1944 CE

The Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day launches the largest amphibious assault in history, turning the Western Front; the Warsaw Uprising sees Polish fighters rise against Nazi occupation but are crushed with massive civilian losses; the 20 July plot fails as officers including Claus von Stauffenberg attempt to kill Adolf Hitler; the Battle of the Bulge is Nazi Germany’s final Western offensive, ultimately failing; Operation Bagration destroys Germany’s Army Group Centre and liberates Belarus; the Battle of Monte Cassino sees Allied forces breach the Gustav Line after months of fighting; the Battle of Saipan gives the United States a strategic Pacific foothold near the Japanese homeland; the 1944 San Juan earthquake devastates Argentina’s San Juan Province; and the Hartford circus fire kills nearly 170 in Connecticut, one of the deadliest U.S. fire disasters.

In the 1940s, the 20th century.