Dashed left edge = started before November 1944 ·
Dashed right edge = ongoing beyond November 1944
Events in November 1944 8
1866 – 1944Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866-1944)Died 25 November 1944, aged 78American federal judge who became the first Commissioner of Baseball in 1920. He banned eight Chicago White Sox players for life after the Black Sox scandal. He ruled the sport with near-absolute authority until his death.
1882 – 1944Arthur Eddington (1882-1944)Died 22 November 1944, aged 61English astrophysicist who led the 1919 eclipse expedition that confirmed Einstein's prediction that gravity bends light. He did pioneering work on the internal structure of stars. He also wrote popular books on relativity and cosmology.
1889 – 1944Thomas Midgley JrTwo solutions, two disastersThomas Midgley solved two real engineering problems brilliantly. Engine knock was limiting compression ratios, so he found tetraethyl lead. Refrigerators were poisoning families with ammonia and methyl chloride, so he found Freon. Both worked perfectly, and between them they put lead into the bloodstream of most of the twentieth century and opened a hole in the ozone layer. The historian J. R. McNeill wrote that he had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in the planet's history. He held over a hundred patents and won every major prize American chemistry could give him.
1921 – 1944Hannah Szenes (1921-1944)Died 7 November 1944, aged 23Hungarian-born Jewish poet who emigrated to Palestine and joined British SOE as a parachutist. She was captured after crossing into Hungary on a mission to help Jews facing deportation. She was executed by firing squad in Budapest and is a national heroine in Israel.
1944Battle of PeleliuCostly US assault in the Palau IslandsUS Marines and Army troops fought for over two months to take the small coral island of Peleliu. Japanese defenders fought from fortified caves instead of making mass charges, and US casualties were very high. The battle is still debated because the island had little strategic value.
1944Thomas Midgley Jr dies at Worthington, OhioCaught in his own deviceMidgley is found dead at fifty-five, entangled in the lifting apparatus he had built. The coroner records it as suicide, though it is very widely retold as an accident, and the truth is not settled. It is the third time in his life that something he designed to solve a problem turned on the person using it.
1944Roosevelt elected to fourth termFranklin D. Roosevelt defeats Thomas DeweyFranklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term as President of the United States, with Harry S. Truman as his running mate. He carried 36 of the 48 states. Roosevelt died less than three months into the new term.
1944Tirpitz sunkRAF Lancasters destroy Germany's last great battleshipRAF Lancaster bombers hit the battleship Tirpitz with Tallboy bombs at her anchorage near Tromsø. She capsized, killing around 1,000 crew members. Her presence in Norway had tied down Allied naval forces for years.