1944: The Year in People

The Silent Generation · Year of the Monkey 🐒 · Born in 1944 turn 82 in 2026

The year in numbers

Gas, per gallon

$0.21

Median home

$3,400

Minimum wage

$0.30/hr

US population

2.37B

US president

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Top song

"Swinging on a Star" — Bing Crosby

Top film

Going My Way

Best Picture

Going My Way

In the news: D-Day: Allied forces land at Normandy

What happened in 1944

1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1944th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 944th year of the 2nd millennium, the 44th year of the 20th century, and the 5th year of the 1940s decade.

Summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Born in 1944

212 people in our data · most viewed first

Danny DeVito

b. 1944 · November 17

American actor

John Rhys-Davies

b. 1944 · May 5

Welsh actor

Craig T. Nelson

b. 1944 · April 4

American actor

Dennis Wilson

1944–1983 · December 4

American musician

Angela Davis

b. 1944 · January 26

American academic and political activist

Dennis Farina

1944–2013 · February 29

American actor

Denny Laine

1944–2023 · October 29

English rock musician

Bernard Hill

1944–2024 · December 17

English actor

Barry White

1944–2003 · September 12

American singer

Boz Scaggs

b. 1944 · June 8

American singer, songwriter and guitarist

Gladys Knight

b. 1944 · May 28

American singer

Ben Stein

b. 1944 · November 25

American writer and commentator

Camille Cosby

b. 1944 · March 20

American writer and television producer

Carl Bernstein

b. 1944 · February 14

American journalist

Bobby Heenan

1944–2017 · November 1

American wrestling commentator and manager

Alice Walker

b. 1944 · February 9

American author and activist

Dennis Franz

b. 1944 · October 28

American actor

Bobby Womack

1944–2014 · March 4

American singer-songwriter

Frances de la Tour

b. 1944 · July 30

English actress

Angus King

b. 1944 · March 31

American lawyer and politician

Bill Ayers

b. 1944 · December 26

American professor and activist

Ban Ki-moon

b. 1944 · June 13

UN Secretary-General from 2007 to 2016

Bonnie Franklin

1944–2013 · January 6

American actress

Anne Robinson

b. 1944 · September 26

English television presenter and journalist

Died in 1944

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry1900–1944 · French writer and aviator
William James Sidis1898–1944 · American mathematician, polyglot, and child prodigy
Aimee Semple McPherson1890–1944 · Canadian-American celebrity evangelist
Al Smith1873–1944 · American politician
Ernst Thälmann1886–1944 · German communist politician
Edwin Lutyens1869–1944 · English architect
Erwin von Witzleben1881–1944 · Field Marshal of Nazi Germany
Dadasaheb Phalke1870–1944 · Indian film producer, director and screenwriter
Amy Beach1867–1944 · American composer and pianist
Arthur Eddington1882–1944 · British astrophysicist
Abbas II of Egypt1874–1944 · Khedive of Egypt and Sudan from 1892 to 1914
Frank Knox1874–1944 · 47th Secretary of the Navy of the United States