1944 In Costa Rica

Events

Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.

January

* January 2 – WWII:
** Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command French Army B, part of the Sixth United States Army Group in North Africa.
** Landing at Saidor: 13,000 US and Australian troops land on Papua New Guinea in an attempt to cut off a Japanese retreat.
* January 8 – WWII: Philippine Commonwealth troops enter the province of Ilocos Sur in northern Luzon and attack Japanese forces.
* January 11
** United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a Second Bill of Rights for social and economic security, in his State of the Union address.
** The Nazi German administration expands Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp into the larger standalone ''Konzentrationslager Plaszow bei Krakau'' in occupied Poland.
* January 12 – WWII: Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle begin a 2-day conference in Marrakech.
* January 14 – WWII: Soviet troops start the offensive at Leningrad and Novgorod.
* January 15
** WWII: The 27th Polish Home Army Infantry Division is re-created, marking the start of Operation Tempest by the Polish Home Army, a resistance force.
** 1944 San Juan earthquake: An earthquake hits San Juan, Argentina, killing an estimated 10,000 people, in the worst natural disaster in Argentina's history.
** The Battle of Monte Cassino begins in Italy. British forces cross the Garigliano River. U.S. Fifth Army troops, commanded by Lieutenant-General Mark W. Clark, arrive at the Garigliano, to begin their attack against the Gustav Line south of Rome. The French Expeditionary Corps, under command of General Alphonse Juin, moves into the mountains north of Monte Cassino.
** The Soviet Union ceases production of the Mosin–Nagant 1891/30 sniper rifle.
* January 17 – WWII: The Battle of Korsun–Cherkassy begins in the Soviet Ukraine.
* January 20 – WWII:
** The Royal Air Force drops 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin.
** The United States 36th Infantry Division in Italy attempts to cross the Rapido River.
* January 22 – WWII: Operation Shingle: The Allies begin the assault on Anzio, Italy. The U.S. 45th Infantry Division stand their ground at Anzio against violent assaults for four months.
* January 25 – A total solar eclipse is visible in Pacific Ocean, South America, Atlantic Ocean and Africa, the 48th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 130.
* January 27 – WWII:
** The two-year Siege of Leningrad is lifted.
** Light cruiser is sunk by a Henschel Hs 293 guided missile from a German aircraft off Anzio, western Italy, with the loss of 46 men.
* January 29 – WWII: Koniuchy massacre – A unit of Soviet partisans accompanied by Jewish partisans kills at least 38 civilians in the village of Koniuchy in Nazi occupied Lithuania.
* January 30 – WWII:
** The Battle of Cisterna opens as United States Army Rangers attempt to break out of the Anzio beachhead.
** United States troops invade Majuro, Marshall Islands.
* January 31 – WWII: Battle of Kwajalein: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.

February

* The Zadran tribe rises up against the Afghan government, starting the Afghan tribal revolts of 1944–1947.
* February 2 – The first issue of '' Human Events'' is published in Washington, D.C.
* February 3 – WWII: United States 4th Marine Division with the help of the 7th Infantry Division capture the Marshall Islands.
* February 7 – WWII: At Anzio, German forces launch a counteroffensive.
* February 8 – WWII:
** 2,765 drown when American submarine torpedoes Japanese troop transport '' Lima Maru''.
** 2,670 drown when British submarine torpedoes German-captured carrying Italian prisoners of war.
* February 14 – WWII: An anti-Japanese revolt breaks out on Java.
* February 15 – WWII: Battle of Monte Cassino – The monastery atop Monte Cassino is destroyed by Allied bombing.
* February 17 – WWII: Pacific War – The Battle of Eniwetok begins when U.S. forces invade the atoll in the Marshall Islands.
* February 18 – WWII: British light cruiser is torpedoed and sunk by ''U-410'' in the Mediterranean; 417 of her crew, including the captain, go down with the ship; 206 survive.
* February 20 – WWII:
** The "Big Week" begins, with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers.
** The United States takes Eniwetok Atoll.
** Norwegian heavy water sabotage: The Norwegian resistance sinks train ferry SF ''Hydro'' which is carrying a shipment of heavy water from the Vemork plant to Germany along Tinnsjå in Telemark.
* February 22 – WWII: The United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe is organized from the Eighth Air Force's strategic planning staff, subsuming strategic planning for all US Army Air Forces in Europe and Africa.
* February 23 – WWII:
** Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush ("Operation Lentil"): Forced deportation of Chechens and Ingush people from North Caucasus to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia by the Soviet authorities begins.
** The Battle of Eniwetok concludes when U.S. forces secure the last islands in the Eniwetok Atoll.
* February 24 – WWII: American submarine torpedoes Japanese transports and ; 7,998 drown.
* February 26
** Kurt Gerron begins shooting the Nazi propaganda film '' Theresienstadt'' in Theresienstadt concentration camp. He and many others who are featured in it are transferred to Auschwitz and gassed upon the film's completion.
** Sue S. Dauser becomes the first woman appointed to the substantive rank of captain, in the United States Navy Nurse Corps.
* February 29 – WWII: Pacific War – The Admiralty Islands campaign (Operation Brewer) opens when U.S. forces land on Los Negros Island in the Admiralty Islands.

March

* March – Austrian-born economist Friedrich Hayek publishes his book '' The Road to Serfdom'' in London.
* March 1 – WWII: American submarine torpedoes Japanese merchant cruiser ; 2,495 drown.
* March 2 – The 16th Academy Awards Ceremony is held, the first Oscar ceremony held at a large public venue, Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. ''Casablanca'', directed by Michael Curtiz, wins the Award for Best Picture.
* March 3 – WWII: The Order of Nakhimov and the Order of Ushakov are instituted in the USSR.
* March 4 – Louis Buchalter, the leader of 1930s crime syndicate Murder, Inc., is executed at Sing Sing, in Ossining, New York, along with Emanuel Weiss and Louis Capone.
* March 6 – WWII: Soviet Army planes attack Narva, Estonia, destroying over 95% of the town.
* March 9 – WWII: Soviet Army planes attack Tallinn, Estonia, killing 757 and leaving 25,000 homeless.
* March 10
** In Britain, the prohibition on married women working as teachers is lifted.
** Resistance leader Joop Westerweel is arrested while returning to the Netherlands, having escorted a group of Jewish children to safety in Spain.
* March 12 – WWII: The Political Committee of National Liberation is created in Greece.
* March 15
** WWII: Battle of Monte Cassino: Allied aircraft bomb the monastery, and an assault is staged.
** WWII: The National Council of the French Resistance approves the Resistance programme.
** The Soviet Union introduces a new anthem, replacing ''The Internationale''.
* March 18
**The last eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy kills 26, and causes thousands to flee their homes.
**WWII: The Nazis execute almost 400 prisoners, Soviet citizens and anti-fascist Romanians at Rîbnița.
* March 19
** WWII: Operation Margarethe: German forces occupy Hungary.
** The secular oratorio '' A Child of Our Time'' by Michael Tippett is premiered at the Adelphi Theatre in London.
* March 20 – WWII:
** Landing on Emirau: 4,000 United States Marines land on Emirau Island in the Bismarck Archipelago to develop an airbase, as part of Operation Cartwheel.
** British Royal Air Force Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade's bomber is hit over Germany, and he has to bail out without a parachute from a height of over . Tree branches interrupt his fall and he lands safely on deep snow.
* March 23 – WWII: Members of the Italian Resistance attack Nazis marching in Via Rasella, killing 33.
* March 24 – WWII:
** Ardeatine massacre: In Rome, 335 Italians are killed, including 75 Jews and over 200 members of the Italian Resistance from various groups.
** In Markowa, Poland, German police kill Józef and Wiktoria Ulm, their 6 children and 8 Jews they were hiding.
** The "Great Escape": 76 Royal Air Force prisoners of war escape by tunnel "Harry" from Stalag Luft III in Silesia this night. Only 3 men (2 Norwegians and a Dutchman) return to the UK; of those recaptured, 50 are summarily executed soon afterwards, in the Stalag Luft III murders.
* March 27 – In Sweden, Ruben Rausing patents Erik Wallenberg's method of packaging milk in paper, origin of the international company Tetra Pak.

April

* April 1 – The Swiss city of Schaffhausen is accidentally bombed by the United States causing serious damage to the city and killing or wounding more than 100 people.
*April 2 – WWII: Ascq massacre: Members of the 12th SS Panzer Division ''Hitlerjugend'' shoot 85 civilians suspected of blowing up their train on its approach to the Gare d'Ascq in France.
*April 4 WWII:
**Allied bombardment of Bucharest, Romania begins. The United States Air Force and British Royal Air Force, with approximately 3,640 bombers of different types, accompanied by about 1,830 fighters bomb Romania for the following 4½ months. As collateral damage, 5,524 inhabitants are killed, 3,373 injured, and 47,974 left homeless.
**An Allied photoreconnaissance aircraft of 60 Squadron SAAF photographs part of Auschwitz concentration camp.
*April 10
**The Holocaust: Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler escape from Auschwitz concentration camp; on April 25–27 they prepare the Vrba–Wetzler report, one of the earliest and most detailed descriptions of the extermination of Jews in the camp.
** WWII: As part of the Odessa Offensive, the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front liberated the city of Odessa in Southern Ukraine.
*April 14
** Bombay Explosion: Freighter SS ''Fort Stikine'', carrying a mixed cargo of ammunition, cotton bales and gold, explodes in harbour at Bombay (India), sinking surrounding ships and killing around 800 people.
** WWII: As part of the Japanese-supported Axis forces led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, fighting for India's liberation from British rule, Col. Shaukat Ali Malik of the Bahadur Group of the Indian National Army enters Moirang in modern-day Manipur in northeastern India and raises the flag of the Azri Hukumat e-Azad Hind for the first time on Indian soil. This is considered to be one of the first times in British Indian history where an army of liberation raises the national flag on Indian mainland.
* April 15 – Italian fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile is assassinated in Florence by Bruno Fanciullacci, a member of the partisan Gruppi di Azione Patriottica.
*April 16 – WWII: Allied forces start bombing Belgrade, killing about 1,100 people. This bombing falls on the Orthodox Christian Easter.
* April 19 – WWII:
** The Japanese launch the Operation Ichi-Go offensive in central and south China.
** Semaine rouge: American and British planes bomb the city of Rouen.
* April 20
** Members of the Slovene Home Guard swear an oath to Hitler on his birthday at Bežigrad Stadium.
* April 22 – WWII: Battle of Hollandia: American forces disembark at Tanahmerah Bay and at Yos Sudarso Bay, near Hollandia. The landings are undertaken simultaneously with the amphibious invasion of Aitape ("Operation Persecution") to the east.
* April 25
** The Holocaust: SS-'' Obersturmbannführer'' Adolf Eichmann opens "blood for goods" negotiations with Joel Brand, to offer the release of thousands of Jews from eastern Europe to the Hungarian Aid and Rescue Committee, in exchange for supplies for the German Eastern Front.
** The United Negro College Fund is incorporated in the United States.
* April 26 – WWII:
** German General Kreipe is kidnapped on Crete, Greece.
** American submarine torpedoes Japanese cargo carrier ; 2,649 drown.
* April 28 – WWII: Allied convoy T4, forming part of amphibious Exercise Tiger (a full-scale rehearsal for the Normandy landings) in Start Bay, off the Devon coast of England, is attacked by E-boats, resulting in the deaths of 749 American servicemen from LSTs.

May

* May – Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist drama '' No Exit'' (''Huis Clos'') premières in Nazi-occupied Paris.
* May 1 – WWII: Two hundred Communist prisoners are shot by the Germans at Kaisariani, Athens, Greece, in reprisal for the killing of General Franz Krech by Partisans at Molaoi.
* May 5 – WWII: Mohandas Gandhi is released from jail in India, on health grounds.
* May 9 – WWII: In the Soviet city of Sevastopol, Soviet troops completely drive out German forces, who had been ordered by Hitler to “fight to the last man.”"Year by Year 1944" – History Channel International
* May 12 – WWII: Soviet troops finalize the liberation of the Crimea.
* May 14 – The Holocaust: Predominantly Muslim Albanian troops of the 21st ''Waffen'' Mountain Division of the SS ''Skanderbeg'' (1st Albanian) round up 281 Jews in Priština, and hand them over to the Germans for transportation to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
* May 15 – WWII: Allied military and political leaders, including Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, Bernard Montgomery and more, meet for the final D-Day joint briefing at St. Paul's School in London.
* May 15– July 8 – The Holocaust: Hungarian Jews are deported to Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.
* May 17 – WWII: Merrill's Marauders and Chinese troops (some 3,000 men) led by Brigadier General Frank Merrill capture Myitkyina airfield, after a 100-kilometer march over the Kumon Mountain range (using mules for carrying supplies).
* May 18 – WWII:
** Battle of Monte Cassino: The Germans evacuate Monte Cassino and Allied forces, led by Władysław Anders from Polish II Corps, take the stronghold after a struggle that has claimed 20,000 lives.
** Crimean Tatars are deported by the Soviet Union.
* May 20 – WWII: Battle of Wakde: American forces of the 163rd Regimental Combat Team (some 1,500 men) under Brigadier General Jens Doe take the Japanese-held Wakde island ( Dutch New Guinea).
* May 24 – WWII: West Loch disaster: Six LSTs are accidentally destroyed and 163 men killed, in Pearl Harbor.
* May 30 – Princess Charlotte Louise Juliette Louvet Grimaldi of Monaco, heir to the throne, resigns in favor of her son Prince Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand Grimaldi, who later reigns as Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
* May 31 – WWII: American destroyer escort sinks the sixth Japanese submarine in two weeks. This anti-submarine warfare performance remains unmatched through the 20th century.

June

* June 1 – Two K-class blimps of the United States Navy complete the first transatlantic crossing by non-rigid airships, from the U.S. to French Morocco, with two stops.
* June 2 – WWII: The Provisional Government of the French Republic is established.
* June 3 – Hans Asperger publishes his paper on Asperger syndrome.
* June 4 – WWII:
** Rome falls to the Allies, the first of the Axis capitals to fall.
** A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures the , marking the first time a U.S. Navy vessel has captured an enemy vessel at sea since the War of 1812. Some significant intelligence data is acquired.
* June 5 – WWII:
** The German navy's Enigma messages are decoded in England almost in real time.
** British Group Captain James Stagg correctly forecasts a brief improvement in weather conditions over the English Channel, which will permit the following day's Normandy landings to take place (having been deferred from today due to unfavourable weather).
** At 10:15 p.m. local time, the BBC transmits coded messages including the second line of the Paul Verlaine poem "Chanson d'automne" to the French Resistance, indicating that the invasion of Europe is about to begin.
** More than 1,000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast, in preparation for D-Day.
** US and British airborne divisions drop into Normandy, in preparation for D-Day.
** D-Day naval deceptions are launched.
* June 6 – WWII: D-Day: 155,000 Allied troops shipped from England land on the beaches of Normandy in northern France, beginning Operation Overlord and the Invasion of Normandy. 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 7 – WWII:
** Bayeux is liberated by British troops.
** Operation Perch, a British attempt to capture Caen from the Germans, commences; it is abandoned on June 14.
** The steamer ''Danae'' (), carrying 600 Cretans (including 350 Greek Jews) on the first leg of the journey to Auschwitz, is sunk, with no known survivors, off Santorini.
** Joel Brand is intercepted by British agents in Aleppo.
* June 9 – WWII: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin launches the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive against Finland, with the intent of defeating Finland before pushing for Berlin.
* June 10 – WWII: Oradour-sur-Glane massacre: 642 men, women and children are killed in France.
* June 13 – WWII: Germany launches the first V-1 flying bomb attack on London.
* June 15 – WWII: Battle of Saipan: United States forces land on Saipan.
* June 15– 16 – WWII: Bombing of Yawata – The United States Army Air Forces conduct the first air raid on the Japanese home islands.
* June 16 – At age 14, African-American teenage boy George Stinney Jr. becomes the youngest person ever executed by electric chair in the United States.
* June 17 – Iceland declares full independence from Denmark.
* June 19 – WWII: A severe storm badly damages the Mulberry harbours on the Normandy coast.
* June 20 – WWII: A V-2 rocket becomes the first man-made object to cross the Kármán line and reach the edge of space.
* June 22 – WWII:
** Operation Bagration: A general attack by Soviet forces clears the German forces from Belarus, resulting in the destruction of German Army Group Centre, possibly the greatest defeat of the Wehrmacht during WWII.
** Burma Campaign: The Battle of Kohima ends in a British victory.
* June 23 – The Holocaust: Maurice Rossel of the International Committee of the Red Cross visits Theresienstadt concentration camp, uncritically accepting the propaganda view of it presented by the ''Schutzstaffel''.
* June 25 – WWII:
** Battle of Tali-Ihantala (the largest battle ever in the Nordic countries): Finland is able to resist the Soviet attack, and thus manages to remain an independent nation.
** Cherbourg is bombarded by ships of the United States Navy and British Royal Navy, in support of U.S. ground troops.
* June 26 – WWII: American troops enter Cherbourg.
* June 29 – WWII: American submarine torpedoes Japanese troop transport ; 5,400 drown.
* June 30 – WWII: American submarine torpedoes Japanese troop transport ; 3,219 drown.

July

* July–October – WWII: Germans are driven out of Lithuania leading to reimposition of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic.
* July 1 – The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference begins at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States.
* July 3 – WWII:
** Soviet troops liberate Minsk.
** Battle of Imphal: Japanese forces call off their advance, ending the battle with a British victory.
* July 4 – WWII: Operation Windsor: Canadian forces of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division attack Carpiquet airfield defended by German troops of the '' 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend'' of Panzergruppe West.
* July 6 – WWII: 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 9 – WWII: British and Canadian forces capture Caen.
* July 10– 11 – WWII: Operation Jupiter during the Battle of Normandy of World War II: British strategic victory over German Panzer Corps.
* July 10 – WWII: Soviet troops begin operations to liberate the Baltic countries from Nazi occupation.
* July 12– 21 – WWII: Dortan massacre – 35–36 French civilians are killed by '' Ostlegionen'' (Cossacks) serving with the ''Wehrmacht''.
* July 13 – WWII: Vilnius is freed by Soviet forces.
* July 16 – WWII:
** Adolf Hitler departs Berchtesgaden for what will be the final time as he flies to the Wolf's Lair, aborting Operation Foxley, a British plot to assassinate him.
** The first contingent of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force arrives in Italy.
* July 17 – WWII:
** The largest convoy of the war embarks from Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, under Royal Canadian Navy protection.
** 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 18 – WWII:
** American forces push back the Germans in Saint-Lô

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