The Movie Timeline - it's like a timeline, but of movies
Movie history events from 1944
Winston Smith born. (1984)
Future Studio 54 owner Steve Rubell born. (54)
Hans and Ingrid Vassman attempt to join their employers, the wealthy Krauzenbergs, as they flee Germany for Palestine. (The Aryan Couple)
Theodore K. Newman is born. (New York City) (Click)
Insurance salesman Walter Neff helps Phyllis Dietrichson kill her husband for the insurance money. (Double Indemnity)
With the Nazis on the run, an entire smelt of gold bars ends up on the bottom of Lake Toplitz. Bar 7194 would be recovered by the British government and, years later, used as bait in a game of golf between a wealthy jeweler and a certain British spy. (Austrian Alps, 60 miles from Salzburg) (Goldfinger)
"Good luck"/"Thank you"... A soldier forgets to speak German, having escaped a prisoner-of-war camp. (The Great Escape)
Hannibal Lecter's sister Mischa falls victim to the Nazis; Hannibal escapes. (Hannibal)
Young Hannibal Lecter and his family flee their castle home due to the onslaught of Russian forces against the Nazis at the end of WWII. After taking refuge at their lodge, Lecter's parents are killed during a fire fight. (Lithuania) (Hannibal Rising)
A group of war profiteers break in to the Lecter family's lodge & hold Hannibal & his sister, Mischa, captive. Mischa would later contract pnuemonia. The profiteers, nearly starved, killed her for food; Hannibal swears vengeance. (Lithuania) (Hannibal Rising)
Marcus Brody's tenure as Dean of the University comes to an end. (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)
Lt Aldo Raine recruits 8 Jewish American soldiers with specific instructions to get him 100 Nazi Scalps each. They soon become known as 'The Basterds' (France) (Inglourious Basterds)
A Japanese mariner writes a note in a bottle. (South of the Tuamotu Archipelago) (King Kong)
King George VI appoints Lionel Logue a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. (1944) (The King's Speech)
During World War II, USA pilot Hank Marlow and Japanese pilot Gunpei Ikari engage in aerial combat and crash-land on Skull Island as a result. The two soldiers fight throughout the unknown terrain and are only stopped when they meet Kong for the first time. Amazed at what they see, the two former enemies learn to become friends as they try to stay alive in the strange land (Skull Island) (Kong: Skull Island)
Mrs Laura Henderson dies, leaving her Windmill Theatre to Vivian Van Damm. (Mrs. Henderson Presents)
The Spanish Civil War comes to an end, and Ofelia escapes the real world of her sadistic army general stepfather by discovering that she might be heir to a magical kingdom. (Spain) (Pan's Labyrinth)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band perform and take a picture together. (Normandy, France) (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
Mr Morrow goes blind, and resultantly every woman he meets hereafter looks like Mae West. (The Tall Guy)
Mikey "Bigs" Sawyer is born. (Newt, Texas) (Texas Chainsaw 3D)
Saddam Husein doesn't finance a trip to this year. (Timecop)
Young Jack Cash dies after a circular saw accident. (Dyess, Arkansas) (Walk the Line)
The briefing at the start mentions that the General they're rescuing is one of the planners of the Second Front. This was Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy in June, 1944. That places the film a few months or so prior to June. They land in a high alpine pasture that is abandoned for the winter, which means it's probably January or February at the latest, if it's 1944 at all. Given that they say a failure could result in 'no second front this year', it's probably early 1944. (Somewhere in Bavaria, Germany. The castle used was in Werfen, Au) (Where Eagles Dare)
A boy is born. Years later, he would become an actor and befriend another man named Withnail. (England) (Withnail & I)
Jenny Fields reveals to her parents who fathered her child, and then leaves. (The World According to Garp)
Robert Balestrero is born. (New York City, New York) (The Wrong Man)
Eric Lensher, imprisoned in a concentration camp with his family, uses his mutant powers for the first time. (Poland) (X-Men)
Charles Xavier realizes that the voices come from other people's heads. (X-Men: Days of Future Past)
Charles Xavier meets another mutant named Raven Darkholme. (Westchester, New York) (X-Men: First Class)
Tuesday 4th January: U.S. aircraft begin dropping supplies to guerrilla forces throughout Western Europe. (Ike: Countdown to D-Day)
Saturday 22nd January: Colonel Juan Peron hosts a benefit concert for victims of the 1944 San Juan earthquake where he meets his future wife, Eva Duarte. (Argentina) (Evita)
Monday 24th January: Ogden Nash reading takes place at the New York Public Library at 2 PM. (New York City, New York) (Kill Your Darlings)
Saturday 29th January: 1st Lieutenant Robert Benson of the 3rd Division of the 45th Infantry dies in the World War II Battle of Cisterna. (Cisterna, Italy) (The Day the Earth Stood Still)
Saturday 5th February: Hans Akkermans is arrested by the Gestapo and makes a deal with them to turn in rich Jewish families to them. (Holland) (Black Book)
Monday 21st February: Hideki Tojo grabs even more power as he takes over as Japanese Army Chief of Staff, a position that gives him direct control of the Japanese military. (Tora! Tora! Tora!)
Thursday 24th February: Maj. Gen. Frank Merrill's guerrilla force, nicknamed "Merrill's Marauders," begin a campaign in northern Burma. (Merrill's Marauders)
Monday 28th February: Hannah Reitsch, the first female test pilot in the world, suggests the creation of the Nazi equivalent of a kamikaze squad of suicide bombers while visiting Adolf Hitler. (Berchtesgaden) (Operation Crossbow)
March: 76 prisoners of war escape from Stalag Luft III. 50 are captured and killed by the Gestapo. (Germany) (The Great Escape)
Saturday 4th March: The U.S. 8th Air Force launches the first American bombing raid against Berlin. (Ike: Countdown to D-Day)
Saturday 4th March: Louis "Lepke" Buchalter is executed. (Sing Sing Prison, New York) (Lepke)
Friday 10th March: Richard Ripley is born. (Out of Sight)
April: The few remaining Jews in the Warsaw ghetto revolt against the Nazis. (Warsaw, Poland) (The Pianist)
April: Over 10,000 murdered Jewish bodies exhumed and subequently burned195. (Schindler's List)
Tuesday 4th April: Daddy Carroll born. (My Own Private Idaho)
May: Fielding Mellish's parents stop beating him. (Bananas)
Sunday 14th May: George Lucas is born. (Modesto, California) (Fall of a Saga)
Tuesday 16th May: Ed Gein kills his brother Henry. The police believe his story that an accident killed him. (Plainfield, Wisconsin) (Hitchcock)
Tuesday 16th May: Machete is born. (Juarez, Mexico) (Machete)
Thursday 25th May: Germany launches Operation Knight's Move, in an attempt to seize Yugoslav communist partisan leader Josep Broz Tito . (Drvar, Yugoslavia) (Ike: Countdown to D-Day)
June: Shosanna, who had escaped Hans Landa in 1941 renames herself Emmanuelle Mimieux and opens a cinema in Paris. (Paris) (Inglourious Basterds)
Sunday 4th June: Enigma machine and coding documents captured from U-505 by U.S. Navy Task Force 22.3. (U-571)
Tuesday 6th June: Forrest Gump is born. (Forrest Gump)
Tuesday 6th June: D-Day. (The Longest Day)
Tuesday 6th June: The Allies begins the largest amphibious invasion against the Third Reich - Operation Overlord, the Normandy Invasion. (Normandy, France) (The Longest Day)
Tuesday 6th June: Private Luke Trimble of the 101st Airborne jumps into Normandy during the early hours. (Normandy, France) (The Majestic)
Tuesday 6th June: Dr Ferreiro and Mercedes visit the guerillas in the hills; Ofelia undertakes the 2nd of her tasks, to break into The Pale Man's lair and place a key in a lock. (Spain) (Pan's Labyrinth)
Tuesday 6th June: Captain John Miller of the US Army lands and leads a breakthrough of the German defenses at Omaha Beach; days later he will be assigned a mission to find a missing paratrooper, Private James Francis Ryan, whose last remaining brother died that morning. (Omaha Beach, Normandy) (Saving Private Ryan)
Tuesday 6th June: Private James Francis Ryan of the 101st Airborne jumps into Normandy during the early hours. (Normandy, France) (Saving Private Ryan)
Tuesday 6th June: Hundreds of soldiers, including Teddy Duchamp's father, storm the beach. (Normandy) (Stand By Me)
Wednesday 7th June: Hitler signs off on the amended Valkyrie, a conspiracy against him put in place by Claus von Stauffenberg. (The Berghof, Germany) (Valkyrie)
Friday 9th June: Luke Trimble is reported missing in action after rescuing various men in his own 101st Airborne Division. (France) (The Majestic)
Monday 12th June: Lt John F. Kennedy receives the Navy (J.F.K.: Reckless Youth)
Tuesday 13th June: Capt. John Miller dies protecting a bridge. (Saving Private Ryan)
Saturday 15th July: Claus von Stauffenberg plants a bomb beneath Hitler's table, but does not detonate since Himmler is not in attendance too. (Germany) (Valkyrie)
Thursday 20th July: Operation Valkyrie, a conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler, fails when a bomb detonates but does not kill him. (Rastenburg, East Prussia) (Valkyrie)
Friday 21st July: Claus von Stauffenberg and his team are executed hastily by General Fromm to cover up Fromm's own part in the attempted coup on Hitler. (Germany) (Valkyrie)
Friday 4th August: Anne Frank captured. (Amsterdam) (The Diary of Anne Frank)
Sunday 6th August: Nicole Young is born. (New York City, New York) (Kick-Ass 2)
Tuesday 8th August: Erwin von Witzleben executed for his part in the assassination attempt on Hitler. (Germany) (Valkyrie)
Sunday 13th August: David Kammerer dies in Riverside Park. (New York City, New York) (Kill Your Darlings)
Tuesday 15th August: Police Chief Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorfq executed for his part in the assassination attempt on Hitler. (Germany) (Valkyrie)
September: Women imprisoned in Plaszow are transferred to Auschwitz. (Schindler's List)
Monday 4th September: General Erich Fellgiebel executed for his part in the assassination attempt on Hitler. (Germany) (Valkyrie)
Sunday 17th September: Operation Market-Garden begins, the Anglo-American operation to take Nijmeagan Bridge. (A Bridge Too Far)
Saturday 23rd September: Hans Akkermans performs an operation on young Max Stein as an emergency before he and his family escape for Belgium. (Holland) (Black Book)
Sunday 24th September: Rachel Stein's hiding-place is bombed, and she escapes to a greenhouse with a local Dutch sailor. (Holland) (Black Book)
Monday 25th September: The Stein family and many other rich Jewish families try to attempt on a boat to Belgium, but are intercepted by a Nazi boat - only Rachel Stein survives. (Holland) (Black Book)
Monday 25th September: Operation Market-Garden ends, the Anglo-American operation to take Nijmeagan Bridge. (A Bridge Too Far)
Monday 25th September: Gordon Gekko is born. (New Brunswick, New Jersey) (Wall Street)
Monday 9th October: The Nazis attempt to open a portal and let out the 7 Gods of Chaos; a baby demon comes through and US soldiers adopt it. (Hellboy)
Thursday 12th October: Lucien Lacombe is arrested as a Nazi collaborator; he is tried by a military court of the Resistance, sentenced to death and executed. (France) (Lacombe Lucien)
Saturday 14th October: Erwin Rommel commits suicide by taking cyanide. (The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel)
November: City ordered to be re-taken by Hitler, with an all-out offensive on the Ardennes region. (Antwerp, Belgium) (Battle of the Bulge)
November: Oskar Schindler secures the release of the women at Auschwitz and has them transferred to his own camp at Brunnlitz. (Schindler's List)
November: 2 secret agents (one British and one American) slip behind German lines on a mission to find a German double agent. (German Alps, Germany) (Where Eagles Dare)
Thursday 2nd November: Mr. Miyagi's wife and son die due to complications during childbirth. (Manzanar, CA) (The Karate Kid)
Friday 1st December: John Densmore, future drummer of The Doors, is born. (Maine) (The Doors)
Tuesday 12th December: There is a fire in a church where Nazis are keeping various prisoners. (The Reader)
Wednesday 13th December: Wassily Kandinsky dies. (France) (Six Degrees of Separation)
Thursday 14th December: The Battle of the Bulge starts in the forests of the Ardennes. (Belgium) (Patton)
Saturday 16th December: Lt Hart uses a court-martial to escape from a POW camp so he can blow up an ammunition dump. (Hart's War)
Wednesday 20th December: Dwight D Eisenhower promoted to General of the Army. (Ike)
Sunday 24th December: Captain Bob Wallace and Private Phil Davis perform for the 151st Division. Learning that their beloved commanding officer, Major General Thomas F. Waverly, is being relieved of command, they give him a rousing send-off in song. (somewhere in Europe) (White Christmas)
Tuesday 26th December: General George S. Patton employs an audacious strategy to relieve the besieged Allied defenders during the brutal Battle of the Bulge. (Bastogne, Belgium) (Patton)