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1944
• On 4 June, Rome is liberated by Allied troops. • On 6 June, the D-Day invasion of German-occupied France by Allied troops begins. • On 20 July, a plot by German officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler fails. Eventually about 5,000 people are executed for complicity. • On 22 July, an international conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to discuss the economics of the postwar world, results in the formation of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). • From 17 to 25 October, during the battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines – the greatest naval battle in history – US ships destroy the remaining Japanese fleet. On the last day, the Japanese employ kamikazes – bomb- carrying aircraft flown by suicide pilots. • On 25 August, Paris is liberated by Allied troops. General Charles de Gaulle enters the city. • On 7 November, Franklin Roosevelt wins a fourth term as US president – the longest run of office for any American president. • British actor Laurence Olivier makes a patriotic film version of William Shakespeare's Henry V. • French film-maker Marcel Carne makes Les enfants du paradis (The Children of Paradise), a bittersweet historical film. |
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