February 1944 in History

Events in History

Feb 4 Jean Anouilh's play "Antigone" premieres in Paris

Feb 4 US 7th Infantry Division captures Kwajalein, in the Pacific
Feb 5 358 RAF bombers attack Stettin
Feb 7 Germans launch counteroffensive at Anzio, Italy
Feb 8 1st African American reporter accredited to White House, Harry McAlpin
Feb 8 U-762 sunk off Ireland
Feb 9 U-734/U-238 sunk off Ireland
Feb 10 Belgian resistance fighter and author Kamiel van Baelen arrested
Feb 10 U-666/U-545/U-283 sink off Ireland
Feb 11 German troops reconquer Aprilia, Italy
Feb 11 U-424 sunk off Ireland
Feb 12 Wendell Wilkie enters the race to be the Republican nominee for US President
Feb 14 Anti-Japanese revolt on Java
Feb 15 891 British bombers attack Berlin in the largest raid by the RAF against the city
Feb 15 Allies begin attack on Axis held Monte Cassino monastery, Italy

Feb 17 Battle of Eniwetok begins with US forces landing on Canna and Camelia islets in the Pacific

Feb 17 Operation Hailstone: US begins night bombing of Truk island in the Pacific
Feb 18 Maastricht resistance fighter JAJ Janssen arrested
Feb 19 823 British bombers attack Berlin
Feb 19 U-264 sinks off Ireland
Feb 20 Battle of Eniwetok: US forces take Enewetak Atoll at the cost of 37 Americans killed or missing and 94 wounded, Japanese losses were 800 dead and 23 prisoners
Feb 20 World War II: The "Big Week" began with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers
Feb 22 World War II: US Army Air Forces accidentally bomb Dutch town of Nijmegen, around 800 civilians die
Feb 23 Battle of Eniwetok ends as US forces complete the capture of Parry Island from the Japanese 1st Amphibious Brigade
Feb 23 Forced deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people to Central Asia.

Feb 24 Minister of War Juan Perón leads a coup in Argentina

Feb 25 US 1st Army completes invasion plan
Feb 26 1st female US navy captain, Sue Dauser of nurse corps, appointed
Feb 28 Arrests of the ten-Boom family in Nazi occupied Netherlands (Haarlem) through a Dutch collaborator on charges of hiding Jews
Feb 29 5 leaders of Indonesia Communist Party sentenced to death

Feb 29 Karol Wojtyla, future Pope John Paul II, is run down and injured by a Nazi truck in Krakow

Feb 1 Mike Enzi, American accountant, and politician (US Senator from Wyoming (R), 1997-2021), born in Bremerton, Washington (d. 2021)
Feb 3 C Thomas "Tom" Gallagher, American Republican politician, financier, and insurance agent, born in Wilmington, Delaware
Feb 3 Stephen Ross, American economist (arbitrage pricing theory), born in Boston, Massachusetts, (d. 2017)
Feb 4 Daniel Mica, American politician (Rep-D-Florida, 1979-89), born in Binghamton, New York
Feb 4 El Anatsui, Ghanaian Sculptor (Bottle-top installations), born in Anyako, Ghana
Feb 6 Christine Boutin, French politician, born in Levroux, France
Feb 7 Berend baron van Voorst tot Voorst, Dutch foreign state sect (CDA)
Feb 7 Michael A. Andrews, American politician (Rep-D-TX, 1983-95), born in Houston, Texas
Feb 8 Jiří Zídek Sr., Czech basketball center (considered best Czech player ever; FIBA European All-Star 1966, 67; USK Praha) and coach (USK Praha, Sparta Praha), born in Prague, Czech Republic (d. 2022)
Feb 8 Sebastião Salgado, Brazilian documentary photographer

Feb 9 American novelist (The Color Purple, Meridian), born in Putnam County, Georgia

Feb 9 Derryn Hinch, Australian media personality
Feb 10 Frank Keating, American politician
Feb 11 Buddhadev Dasgupta, director (Charachar, Grihajuddha)
Feb 11 Michael G. Oxley, American politician (Rep-R-OH, 1981-2007), born in Findlay, Ohio (d. 2016)
Feb 12 Desmond Nuttall, English educator
Feb 12 Jackie Torrence, story teller/artist

Feb 14 American investigative reporter who covered Watergate for the Washington Post, born in Washington, D. C.

Feb 15 Aleksandr Serebrov, Soviet cosmonaut (Soyuz T-7, T-8, TM-8, TM-17), born in Moscow, USSR (d. 2013)
Feb 15 Tineke Netelenbos, Dutch director and politician (PvdA), born in Wormerveer, Holland
Feb 16 António Mascarenhas Monteiro, 2nd President of Cape Verde
Feb 17 Bernie Grant, British politician (Labour), born in Georgetown, British Guiana (d. 2000)
Feb 20 Robert de Cotret, French Canadian politician (d. 1999)
Feb 20 Roger Knapman, British MP
Feb 21 Herman de Coninck, Flemish writer and poet (Impossible Work)
Feb 22 Robert Kardashian, American lawyer, born in Los Angeles, California (d. 2003)
Feb 23 Bernard Cornwell, English historical novelist
Feb 23 James Cousins, British MP
Feb 23 John Sandford, American novelist
Feb 27 Roger Scruton, British philosopher, born in Buslingthorpe, United Kingdom
Feb 29 Ene Ergma, Estonian politician
Feb 29 Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, Italian illustrator

Feb 1 Dutch abstract painter (Broadway Boogie Woogie, Composition with Red Blue and Yellow) and art theoretician, dies of pneumonia at 71

Feb 4 Arsen Kotsoyev, Russian writer, dies at 72
Feb 5 Robert E. Park, American sociologist (human ecology, marginal man), dies at 79
Feb 10 Eugène Michel Antoniadi, Greek astronomer, a crater on Mars and the Antoniadi crater on the Moon were named in his honor (b. 1870)
Feb 17 Fausto Agnelli, Swiss painter, dies at 64
Feb 22 Kasturba Gandhi, Wife of Mahatma Gandhi, dies at 74