July 21, 1944

1944John Atta Mills, Ghanaian lawyer and politician, 3rd President of Ghana (died 2012)^[†]

John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills was a Ghanaian politician and legal scholar who served as the 11th president of Ghana from 2009 until his death in 2012. He was inaugurated on 7 January 2009, having defeated the governing party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2008 Ghanaian presidential election. He was previously the third vice president from 1997 to 2001 under President Jerry Rawlings, and he contested unsuccessfully in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections as the candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). He was the first Ghanaian head of state to die in office.

1944Buchi Emecheta, Nigerian author and academic (died 2017)^[†]

Buchi Emecheta was a Nigerian writer who was the author of novels, plays, autobiography, and children's books. She first received notable critical attention for her 1974 novel, Second Class Citizen. Her other books include The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Emecheta has been characterized as "the first successful black woman novelist living in Britain after 1948".

1944World War II: Battle of Guam: American troops land on Guam, starting a battle that will end on August 10.^[†]

World War II or the Second World War was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

1944World War II: Claus von Stauffenberg and four fellow conspirators are executed for the July 20 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.^[†]

Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was a German army officer who is best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair, part of Operation Valkyrie, a plan that would have seen the arrest of Nazi leadership in the wake of Hitler's death and an earlier end to World War II.