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.
Juneedit
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.
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.
August 7 – IBM dedicates the first program-controlled computer, the electromechanical Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I).
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.
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. Presenting 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 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.
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.
Rio Grande company is founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico.[3]
^"Meet Rio Grande - JCK". www.jckonline.com. Archived from the original on 27 April 2012. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
^"General Authorities and General Officers, Elder Lowell M. Snow". churchofjesuschrist.org. Intellectual Reserve, Inc. Retrieved 7 August 2023.
^Carter, Gregg Lee (2012). "Guns in American Society". An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture and the Law (2nd ed.). ABC-CLIO. p. 539. ISBN 978-0-313-38671-8.
^Rosenberg, Eli (17 March 2016). "Frank Sinatra Jr., singer who followed in his father's footsteps, dies at 72". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 October 2021.
^Member of New York Mets' First World Series Champions Dies
^"Angela Davis". Britannica Presents 100 Women Trailblazers. 25 March 2020. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
^US billionaire financier Thomas Lee found dead at 78
^Retired federal judge Marianne Battani dies after long illness: 'We have lost a gem'
^Jon Roger Brittenum, Sr. San Benito, TX, 1944 - 2022
^Former Bradley Central and Alabama quarterback Steve Sloan dies
^"Space Shuttle Challenger Fast Facts". CNN. 16 September 2013. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
^Remembering Tom Shales, a TV critic with a biting wit
^Leland Wilkinson, creator of The Grammar of Graphics, passed away
^Herz, Bob (1 November 2019). "Reflections on the Career of Donald T. Nicolaisen". The CPA Journal. New York State Society of CPAs. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
^Bahr, Robert (1979). Least of All Saints: the Story of Aimee Semple McPherson. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-527978-6. OCLC 4493103.
External linksedit
Media related to 1944 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons