1944

1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year beginning on a Saturday according to the Gregorian calendar.

Ephemeris

• February 27: centenary of the Independence of the Dominican Republic.

Events

January

• 2 January: in Saida, New Guinea, troops from the United States landed.
• January 3: in Torre del Bierzo (León) there is the largest railway accident, in the history of Spain.
• 5 January: the London newspaper Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic journal.
• January 11: Another serious ferroviary accident occurs in Arévalo (Ávila).
• January 13: the Spanish government announces restrictions on electricity from February 15th.
• 15 January: in the province of San Juan (Argentina), at 20:52 an earthquake of 7.0 destroys the city of San Juan, producing about 10,000 direct deaths.
• January 17: In Buenos Aires, Juan Domingo Perón and Evita meet at the Luna Park gala to collect funds for those affected by the San Juan earthquake.
• January 23, Edvard Munch died of pneumonia in Ekely.

February

• 1 February: the first Soviet Constitution is amended in Moscow.
  • in Turkey there is an earthquake of 7.5 that leaves a balance of almost 4,000 dead.
• February 3: In the framework of the Second World War, the Franco government reaffirms the neutrality of Spain.
• February 10: In Ankara, the secret negotiations between the United Kingdom and Turkey are interrupted.
• 11 February: In Colombia, conservative leader Laureano Gómez was released, who had been imprisoned early in the year for slander to the government.
• February 12: In Pereira, Colombia, after the union of Vidriocol and Deportivo Otún, the Pereira Sports Team was born.
• February 13: As part of World War II, the city of Rostov (Soviet Union) is liberated from the Nazi occupation.
• 13 February: In Costa Rica, Teodoro Picado Michalski is elected president.
• February 15: Allied aviation bombs the Monastery of Montecassino, where the Germans had installed their communications system.
• February 15: USA The U.S. regains control of Solomon Islands (in the Pacific Ocean) after hard fighting with the Japanese.
• 17 February: In the Atoll Enewetak (Marshall Islands), in the framework of the Pacific campaign (in World War II), the United States and Japan begin the battle of Eniwetok (until 23 February).
• February 19: As part of World War II, London receives the biggest attacks of the Nazi Luftwaffe (Wehrmacht).
• February 20: In the framework of the Second World War, U.S. aviation began an intensive bombing of German weapons factories in the so-called "Big Week operation."

March

• March 3: Soviet offensive in Ukraine during the Second World War.
• March 10: The first two doses of penicillin are administered in Spain.
• March 18: In Italy, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius kills 26 people and causes thousands to flee their homes.
• March 29: Colombia, attacks the U-154 submarine on the coast of Panama by the destroyer ARC Caldas, defeated in battle one of the feared Nazi submarines.

April

• 1 April: the Swiss city of Schaffhausen is bombarded "by mistake."
• April 2: in El Salvador the coup against the dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez (in power since 1931) has failed.
• 2 April: Moscow warns Chinese nationalist troops not to enter outer Mongolia.
• 2 April: in the Aleutian Islands (Alaska) and the Hawaiian Islands a tsunami sweeps the coasts and dies 300 people.

May

On May 8, Teodoro Picado Michalski assumes the presidency of Costa Rica.

• May 8: In Costa Rica, he assumes the presidency Teodoro Picado Michalski at age 44.
• May 9: In El Salvador, President Maximiliano Hernández Martínez resigns, pressured by a general strike.
• May 28: in Ecuador, a great popular revolution known as "La Gloriosa" brings to power José María Velasco Ibarra.

June

Allied forces disembarked in Normandy on Day D.

• June 4: Entry of the Allies in Rome during the Second World War.
• 6 June: Allied forces (Day D) are disembarked in Normandy, France.
• 8 June: in Tulle (about 18 000 inhabitants in central France), the Machi Resistance Movement kills some 40 Wehrmacht soldiers.
• 9 June: in Tulle, France, German soldiers hang 99 civilians from the villages ' balconies in reprisal for the massacre of German soldiers of the previous day. Another 321 civilians will be sent to concentration camps in Germany, where 101 will lose their lives.
• June 16: 14-year-old George Stinney is executed in the electric chair in the United States after being accused of murdering two girls, then declared innocent.
• 17 June: Iceland is independent of Denmark and is an independent republic.
• June 19: first marriage of Norma Jean Baker, later known as Marilyn Monroe.
• June 20: In Argentina the 5th line of the underground porteño la Línea E (Subte de Buenos Aires) is inaugurated.
• June 22: Operation Bagration, a Soviet offensive in Belarus.

July

• July 20: Claus von Stauffenberg along with other German soldiers fails in his attack on Adolf Hitler.
• 21 July: the battle of Guam begins.
• 22 July: the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at the Bretton Woods Hotel Complex (New Hampshire) and the Bretton Woods Agreements create the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and establish the use of the dollar as an international currency.
• 24 July: the plan of Operation Cobra in Normandy begins, with the purpose of opening the Brittany route and crossing the German defensive lines of the 130th Panzer Instruction Division.
• 25 July: Operation Cobra is launched against the German troops in the Saint-Lô sector, France.

August

• August 1st: the city of Warsaw is subsidized against the German occupation troops (Herman Uprising).
• August 4: Anne Frank is discovered along with seven other people in his hiding place in his father's offices. They are arrested by the Gestapo, and taken to different concentration camps.
• August 12: In the Argentine city of Punta Alta (Province of Buenos Aires) the club dedicated to basketball, Club Atlético Carlos Pellegrini is created.
• August 23: In Warnsveld (Netherlands) the highest temperature is recorded in the History of that country: 38.6 °C (102 °F).
• August 24: liberation from Paris, the first soldiers of the 2nd Armoured Division (Leclerc Division) are Spanish republicans attached to the Regiment de Marche du Tchad of the French army, framed in the 9th Company known as The Nine.

September

• September 1st: Allied aviation sank a Japanese freighter (Sekino Maru) in the sea of Célebes.
• 2 September: an American submarine sank a Japanese cargo ship (Miyakawa Maru) in the sea of Japan. One British submarine sank another (Toso Maru) in the Indian Ocean.
• September 3: Finland and the Soviet Union agreed to a ceasefire from 8:00 the next day. Meanwhile Nazi Germany launched an operation to retain under its control the nickel mines in the Finnish Lapland.
• 4 September: the ceasefire between Finland and the Soviet Union entered into force.
• September 5: U.S. submarines sank two Japanese cargoes (Shingetsu Maru and Shonan Maru) in the Pacific. One British submarine sank another (Shiretoko Maru) near Batavia.
• September 5: An earthquake of 5.8 shakes the New York town of Massena causing $2 million to damage.
• 6 September: four U.S. aircraft carrier groups launched a series of air strikes against the Palaos Islands near the Philippines.
• 7 September: Hungary declared war on Romania and its troops crossed the border in Transylvania
• September 8: The Red Army entered Bulgaria from Romania without any opposition from the government. By then the partisans already controlled some 170 localities.
• September 9: Bulgarian Revolution. The anti-fascist guerrillas of the Frente de la Patria defeat the government and bind Bulgaria to the Allies.
• September 10: The Germans plunged two of their submarines into the Black Sea to prevent them from being captured by the Soviets.
• September 11: The Soviets managed to take the city of Krosno in Poland
• September 12: U.S. submarines attacked a Japanese convoy near Hong Kong and sank four transports (Kachidoki Maru, Rakuyo Maru, Nankai Maru and Zuiho Maru).
• September 13: A Japanese boat bombed the lifeboats of about 350 survivors of the shipwreck of Rakuyo Maru, while they were rowing to the ground.
• September 27: The 2nd Air Fleet under the command of General Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen is dissolved, thus forming the 10th Air Fleet.
• September 28: Death of the young Jew Petr Ginz, creator of the magazine Vedem, in the concentration camp of Auschwitz.

October

• 6 October: In the Turkish province of Balikesir there is an earthquake of 6.7 that leaves 73 dead and more than 200 wounded.
• 7 October: In the concentration camp of Auschwitz (in the Nazi-occupied Poland), 250 Jewish prisoners organize an uprising. They are captured and executed.
• 12 October: Athens is liberated from the Nazi occupation
• October 18: the city of Havana (Cuba) is hit by a violent hurricane for 14 hours, with winds above 200 km/h (a streak measured 262 km/h). Leave 300 dead. It is considered the storm of the century, even though the United States gives that name to the 1993 hurricane.
• October 20: Guatemala defeats the dictatorship of Jorge Ubico. It begins a revolutionary period that will last 10 years.
• October 21: In El Salvador, Colonel Osmín Aguirre and Salinas carried out a coup d'etat and deposed General Andrés Ignacio Menéndez.
• October 28: in La Coruña, Spain, the Municipal Stadium of Riazor is inaugurated.

November

• 7 November: United States presidential elections of 1944. Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt is re-elected for a fourth term after defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey with an advantage of 332 electoral votes for Roosevelt and 199 for Dewey.
• 11 November: Nazi Germany creates the H Army Group.
• November 24: In the concentration camp of Birkenau (Poland), the SS destroy the gas chambers in an attempt to hide the activities of the camp to the Soviet troops.
• November 24: Stanislav Mikolajczyk, Polish prime minister in exile, resigns from the pressure of the Western allies to recognize the Curzón line as a Polish border.
• November 24: In Italy, in the framework of the Second World War, the Battle of Monte Castello begins, between the Brazilian expeditionary force and the Nazi German troops.
• November 24: The first incursion of American B-29 aircraft from the Marian Islands will bomb the civilian population in Tokyo.

December

• December 1st: in Mexico the construction of the Monumental Plaza de toros Mexico begins.
• 7 December: In Japan there is a strong earthquake of 8.1 and a tsunami that leaves 3,300 dead.
• December 22: In Vietnam, Vo Nguyen Giap created the Vietnamese People's Army.
• 22 December: French General Charles de Gaulle enters Paris.
• 29 December: In the framework of the Second World War the Mexican Senate authorizes the President of the Republic to send troops overseas, deciding the Government of Mexico to participate in the liberation of the Philippines, due to the historical and cultural ties between the two nations.

Births

January

• 1 January: Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir, Sudanese military and political.
• January 1: Eloy de la Iglesia, Cineasta español (f. 2006).
• January 2: Jorge Cao, actor colombo-cubano.
• January 3: Raewyn Connell, Australian sociologist.
• January 4: Xabier Albistur, Spanish politician.
• January 6: Rolf M. Zinkernagel, Swiss immunopathologist, nobel medical prize in 1996.
• January 9: Hugo Moyano, Argentinean union leader.
• January 9: Jimmy Page, British guitarist.
• January 10: Francis Wayne Sinatra Barbato (Frank Sinatra Jr.), "Cantante, actor, director and composer". [f. 2016]. Son of the Song and actor Frank Sinatra.
• January 11: York Höller, German composer.
• January 12: Carlos Villagrán, Mexican comic actor (Quico).
• January 15: Syed Hamid Albar, a Malaysian politician.
• January 15: Carlos Barbosa Romero, Colombian actor.
• January 17: Concha Cuetos, Spanish actress.
• 17 January: Françoise Hardy, singer and French actress.
• 17 January: Beatriz Lockhart, pianist and Uruguayan composer (f. 2015).
• January 19: Thom Mayne, American architect.
• January 20: José Luis Garci, Spanish filmmaker.
• January 22: Angela Winkler, German actress.
• January 23: Rutger Hauer, Dutch film actor (f. 2019).
• January 25: Tōru Emori, seiyū and Japanese actor.
• 

  Nelson Henríquez.
  January 27: Nelson Henríquez, Venezuelan singer (f. 2014).
• January 29: Susana Giménez, actress and conductor of Argentine television.

February

• February 1: Beba Granados, actress and vedette argentina.
• February 1st: Liliana Grinfeld, an Argentine cardio surgeon.
• February 1st: Dick Snyder, American basketball player.
• February 1: Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, French writer and musical critic.
• February 5: Yousuke Akimoto, Japanese seiyu.
• February 13, Stockard Channing, American actress.
• February 15: Mick Avory, British musician, of the band The Kinks.
• February 15: «Florinda Donner» (Regina Thal), an anthropologist and Venezuelan guru, a disciple of Carlos Castañeda (f. 1998).
• February 21: Zulma Faiad, Argentine actress.
• February 22: Jonathan Demme, American filmmaker.
• February 22: Gerald Martin, British biographer and literary critic of Latin American fiction.
• February 22: Tom Okker, Dutch tennis player.

March

• March 2: Alejandro Aura, writer, essayist, Mexican poet and playwright (f. 2008).
• March 6: Luis González de Alba, writer, essayist and Mexican politician (f. 2016).
• March 7: Townes Van Zandt, American singer-songwriter (f. 1997).
• March 9: Jimmy Salcedo, actor, singer, presenter and animator of Colombian television (f. 1992).
• March 10: Alberto López Oliva, footballer and Guatemalan coach.
• March 23: Michael Nyman, pianist, musicologist and British composer.
• March 24: R. Lee Ermey, retired sergeant and American actor (f. 2018).
• March 24: Alonso Puerta, Spanish politician.
• March 24: Vojislav Koštunica, Serbian Prime Minister.
• March 26: Diana Ross, American singer and actress.
• March 27: Enrique Barón Crespo, Spanish politician.
• March 27: Miguel Enríquez, a Chilean doctor and revolutionary.

April

• April 4: Craig T. Nelson, American actor.
• April 5: Andreas Faber-Kaiser, ufologist and Catalan writer.
• April 8: Christoph Hein, German writer and playwright.
• April 8: Odd Nerdrum, Norwegian painter.
• April 8: Joey D. Vieira, American film and television actor.
• April 8: Julissa, Mexican actress.
• April 13: Alfredo Peña, Venezuelan politician and journalist.
• April 13: Joana Brito, Mexican actress.
• April 17: Alfredo Gutiérrez, singer, composer and Colombian accordionist.
• April 30: Selva Alemán, Argentine actress.
• April 30: Felix de Azúa, Spanish poet and novelist.
• April 30: Jill Clayburgh, American actress (f. 2010).

May

• 2 May: Gloria Lizárraga of Capriles, Venezuelan politics (f. 2021)
• 4 May: Mónica Bleibtreu, actress, screenwriter and Austrian teacher (f. 2009).
• May 4th: Russi Taylor, American voice actress (f. 2019).
• May 8: Gary Glitter, British singer and composer.
• May 8: Bill Legend, British drummer, T. Rex band.
• May 14: Tamara Dobson, American actress and model (f. 2006).
• May 14: George Lucas, American filmmaker.
• May 16: Billy Cobham, drummer, American musician and composer of Panamanian origin.
• May 18: W. G. Sebald, German writer (f. 2001).
• May 18: Albert Hammond, British singer and musician.
• May 20: Joe Cocker, British singer (f. 2014).
• May 21: Mary Robinson, Irish jurist and politics.
• May 23: Lena Nyman, Swedish actress (f. 2011).
• May 24: Patti Labelle, American singer.
• May 28: Fernando Hernández Ramírez, a Costa Rican footballer (f. 1997).

June

• June 5: Josep Maria Berenguer, editor of comics (f. 2012).
• June 6: Josep Maria Bachs, Spanish radio and television presenter (f. 2014).
• June 9: Mochín Marafioti, producer and Argentine driver (f. 1997).
• June 10: Yona Wallach, Israeli poet (f. 1985).
• June 15: Pastor López, singer and producer, colombo-venezolano (f. 2019).

Salvador Sánchez Cerén

• June 18: Salvador Sánchez Cerén, Salvadoran politician and revolutionary, president of his country.
• June 24: Jeff Beck, British musician.
• July 12: Federico Hernández Denton, Puerto Rican jurist.

July

• July 11: Paolo Flores d'Arcais, Italian philosopher.
• July 13: Ernö Rubik, architect, designer and Hungarian inventor.
• July 13: Raúl Moneta, exbanquero and businessman of Argentina (f. 2019).
• July 21: Tony Scott, British director and producer (f. 2012).
• July 23: Angelina Peláez, Mexican actress.
• July 24: Cristina Almeida, Spanish lawyer and politician.
• July 27: Franco Mescolini, an Italian actor (f. 2017).
• July 31: Geraldine Chaplin, American actress.
• July 31: Robert C. Merton, American economist, award in Economics in memory of Alfred Nobel in 1997.

August

• August 3: Nino Bravo, Spanish singer (f. 1973).
• August 4: Richard Belzer, American actor.
• August 7: John Glover, American actor.
• August 8: Mugihito, Japanese seiyū.
• August 13: Manuel Ruiz de Lopera, Spanish entrepreneur.
• August 15: Reiko Suzuki, Japanese voice actress.
• August 16: Soledad Becerril, Spanish politics.
• August 18: Alberto Martín, Argentine actor.
• August 18: Helena Rojo, Mexican actress.
• August 20: José Wilker, Brazilian actor (f. 2014).
• August 21: Peter Weir, Australian filmmaker.
• August 22: Peter Hofmann, German tenor (f. 2010).
• August 24: Christine Chubbuck, American journalist (f. 1974).
• August 24: Rocky Johnson, American professional fighter (f. 2020).

September

• September 5: Dario Bellezza, Italian poet, writer and theatrical author (f. 1996).
• September 7: Bora Milutinović, ex-futbolist and Serbian coach.
• September 11: Javier Pérez Royo, Spanish jurist.
• September 12: Barry White, American artist (f. 2003).
• September 13: Jacqueline Bisset, British actress.
• 13 September: Silvia Bleichmar, psychoanalyst and writer of Argentina (f. 2007).
• September 13: Peter Cetera, American singer.
• September 17: Reinhold Messner, Italian alpineist.
• September 18: Rocío Jurado singer and Spanish actress (f. 2006).
• September 25: Michael Douglas, American actor and producer.
• September 25: Lucia Topolansky, Uruguayan politician and former guerrilla, wife of President Pepe Mujica.
• September 27: Angelica Maria, Mexican actress.
• September 30: Sascha Alexander, German film director and producer.
• September 30: János Rolla, director of Hungarian orchestra and violinist.

October

• 4 October: Rocío Dúrcal, actress and Spanish singer (f. 2006).
• October 5: María Azambuya, Uruguayan actress and theatre director (f. 2011).
• October 11: Javier Sáenz de Cosculluela, Spanish politician.
• October 15: David Trimble, British politician.
• October 20: Leopoldo López Gil, Venezuelan businessman and politician.
• October 21: Delfi Galbiati, Uruguayan theatre actor (f. 2015).
• October 29: Robbie Van Leeuwen, guitarist of the group Shocking Blue.

November

• November 1st: The Brain (Bobby Heenan), a professional free struggle manager.
• 1 November: Rafik Hariri, Lebanese politician.
• November 1st: Sergio Markarián, Uruguayan soccer coach.
• 5 November: Brian Tracy, motivational speaker, sales writer and personal development.
• 7 November: Luigi Riva, Italian footballer.
• November 10: Tim Rice, British writer.
• 11 November: Vicky, Colombian singer and composer (f. 2017).
• November 17: Danny DeVito, American actor.
• November 17: Arturo Puig, Argentine actor.
• November 19: Agní Baltsa, Greek mezzosoprano.
• November 24: Víctor Manuel Mora, Colombian athlete.
• November 26: Roberto Fontanarrosa, writer and Argentine graphic humorist (f. 2007).

December

• 1 December: Tahar Ben Jelloun, writer, in French, Moroccan.
• December 1st: John Densmore, American drummer, The Doors band.
• 4 December: José Luis Torregrosa, singer, musician and Spanish composer (f. 2007).
• December 4: Dennis Wilson, American musician, from the band The Beach Boys (f. 1983).
• December 5: Roy Sáenz, soccer player and Costa Rican coach.
• December 12: Adolfo Polack, Peruvian musician.
• December 12: Diana Bracho, Mexican actress.
• December 16: Efraín Aguilar, Peruvian actor, director and writer.
• December 19: María Martha Serra Lima, Argentine singer and actress.
• December 28: Kary Banks Mullis, American biochemist, nobel chemistry award in 1993.
• December 28: Edgar Vivar, Mexican actor.

Unknown dates

• Carlos Castro, Salvadoran writer.
• Maynard Kong, Peruvian mathematician, computer and professor (f. 2013).
• Teresa de Pedro, Spanish physics, expert in robotics and precursor of artificial intelligence programs.
• Empar Pineda, a Spanish feminist.
• Bernardo Romero Pereiro, actor, director and screenwriter of Colombian television (f. 2005).

Deaths

January

• January 9: Johanna Beyer, American nationalized German composer and pianist (n. 1888).
• 11 January: Galeazzo Ciano, Italian diplomat (n. 1903).
• January 20: Fermín Zanón Cervera, Spanish naturalist (n. 1875).
• January 23: Sarah Aaronsohn, Israeli activist and spy (n. 1890).
• January 23: Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter (n. 1863).

February

• 1 February: Piet Mondrian, Dutch painter (n. 1872).
• February 6: Luigi Trinchero, Italian sculptor (n. 1862).

March

• March 5: Max Jacob, a French writer and painter (n. 1876).
• March 31: Mischa Hillesum, an early Dutch Jewish pianist, the brother of writer Etty Hillesum (1914-1943); gassed in Auschwitz (n. 1920).

April

• April 15: Motobu Chōki, Japanese karateka (n. 1870).
• April 8: Maria Bard, German actress, suicide due to Nazism (n. 1900).

May

• 21 May: Rene Daumal, a French writer (n. 1908).

June

• June 5: Ricardo Zandonai, Italian composer (n. 1883).
• June 5: Józef Beck, Polish politician (n. 1894).

July

• July 10: Robert Abshagen, German communist and fighter of the German Resistance to Nazism (n. 1911).
• July 20: Pedro Núñez Granés, military engineer and Spanish urbanist (n. 1859).
• 21 July: Claus von Stauffenberg, German military (n. 1907).
• 26 July: Reza Pahlaví (n. 1877), shah of Iran, banished in South Africa.
• July 30: Nikolai Nikolaevich Polikarpov, Soviet aeronautical engineer (n. 1892).
• July 31: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French writer and pilot (n. 1900).

August

• August 7: Agustín Pío Barrios, also known as "Nitsuga Mangoré" classical guitarist and Paraguayan composer of Guaraní origin (n. 1885).
• August 8: Robert Bernardis, U.S. Lieutenant Colonel arrested by the Gestapo and executed (n. 1908).
• August 12: Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Senior Brother of United States President John F. Kennedy (n. 1915).
• August 26: Adam von Trott zu Solz, a German politician and diplomat (n. 1909).

September

• September 7: Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes, Cuban composer and writer (n. 1874).
• September 28: Petr Ginz, a Jewish writer, died in the gas chamber.

October

• 13 October: Giovanni Fornasini, an Italian priest killed by the Nazis (n. 1915).
• 14 October: Erwin Rommel, German military (n. 1891).
• October 23: Charles Glover Barkla, British physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1917 (n. 1877).
• October 26: Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, Japanese aviator.

November

• 5 November: Alexis Carrel, biologist, doctor and French writer, Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1912 (n. 1873).
• 7 November: Hannah Szenes, a member of the Jewish resistance against Nazism (n. 1921).
• 15 November: the Petiso Orejudo (Cayetano Santos Godino), Argentine serial killer (n. 1896).
• November 18: Enzo Sereni, a Jewish Italian writer and a Zionist-socialist activist murdered by the Nazis (n. 1905).

December

• December 13: Lupe Vélez was a film actress, a dancer and a Mexican vedette (n. 1908).
• 13 December: Vasily Kandinsky, Russian painter (n. 1866).
• December 15: Glenn Miller, American musician (n. 1904).
• December 30: Romain Rolland, French writer, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1915 (n. 1866).

Unknown date

• John Yu Shuinling, Chinese diplomat and photographer (n. 1874).

Art and literature

• January 6: Spanish writer Carmen Laforet (1921-2004) gets the Nadal award for her novel Nothing..
• Publication of The edge of the razorby the British novelist William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965).
• The painter Henri Matisse draws his work Drawing of women.
• Publishing the book of poems Sons of wrathof the Spanish writer Dámaso Alonso (1898-1990).
• Saul Bellow: Dangling Man.
• jorg: Fictions.
• Agatha Christie: The Revenge of Nofret, Towards zero; Far from you this spring (under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott).
• Pär Lagerkvist: The dwarf.
• William Somerset Maugham: The Razor's Edge.
• Bertolt Brecht: The Caucasian chalk circle.
• Jean Anouilh: Antigone.
• Tennessee Williams: The Crystal Zoo.
• Jean-Paul Sartre: Locked door.
• Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer: Dialectic of Illustration.
• Isaac Asimov: Catch that hare.

Science and technology

• The first artificial kidney is created in the Netherlands.
• In London (United Kingdom) the first German missile V1, launched by the Nazis from Germany falls.
• In Moscow the Academy of Medical Sciences of the Soviet Union was founded.

Music

• 13 February: Stokowski runs the orchestra at the premiere of the No. 4 of the American composer George Antheil (1900-1959), which rescues this composer of anonymity.

Cinema

• To the beat of the heart (Music for millons)Henry Koster.
• Arsenic and Old LaceFrank Capra.
• Meet Me in St. LouisVincente Minnelli.
• The lady of the cameliasGabriel Soria.
• Days of glory (Days of Glory)Jacques Tourneur.
• Strange at night (Strangers in the night)Anthony Mann.
• The Ghost of Canterville (The Canterville Ghost)Jules Dassin.
• History of a Detective (Murder, My Sweet)Edward Dmytryk.
• Wild youth (Youth Runs Wild)Mark Robson's.
• The most beautifulAkira Kurosawa.
• Laura. (Laura)Otto Preminger.
• Light in the soul (Christmas Holiday)Robert Siodmak.
• Gaslight (Gaslight)George Cukor.
• Mademoiselle FifiRobert Wise.
• Models (Cover girl)Charles Vidor.
• LifeboatAlfred Hitchcock.
• Crucial nightJuly of Flechner.
• Night in the soul (Experiment Perilous)Jacques Torneur.
• Passage to Marseille (Passage to Marseille)Michael Curtiz.
• Double IndemnityBilly Wilder.
• The Pirate and the Lady (Frenchman's creek)Victor Young.
• Mrs. Parkington (Mrs. Parkington)Tay Garnett.
• Following my path / The Good Shepherd (Going my way)Leo McCarey.
• Suspect. (The Suspect)Robert Siodmak.
• Having and not having (To have and have not)Howard Hawks.
• The tower of the seven humpbacks (The tower of the seven hunchbacks)Edgar Neville.
• Thirty seconds on Tokyo (Thirty seconds over Tokyo)Mervyn LeRoy.
• A heart in danger (None But the Lonely Heart)Clifford Odets.
• A Canterbury Tale (A Canterbury Tale)Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
• Life rules (This Happy Breed)David Lean.
• House of FrankensteinErle C. Kenton.
• The return of the vampireLew Landers.
• The three gentlemenNorman Ferguson.

Television

Nobel laureates

• Physics: Isidor Isaac Rabi.
• Chemistry: Otto Hahn.
• Medicine: Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Spencer Gasser.
• Literature: Johannes Vilhelm Jensen.
• Peace: International Committee of the Red Cross.