List of Famous people who died in 1944

Vera Frantsevna Menchik was a British-Czechoslovak-Russian chess player who became the world's first women's chess champion. She also competed in chess tournaments with some of the world's leading male chess masters, with occasional successes including two wins over future world champion Max Euwe.

Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan, after 1906 Piet Mondrian, was a Dutch painter and theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being one of the pioneers of 20th-century abstract art, as he changed his artistic direction from figurative painting to an increasingly abstract style, until he reached a point where his artistic vocabulary was reduced to simple geometric elements.

Kasturbai "Kasturba" Mohandas Gandhi (listen  born Kasturbai Gokuldas Kapadia on was an Indian political activist. She married Mohandas Gandhi in 1883. In association with her husband and son, she was involved in the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. She was very influenced by her husband Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a.k.a. Mahatma Gandhi.

Ahmad Ahmadi, known as Pezeshk Ahmadi meaning Physician Ahmadi, was born in Mashhad to Mohammad Ali Ahmadi. He worked as a nurse at Qasr prison in Tehran, where he was ordered to kill political prisoners; he was later executed for these crimes.

Reza Shah Pahlavi, commonly known as Reza Shah, was the Shah of Iran from 15 December 1925 until he was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran on 16 September 1941.

E. O. Plauen was the pseudonym of Erich Ohser, a German cartoonist best known for his strip Vater und Sohn.

Ida Minerva Tarbell was an American writer, investigative journalist, biographer and lecturer. She was one of the leading muckrakers of the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and pioneered investigative journalism. Born in Pennsylvania at the onset of the oil boom, Tarbell is best known for her 1904 book The History of the Standard Oil Company. The book was published as a series of articles in McClure's Magazine from 1902 to 1904. It has been called a "masterpiece of investigative journalism", by historian J. North Conway, as well as "the single most influential book on business ever published in the United States" by historian Daniel Yergin. The work would contribute to the dissolution of the Standard Oil monopoly and helped usher in the Hepburn Act of 1906, the Mann-Elkins Act, the creation of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Clayton Antitrust Act.

Aimee Elizabeth Semple McPherson, also known as Sister Aimee or Sister, was a Canadian Pentecostal evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s, famous for founding the Foursquare Church. McPherson pioneered the use of modern media in religious services, using radio to draw on the growing appeal of popular entertainment and incorporating stage techniques into her weekly sermons at Angelus Temple, an early megachurch.

Mere Mete Whaanga was a pioneer and missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in New Zealand. She was a leader of the Maori Ngati Kahungunu tribe and helped to spread the gospel in her area after being baptized by American missionaries.

Lionel Colin Matthews, was an Australian Army officer in World War II. He was posthumously awarded the George Cross, the highest award for heroism or courage not in the face of the enemy, that could be awarded to a member of the Australian armed forces at the time. Matthews was born in Adelaide, South Australia, and was schooled there before moving to Victoria. He trained as a signalman in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve before joining the Militia in April 1939. Commissioned as an officer in the Australian Corps of Signals, Matthews transferred to the 8th Division of the Second Australian Imperial Force after the outbreak of World War II.