1944

World Events

• June 6: Allies land in Normandy, France and drive back the Germans.
• August 25: Paris is liberated by the Allied forces.
• December 16: Battle of the Bulge; this is the last major German offensive of WWII.

• Joseph P. Kennedy, brother of future president John Kennedy, dies in a plane crash while attacking German submarines. Glenn Miller, band leader, dies over the English Channel in a separate mission.
• Anne Frank and her family are discovered while hiding from the Nazis. They are taken to concentration camps. Later, Anne Frank's teen-age diary will become one of the largest selling books of all time.

San Diego History

• Navy begins emergency construction of aqueduct to bring Colorado River water to San Diego. The San Diego County Water Authority is formed.
• Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets and the U.S. Armyís 393rd Heavy Bombardment Squadron begin making secret tests; they drop dummies of a new bomb into the Salton Sea. On August 6, 1945, Tibbets and his crew would drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

Arts

• Designer Raymond Loewy founds the American Society of Industrial Design.
• Walter Herdeg publishes the first issue of Graphis magazine, which would become an important resource for international designers.
• George Orwell publishes Animal Farm.

American Life

• Teenagers find a new magazine on the news stands for them, Seventeen.
• 30,000 fans riot at New York's Paramount Theater when Frank Sinatra performs.