Historical Events in March 1944

Mar 2 16th Academy Awards: "Casablanca", Jennifer Jones & Paul Lukas win

Mar 3 1st performance of corporal Samuel Barber's 2nd Symphony

Mar 4 1st US bombing of Berlin
Mar 4 Anti-Germany strikes in North Italy
Mar 5 1st performance of Walter Piston's 2nd Symphony by the National Symphony, in Washington, D.C.
Mar 6 USAAF begins daylight bombing of Berlin
Mar 7 Japan begins offensive in Burma
Mar 8 US resumes bombing Berlin
Mar 10 U-575 sinks British corvette HMS Asphodel in the Atlantic Ocean killing 92 of the 97 men aboard
Mar 11 Dutch resistance fighter Joop Westerweel arrested
Mar 13 USSR recognizes Italian government of Pietro Badoglio
Mar 15 Italian town of Cassino destroyed by Allied bombing
Mar 16 French Vichy Internal minister Pierre Pucheu sentenced to death for treason

Mar 17 Mount Vesuvius in Italy erupts after months of volcanic unrest, destroying several towns near the volcano
Mar 18 Nazi Germany occupies Hungary
Mar 19 Tippett's oratorium "Child of Our Time" premieres in London
Mar 20 2,500 women trample guards and floorwalkers to purchase 1,500 alarm clocks announced for sale in a Chicago Illinois department store
Mar 20 Bus falls off bridge into Passaic River NJ, killing 16

Mar 21 General Eisenhower postpones invasion of the south of France until after Normandy

Mar 22 American movie star Jimmy Stewart flies his 12th combat mission, leading the 2nd Bomb Wing in an attack on Berlin

Mar 23 Italian resistance group bombs occupying German police at Via Rasella, Rome; killing 33 and wounding 110 of the 156 man force; retaliation kills 335 civilians
Mar 24 76 Allied officers escape Stalag Luft 3 (Great Escape)
Mar 24 811 British bombers attack Berlin
Mar 24 In occupied Rome, Nazis execute 335 civilians in retaliation for the previous day's Via Rassela bombing that killed 33 Germans
Mar 24 RAF rear gunner Nicholas Alkemade survives a jump from his Lancaster bomber 18,000 feet over Germany without a parachute; his fall broken by pine trees and soft snow, suffers only a sprained leg
Mar 25 Germany troop executes 335 residents of Rome
Mar 26 705 British bombers attack Essen, Germany
Mar 27 1,000 Jews leave Drancy, France, for Auschwitz concentration camp
Mar 27 2,000 Jews are murdered in Kaunas Lithuania
Mar 27 40 Jewish policemen in Riga, Latvia, ghetto are shot by the Gestapo
Mar 27 Children's Aktion-Nazis collect all the Jewish children of Lovno
Mar 28 6th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Utah defeats Dartmouth, 42-40; Utes' first title; small forward Arnie Ferrin is named tournament MOP
Mar 28 Astrid Lindgren sprains ankle & begins writing "Pippi Longstocking"
Mar 30 781 British bombers attack Nuremberg
Mar 31 Hungary orders all Jews to wear yellow stars