematically murdered at Auschwitz death camp.
October 11 - Tuvinian People's Republic or formerly Tannu Tuva was annexed by the U.S.S.R
October 13 - World War II: Riga, the capital of Latvia is seized by the Red Army.
October 19 - United States forces land in the Philippines.
October 20 - The Soviet army and Yugoslav Partisans liberate Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia
October 20 - Liquid natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland, then explodes; the explosion and resulting fire level 30 blocks and kill 130.
October 20 - General Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise to return to the Philippines when he commands an Allied assault on the islands, reclaiming them from the Japanese during the Second World War.
October 21 - The first kamikaze attack: HMAS Australia was hit by a Japanese plane carrying a 200 kg (441 pound) bomb off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.
October 22 - World War II: Battle of Aachen: The city of Aachen falls to American forces after three weeks of fighting, making it the first German city to fall to the Allies.
October 23 - World War II: The Battle of Leyte Gulf begins
October 24 - World War II: The Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku, and the battleship Musashi are sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
October 25 - Heinrich Himmler orders a crackdown on the Edelweiss Pirates, a loosely organized youth culture in Nazi Germany that had assisted army deserters and others to hide from the Third Reich.
October 25 - The USS Tang (SS-306) under Richard O'Kane (the top submarine captain of World War II) is sunk by the ship's own torpedo.
October 25 - The Romanian Army liberates Carei, the last Romanian city under Axis Powers' occupation.
October 25 - Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, takes place in and around the Philippines between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the U.S. Third and U.S. Seventh Fleets.
October 26 - World War II: The Battle of Leyte Gulf ends.
October 29 - Breda in the Netherlands is liberated by 1st Polish Armoured Division.
October 30 - Anne Frank and sister Margot Frank are deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
November 1 - World War II: Units of the British Army land at Walcheren in the Netherlands.
November 6 - Plutonium is first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility and subsequently used in the Fat Man Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
November 7 - A passenger train derails in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico from excessive speed when descending a hill. 16 people were killed and 50 were injured.
November 10 - The ammunition ship USS Mount Hood (AE-11) explodes at Seeadler Harbour, Manus, Admiralty Islands
November 12 - World War II: The Royal Air Force launches 29 Avro Lancaster bombers in one of the most successful precision bombing attacks of war and sinks the German battleship Tirpitz, with 12,000 lb Tallboy bombs off Tromsø, Norway.
November 16 - Dueren, Germany is completely destroyed by Allied bombers.
November 19 - World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the 6th War Loan Drive, aimed at selling $14 billion USD in war bonds to help pay for the war effort.
December 18 - World War II: 77 B-29 Superfortress and 200 other aircraft of U.S. Fourteenth Air Force bomb Hankow, China, a Japanese supply base.
December 22 - World War II: Battle of the Bulge--German troops demand the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium, prompting the famous one word reply by General Anthony McAuliffe: "Nuts!"
December 22 - World War II: Vietnam People's Army is formed to resist Japanese occupation of Indo-China, now Vietnam.
December 26 - World War II: U.S. troops repulse German forces at Bastogne.
December 31 - World War II: Hungary declares war on Germany.
