On this day
Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Moscow repts continued Ger counterattacks, Warsaw; Koneff troops complete 3 Ger divs trap; map
Chicago school children present $5,800 in pennies for cruiser Chicago welfare fund
Rear Adm Kimmel in lr to Sen Truman assails latter for alleged false statements in magazine article; scores Roberts rept
B-29s in day-and-night attack strike Yawata indus plants on Kyushu; 1st US daylight bombing of Japan since Doolittle raid; US airmen encounter Jap fighter planes for 1st time; rept heaviest flak barrage so far; 20th AAF communique announces 4 B-29s lost in daylight attack; Jap losses noted; Tokyo radio first with raid rept; claims 25 US planes downed; repts light damage to ground installations; map
1944Perry Christie, Bahamian politician, third Prime Minister of the Bahamas[†]
Perry Gladstone Christie PC, MP is a Bahamian former politician who served as prime minister of the Bahamas from 2002 to 2007 and from 2012 to 2017. He is the second longest-serving Bahamian elected parliamentarian, representing the Centreville constituency from 1977 to 2017. He is also a former athlete. His Progressive Liberal Party is the oldest Bahamian political party, holding solid majorities in the Bahamian Parliament several times in its long history.
1944Peter Weir, Australian director, producer, and screenwriter[†]
Peter Lindsay Weir is a retired Australian film director. He is known for directing films crossing various genres over forty years with films such as Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Gallipoli (1981), The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Witness (1985), Dead Poets Society (1989), Fearless (1993), The Truman Show (1998), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), and The Way Back (2010). He has received six Academy Award nominations. In 2022, he was awarded the Academy Honorary Award for his lifetime achievement career. In 2024, he received an honorary life-time achievement award at the Venice Film Festival.
1944Dumbarton Oaks Conference, prelude to the United Nations, begins.[†]
The Dumbarton Oaks Conference, or, more formally, the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization, was an international conference at which proposals for the establishment of a "general international organization", which was to become the United Nations, were formulated and negotiated. The conference was led by the Four Policemen – the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China. It was held at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., from August 21, 1944, to October 7, 1944.
1944World War II: Canadian and Polish units capture the strategically important town of Falaise, Calvados, France.[†]
Operation Tractable was the final attack conducted by Canadian and Polish troops, supported by a British tank brigade, during the Battle of Normandy during World War II. The operation was to capture the tactically important French town of Falaise and then the smaller towns of Trun and Chambois. This operation was undertaken by the First Canadian Army with the 1st Polish Armoured Division and a British armoured brigade against Army Group B of the Westheer in what became the largest encirclement on the Western Front during the Second World War. Despite a slow start and limited gains north of Falaise, novel tactics by the 1st Polish Armoured Division during the drive for Chambois enabled the Falaise Gap to be partially closed by 19 August 1944, trapping about 150,000 German soldiers in the Falaise Pocket.