World War II will be abbreviated as "WWII"
January – The Soviet
Red Army liberates
Auschwitz. •
January 1 – WWII: •
Germany begins
Operation Bodenplatte, an attempt by the
Luftwaffe to cripple
Allied air forces in the
Low Countries. •
Chenogne massacre: German prisoners are allegedly killed by American forces near the village of Chenogne, Belgium. •
January 6 – WWII: A German offensive recaptures
Esztergom,
Hungary from the Soviets. •
January 9 – WWII: American and Australian troops
land at Lingayen Gulf on western coast of the largest Philippine island of
Luzon, occupied by Japan since 1942. •
January 12 – WWII: The
Soviet Union begins the
Vistula–Oder Offensive in Eastern Europe, against the
German Army. •
January 13 – WWII: The Soviet Union begins the
East Prussian Offensive, to eliminate German forces in
East Prussia. •
January 16 – WWII:
Adolf Hitler takes residence in the
Führerbunker in Berlin. •
January 17 • WWII: The
Soviet Union occupies
Warsaw, Poland. •
The Holocaust: Swedish diplomat
Raoul Wallenberg, who has saved thousands of Jews, is taken into custody by a Soviet patrol during the
Siege of Budapest and is never again seen publicly. •
January 18 –
The Holocaust: The
SS begins the evacuation of
Auschwitz concentration camp. Nearly 60,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, are forced to march to other locations in Germany; as many as 15,000 die. The 7,000 too sick to move are left without supplies being distributed. •
January 19 –
The Holocaust: Soviet forces liberate the
Łódź Ghetto; only 877 Jews of the initial population of 164,000 remain at this time. •
January 20 – Germany begins the
Evacuation of East Prussia. •
January 21–
22 (night) – At the
Grünhagen railroad station, located in
East Prussia at this date, two trains, heading for
Elbing, collide. At dawn the station is reached by
Soviet Army infantry and tanks which destroy the station, killing between 140 and 150 people. •
January 23 – WWII: • Hungary agrees to an
armistice with the
Allies. • German Grand Admiral
Karl Dönitz orders the start of
Operation Hannibal, the mass evacuation by sea of German troops and civilians from the
Courland Pocket,
East Prussia and the
Polish Corridor, evacuating an estimated 800,000-900,000 German civilians and 350,000 soldiers from advancing Soviet forces. • Evacuation of Germans from
Grünhagen. •
January 24 – WWII:
AP war correspondent Joseph Morton, nine
OSS men, and four
SOE agents are executed by the Germans at
Mauthausen concentration camp under Hitler's
Commando Order of 1942, which stipulates the immediate execution of all captured Allied
commandos or
saboteurs without trial, even those in proper uniforms. Morton is the only
Allied correspondent to be executed by the
Axis during the war. •
January 25 – WWII: Hitler appoints
Heinrich Himmler as commander of the hastily formed
Army Group Vistula (
Heeresgruppe Weichsel) to halt the Soviet
Red Army's
Vistula–Oder offensive into
Pomerania, despite Himmler's lack of military experience. •
January 26 – WWII: 19-year-old U.S. Army Staff Sergeant
Audie Murphy sees action at
Holtzwihr, France, for which is awarded the
Medal of Honor. •
January 27 •
The Holocaust: The Soviet
Red Army liberates the
Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. • WWII: The Soviet
Red Army reaches
Wolf's Lair former Hitler headquarters. •
January 30 – WWII: • , with over 10,000 mainly civilian Germans from Gotenhafen (
Gdynia) is sunk in
Gdańsk Bay by three
torpedoes from
Soviet submarine S-13 in the
Baltic Sea; up to 9,400, 5,000 of whom are children, are thought to have died – the greatest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history. •
Raid at Cabanatuan: 121 American soldiers and 800 Filipino guerrillas free 813 American
prisoners of war from the Japanese-held camp in the city of
Cabanatuan, in the
Philippines. •
Adolf Hitler makes his last public speech, on broadcast radio, expressing the belief that Germany will triumph. •
January 31 – WWII: The
Battle of Hill 170 in the Burma Campaign ends with the British
3rd Commando Brigade defeating the
Imperial Japanese Army 54th Division, causing the
Japanese Twenty-Eighth Army to withdraw from the
Arakan Peninsula.
February – The "Big Three" at the
Yalta Conference:
Winston Churchill,
Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Joseph Stalin. – During the
Battle of Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines land on
the island. •
February – Raymond L. Libby of
American Cyanamid's research laboratories, at
Stamford, Connecticut, announces a method of orally administering the antibiotic
penicillin. •
February 3 – WWII: •
Battle of Manila: United States forces enter the outskirts of
Manila to capture it from the
Japanese Imperial Army, starting the battle. On February 4, U.S. Army forces liberate
Santo Tomas Internment Camp in the city. • The
Soviet Union agrees to enter the
Pacific War against Japan, once hostilities against Germany are concluded. •
February 4–
11 – WWII:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill and
Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin hold the
Yalta Conference. •
February 7 – WWII: General
Douglas MacArthur returns to
Manila. •
February 8 – The Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, championed by charismatic native leader
Elizabeth Peratrovich, is passed by the territorial Senate, after the legislature defeated a previous bill in 1943. •
February 9 •
Walter Ulbricht becomes leader of the German
Communists in Moscow. • WWII: "
Black Friday": A force of Allied
Bristol Beaufighter aircraft suffers heavy casualties in an unsuccessful attack on
German destroyer Z33 and escorting vessels sheltering in
Førde Fjord, Norway. •
February 10 – WWII: German
troopship is sunk by the
Soviet submarine S-13; 3,608 drown. •
February 10–
20 – WWII:
Operation Kita – The
Imperial Japanese Navy returns "Completion Force", containing both its
Ise-class battleships, safely from
Singapore to
Kure in Japan despite
Allied attacks. •
February 12 – A
devastating tornado outbreak in
Mississippi and
Alabama kills 45 people and injures 427 others. •
February 13 – WWII: • The
Budapest Offensive and the
Siege of Budapest end with
Nazi troops surrendering
Budapest (Hungary) to
Soviet-Romanian forces. •
Bombing of Dresden (Germany) by the British
Royal Air Force and
United States Army Air Forces; 25,000-35,000 are estimated to have died. •
February 16 – WWII: • The
Bombing of Wesel begins, destroying 97% of the town over three days. • American and Filipino ground forces land on
Corregidor Island in the
Philippines. • Combined American and Filipino forces recapture the
Bataan Peninsula. •
Venezuela declares war on Germany. •
February 18–
March 5 – WWII: American and Brazilian troops kick off
Operation Encore in Northern Italy, a successful limited action in the
Northern Apennines that prepares for the western portion of the
Allied Spring offensive. •
February 19–
20 – 980 (actual figure is disputed) Japanese soldiers die as a result of being attacked by long saltwater
crocodiles in
Ramree, Burma. •
February 19 – WWII:
Battle of Iwo Jima – About 30,000
United States Marines land on
Iwo Jima. •
February 21 – The last
V-2 rocket is launched from
Peenemünde. •
February 22 – WWII: •
Italian Front: The
Battle of Monte Castello ends after nearly three months of fighting when the
Brazilian Expeditionary Force expels German forces from a pivot point in the
(Tuscan) North Apennines where their artillery was impeding the advance of the
British Eighth Army toward
Bologna. •
Uruguay declares war on Germany and Japan. •
February 23 – WWII: •
Battle of Iwo Jima: A group of
United States Marines reach the top of
Mount Suribachi on the island, and are photographed raising the
American flag. The photo,
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (taken by
Joe Rosenthal), later wins a
Pulitzer Prize. • The
11th Airborne Division, with
Filipino guerrillas, free the captives of the
Los Baños internment camp. • The capital of the
Philippines, Manila, is liberated by combined American and Filipino ground troops. The suburb of
Intramuros is devastated. • The German garrison in
Poznań capitulates to
Red Army and Polish troops. •
Bombing of Pforzheim: The heaviest of a series of bombing raids on
Pforzheim, Germany, by Allied aircraft is carried out by the British
Royal Air Force. As many as 17,600 people, or 31.4% of the town's population, are killed in the raid and about 83% of the town's buildings destroyed, two-thirds of its complete area and between 80 and 100% of the inner city. •
Turkey joins the war on the side of the
Allies. •
February 24 – Egyptian premier
Ahmad Mahir Pasha is assassinated in Parliament after declaring war on Germany and Japan. •
February 27 – The
Bombing of Mainz results in 1,209 confirmed dead; 80% of the city is destroyed. •
February 28 – In
Bucharest, a violent demonstration takes place, during which the
Bolşevic group opens fire on the army and protesters. In response,
Andrei Y. Vishinsky,
USSR vice commissioner of foreign affairs and president of the Allied Control Commission for
Romania, travels to Bucharest to compel
Nicolae Rădescu to resign as premier.
March •
March 1 – President
Franklin D. Roosevelt gives what will be his last address to a
joint session of the United States Congress, reporting on the
Yalta Conference. •
March 2 • Former U.S. vice-president
Henry A. Wallace starts his term of office as
United States Secretary of Commerce, serving under President
Franklin D. Roosevelt. • The rocket-propelled
Bachem Ba 349 Natter is first test launched at
Stetten am kalten Markt. The launch fails and the pilot,
Lothar Sieber, dies. • WWII: Allied troops led by
10th Armored Division capture
Trier, the oldest city in Germany. •
March 3 – WWII: • Finland declares war on the
Axis powers. • United States and Filipino troops take
Manila,
Philippines. •
Pawłokoma massacre: A Polish
Home Army unit massacres between 150 and 500 Ukrainian civilians in the Polish village of
Pawłokoma. •
Bombing of the Bezuidenhout: The British
Royal Air Force accidentally bombs the
Bezuidenhout neighbourhood in
The Hague, Netherlands, killing 511 people. •
March 4 • In the United Kingdom,
Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), joins the
Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) as a truck driver/mechanic in London. • The Swiss cities of
Basel and
Zürich are
accidentally bombed by the United States. •
March 5 – WWII: Brazilian troops take Castelnuovo (
Vergato) in the last operations of the Allied
Operation Encore. •
March 6 • A Communist-led government is formed in
Romania under
Petru Groza, following
Soviet intervention. • Resistance fighters accidentally ambush and attempt to execute SS general
Hanns Albin Rauter, the arch-persecutor of the Dutch. •
March 7 • WWII: At the end of
Operation Lumberjack, American troops seize the
Ludendorff Bridge over the
Rhine at
Remagen, Germany and begin to cross; in the next 10 days, 25,000 troops with equipment are able to cross. •
10th Armored Division captures the city of
Cologne. •
March 8 •
Josip Broz Tito forms a
Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, in the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia. • Nazi authorities kill 117 Dutch men in reprisal for the attempted murder of
Hanns Albin Rauter. •
Operation Sunrise:
Waffen-SS General
Karl Wolff meets with
Allen Welsh Dulles of the United States
Office of Strategic Services at
Lucerne, Switzerland, to negotiate the surrender of the
Axis forces in Italy to the
Allies. •
March 9–
10 – WWII:
Bombing of Tokyo:
USAAF B-29 bombers attack Tokyo, Japan with
incendiary bombs, killing 100,000 citizens in the firebombing. It is the single most destructive conventional air attack of the war. •
March 11 • The
Empire of Japan establishes the
Empire of Vietnam, a
puppet state which will last only until August 23, with
Bảo Đại as its ruler. • The
Sammarinese general election gives
San Marino the world's first democratically elected
communist government, which will hold power until
1957. •
March 12 – WWII:
Swinemünde is destroyed by the USAAF, killing an estimated 8,000 to 23,000 civilians, mostly refugees saved by
Operation Hannibal. •
March 15–
31 – WWII: The Soviet
Red Army carries out the
Upper Silesian Offensive. •
March 15 – The
17th Academy Awards ceremony is held, broadcast via radio in the United States for the first time.
Best Picture goes to
Going My Way. •
March 16 – WWII: • The
Battle of Iwo Jima unofficially ends. • The
Bombing of Würzburg, as part of the Allied strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany, destroys 89% of the city and causes 4,000 deaths. •
March 17 – WWII:
Kobe, Japan
is fire-bombed by 331
B-29 bombers, killing over 8,000 people. •
March 18 – WWII: • The 40th Infantry Division, spearheaded by the 185th US Infantry Regiment, lands unopposed in
Tigbauan forcing the Japanese forces to surrender and Generals
Macario Peralta and Eichelberger to declare the
Liberation of Panay, Romblon and Guimaras. • 1,250 American bombers attack Berlin. •
Battle of Kolberg concludes with the Baltic seaport (designated a key
Festung (fortress) by the Germans) taken by Polish and Soviet forces and ethnic Germans evacuated or expelled. •
March 19 – WWII: •
Adolf Hitler issues the "
Nero Decree" ordering that all industries, military installations, machine shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany be destroyed ahead of Allied advances, but
Albert Speer, placed in charge of the implementation, deliberately disobeys it. • Off the coast of Japan, bombers hit the
aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing about 800 of her crewmen and crippling the ship. •
March 20 – WWII: Hitler dismisses
Heinrich Himmler from his military command. • The "Clash of Titans":
George Mikan and
Bob Kurland duel at
Madison Square Garden in New York, as
Oklahoma State University defeats
DePaul 52–44 in
basketball. •
March 30 – WWII: • The
Red Army pushes most of the Axis forces out of Hungary into Austria. • American official
Alger Hiss is congratulated in Moscow for his part in bringing the positions of the Western powers and the Soviet Union closer to each other at the
Yalta Conference.
April –
Japanese battleship Yamato explodes after persistent attacks from U.S. aircraft during the
Battle of Okinawa. –
Adolf Hitler, along with his wife of one day
Eva Braun,
commits suicide. •
April 1 – WWII:
Battle of Okinawa: The
Tenth United States Army lands on
Okinawa. •
April 4 – WWII: • American troops liberate their first Nazi concentration camp,
Ohrdruf extermination camp in Germany. • The Soviet
Red Army enters
Bratislava and pushes to the outskirts of
Vienna, taking it on April 13, after several days of intense fighting. •
April 6 – WWII: •
Sarajevo is liberated from
Nazi Germany and the
Independent State of Croatia (a
fascist puppet state) by
Yugoslav Partisans. • The
Battle of Slater's Knoll on
Bougainville Island concludes with a decisive victory for the
Australian Army's
7th Brigade. • Allied forces reach
Merkers Salt Mines in
Thuringia where gold reserves of the Nazi German
Reichsbank and art treasures are stored. •
April 7 – WWII: • The only flight of the German ramming unit known as
Sonderkommando Elbe takes place, resulting in the loss of some 24
B-17s and
B-24s of the United States
Eighth Air Force. • and nine other warships take part in
Operation Ten-Go, a suicide attack on Allied forces engaged in the Battle of Okinawa.
Yamato is sunk by U.S. Navy aircraft in the
East China Sea north of
Okinawa with the loss of 2,055 of 2,332 crew, together with five other Japanese warships. •
Kantarō Suzuki becomes
Prime Minister of Japan. •
April 8 – The
SS begins to evacuate the
Buchenwald concentration camp; inmates in the
Buchenwald Resistance call for American aid, and overpower and kill the remaining guards. •
April 9 • WWII: The
Battle of Königsberg, in
East Prussia, ends with Soviet forces capturing the city. •
Abwehr conspirators
Wilhelm Canaris,
Hans Oster and
Hans von Dohnányi are hanged at Flossenberg concentration camp, along with pastor
Dietrich Bonhoeffer. •
Johann Georg Elser, would-be assassin of
Adolf Hitler, is executed at
Dachau concentration camp. •
April 10 – WWII: •
Visoko is liberated by the 7th, 9th and 17th Krajina Brigades from the Tenth Division of
Yugoslav Partisan forces. • American troops lead by
84th Division captures city of
Hanover after thousands of German troops surrenders •
April 11 –
Buchenwald concentration camp is liberated by the
United States Army. •
April 12 • Vice President
Harry S. Truman becomes the 33rd president of the United States upon the death of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt at the
Little White House in
Warm Springs, Georgia of an
intracerebral hemorrhage. President Truman is
sworn in later this evening in the
White House. • A
devastating tornado outbreak occurs across the United States, which kills 128 people and injures over 1,000 others. This is heavily overshadowed by the death of President Roosevelt. • WWII: The
U.S. Ninth Army under General
William H. Simpson crosses the
Elbe River astride
Magdeburg, and reaches
Tangermünde — only 50 miles from
Berlin. •
Richard Strauss completes composition of his
Metamorphosen. •
April 14 – WWII: • The
First Canadian Army assumes military control of the Netherlands, where German forces are trapped in the Atlantic Wall fortifications along the coastline. •
Razing of Friesoythe: The
4th Canadian (Armoured) Division deliberately destroys the German town of
Friesoythe, on the orders of Major General
Christopher Vokes. •
Bombing of Potsdam. •
April 15 – WWII: • The
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated by British and Canadian forces. • The Canadian First Army reaches the coast in the northern
Netherlands, and captures
Arnhem. •
April 16 – WWII: • The
Battle of Berlin begins, opening with the
Red Army launching the
Battle of the Oder–Neisse and the
Battle of the Seelow Heights. • Canadian forces take
Harlingen and occupy
Leeuwarden and
Groningen in the Netherlands. • is sunk by
Soviet submarine L-3 in the
Baltic Sea while evacuating German troops and civilians as part of
Operation Hannibal; 7,000–8,000 drown. •
Death marches from
Flossenbürg concentration camp begin. •
April 17 – WWII: •
Battle of Montese:
Brazilian forces liberate the town of
Montese, Italy, from German forces. •
Inundation of the Wieringermeer in the Netherlands by occupying German forces. •
April 18 – American
war correspondent Ernie Pyle is killed by Japanese
machine gun fire on the island of
Ie Shima off
Okinawa. •
April 19 –
Rodgers and Hammerstein's
Carousel, a musical play based on
Ferenc Molnár's
Liliom, opens on
Broadway, and becomes their second long-running stage classic. It includes the standard "
You'll Never Walk Alone". •
April 20 – WWII: • On his 56th birthday,
Adolf Hitler leaves his
Führerbunker, to decorate a group of
Hitler Youth soldiers in Berlin. It will be his last trip to the surface from his underground bunker. • The German city of
Nuremberg, previously the site of the
Nuremberg rallies, is occupied by American troops. • American troops lead by
2nd Infantry Division and
69th Infantry Division captures city of
Leipzig • "
Morotai Mutiny": members of the
Australian First Tactical Air Force based on the island of
Morotai in the
Dutch East Indies tender their resignations to protest their belief that they are being assigned to missions of no military importance and in which they are not specialists; a subsequent inquiry effectively vindicates them. •
April 22 – WWII: •
Heinrich Himmler, through
Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg, puts forth an offer of German surrender to the Western Allies, but not the Soviet Union. •
Adolf Hitler finally concedes that "everything is lost" at a meeting in the
Führerbunker after learning that
SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner cannot mobilize enough men to launch a counterattack on the
Soviet forces which are surrounding Berlin. •
April 23 – WWII: •
Hermann Göring sends the
Göring telegram to Hitler, seeking confirmation that he should take over leadership of Germany, in accordance with the decree of June 29, 1941. Hitler regards this as treason. • The main
Flossenbürg concentration camp is liberated by the United States Army. •
April 24 – WWII: •
Battle of Berlin:
Red Army troops complete encirclement of Berlin. • Retreating
German troops destroy all the bridges over the
Adige in
Verona, including the historic
Ponte di Castelvecchio and
Ponte Pietra. •
April 25 • Founding negotiations for the
United Nations begin in
San Francisco. • WWII –
Elbe Day:
American and
Soviet troops link up at the river
Elbe, cutting Germany in two. •
April 25–
26 – WWII: The last major
strategic bombing raid by
RAF Bomber Command, the destruction of the oil refinery at
Tønsberg in southern Norway, is carried out by 107
Avro Lancasters. •
April 26 – WWII: •
Battle of Bautzen: The last "successful" German panzer-offensive in
Bautzen ends with the city recaptured. • The
British 3rd Infantry Division, under
General Whistler, captures Bremen. • Nazi surrenders mean the British and Canadians now control the German border with Switzerland, from
Basel to
Lake Constance. •
April 27 • The last German formations withdraw from Finland to Norway. The
Lapland War and thus,
World War II in Finland, comes to an end and the
Raising the Flag on the Three-Country Cairn photograph is taken. • The provisional government of
Austria headed by
Karl Renner asserts its independence from Germany. • U.S. Ordnance troops find the coffins of
Frederick William I of Prussia,
Frederick the Great,
Paul von Hindenburg and his wife in a salt mine in Germany. •
April 28 • The bodies of
Benito Mussolini, his mistress,
Clara Petacci, and other followers are hung by their heels at a gas station in the public square of
Milan, Piazzale Loreto, following their execution by Italian partisans after an attempt to flee the country. • The Canadian First Army captures
Emden and
Wilhelmshaven. •
April 29 • At the royal palace in
Caserta, Lieutenant-Colonel Viktor von Schweinitz (representing General
Heinrich von Vietinghoff) and SS-
Obersturmbannführer Eugen Wenner (representing
Waffen-SS General
Karl Wolff) sign an unconditional instrument of surrender for all
Axis powers forces in Italy, taking effect on
May 2. Italian General
Rodolfo Graziani orders the
Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano forces under his command to lay down their arms. •
Dachau concentration camp is surrendered to U.S. forces, who kill SS guards at the camp and the nearby hamlet of Webling. •
Brazilian forces liberate the commune of
Fornovo di Taro, Italy, from German forces. •
Operation Manna: British
Avro Lancaster bombers drop food into the Netherlands to prevent the starvation of the civilian population. • Soviet soldiers hoist the
Red flag over the
Reich Chancellery in Berlin. •
Adolf Hitler marries his longtime mistress
Eva Braun, in a closed civil ceremony in the Berlin
Führerbunker, and signs
his last will and testament. •
April 30 – WWII: •
Death of Adolf Hitler: Adolf Hitler and his wife of one day,
Eva Braun, commit suicide as the
Red Army approaches the
Führerbunker in Berlin.
Großadmiral Karl Dönitz succeeds Hitler as
Reichspräsident (President of Germany) and
Joseph Goebbels succeeds as
Reichskanzler (Chancellor of Germany), in accordance with Hitler's political testament the day earlier. • American forces enter the Bavarian capital of
Munich.
May as the other with a
Browning Automatic Rifle, prepares to break cover to move to a different position. There are bare sticks and rocks on the ground.|May – Marines of 1st Marine Division
fighting on Okinawa. – American soldiers fighting in the
Pacific theater listen to radio reports of
Victory in Europe Day. – Prague is liberated by the
Red Army. •
May •
Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia begins. •
Interpol (being headquartered in Berlin) effectively ceases to exist (it is recreated on
June 3,
1946). •
May 1 – WWII: •
Reichssender Hamburg's
Flensburg radio station announces that Hitler has died in battle, "fighting up to his last breath against
Bolshevism." •
Joseph Goebbels carries out his sole official act as Chancellor of Germany, dictating a letter to the Soviet commander in Berlin advising of Hitler's death and requesting a ceasefire. When the latter is refused, he and his wife
Magda kill their
six children and commit suicide themselves. Karl Dönitz appoints
Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk as the new
de facto Chancellor of Germany, in the
Flensburg Government. • Troops of the
Yugoslav 4th Army, together with the
Slovene 9th Corpus NOV, enter
Trieste. •
Mass suicide in Demmin: An estimated 700–2,500 suicides take place, after 80% of the town has been destroyed by the Soviets during the past three days. •
May 2 – WWII: • The
Soviet Union announces the
fall of Berlin. The famous picture of
Raising a Flag over the Reichstag is taken at this date. •
Lübeck is liberated by the
British Army. • The surrender of
Axis troops in Italy comes into effect. • A
Holocaust death march from
Dachau to the Austrian border is halted under two kilometers west of
Waakirchen by the segregated, all-
Nisei 522nd Field Artillery Battalion of the U.S. Army in southern Bavaria, saving several hundred prisoners. • Troops of the
New Zealand Army 2nd Division enter
Trieste a day after the
Yugoslavs; the
German Army in the city surrenders to the New Zealanders. • Following the death or resignation of the
Hitler Cabinet in Germany, the
Schwerin von Krosigk cabinet first meets. •
Neuengamme concentration camp near
Hamburg is evacuated at about this date. • Expatriate American poet
Ezra Pound is arrested by the
Italian resistance movement but soon released by them as of no interest; on
May 5 he turns himself in to the
United States Army and is imprisoned as a traitor. •
May 3 – WWII: • The
prison ships
Cap Arcona (5,000 dead),
Thielbek (2,750 dead) and
Deutschland (all survive) are sunk by the British
Royal Air Force in
Lübeck Bay. • Rocket scientist
Wernher von Braun and 120 members of his team surrender to U.S. forces (later going on to help start the U.S. space program). • German Protestant theologian
Gerhard Kittel is arrested by the French forces in Tübingen, Germany. •
Operation Dracula: British troops liberate the Burmese capital of
Rangoon from Japanese forces. •
Capture of Hamburg: British troops of
VIII Corps and
XII Corps capture city of
Hamburg •
May 4 – WWII: •
German surrender at Lüneburg Heath: All German armed forces in northwest Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands surrender unconditionally to Field Marshal
Bernard Montgomery, effective on May 5 at 08:00 hours British Double (and German) Summer Time. • The Netherlands is liberated by British and Canadian troops. • Denmark is liberated. • Admiral
Karl Dönitz orders all
U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to bases in Norway. • The
Holy Crown of Hungary is found in
Mattsee, Austria, by the
United States Army 86th Infantry Division. The U.S. government keeps the crown in
Fort Knox for safekeeping from the Soviets until it is returned to
Hungary on January 6
1978. •
German auxiliary cruiser Orion is sunk on her way to
Copenhagen carrying refugees, with a loss of over 3,800 lives. • American troops capture the city of
Salzburg. •
May 5 – WWII: •
Prague uprising:
Prague rises up against occupying Nazi forces, encouraged by radio broadcasts (giving rise to the
Battle for Czech Radio). • The
US 11th Armored Division liberates the prisoners of
Mauthausen concentration camp, including
Simon Wiesenthal. • Canadian soldiers liberate the city of
Amsterdam from
Nazi occupation. • A Japanese
fire balloon kills six people, Elsie Mitchell and five children, near
Bly, Oregon, when it explodes as they drag it from the woods. These are the only people killed by an enemy attack on the American mainland during WWII. •
May 6 • WWII: • Troops of
16th Armored Division (United States) reach the Czech city of
Plzeň. •
Mildred Gillars ("Axis Sally") delivers her last
propaganda broadcast to
Allied troops (the first was on December 11,
1941). •
Holocaust:
Ebensee concentration camp in Austria is liberated by troops of the
80th Division (United States). •
May 6–
7 – The government of the
Independent State of Croatia, the Nazi-affiliated fascist puppet state established in occupied
Yugoslavia, flees
Zagreb for a location near
Klagenfurt in Austria, but is captured in the
Bleiburg repatriations, leading to mass executions. •
May 7 – WWII: • At 02:41, General
Alfred Jodl signs the unconditional
German Instrument of Surrender in
SHAEF HQ at
Reims, France, to end Germany's participation in the war. Surrender is effective on May 8 at 23:01 hours Central European Time (00:01 hours May 9 German Summer Time). This afternoon
Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Leading Minister in the rump
Flensburg Government, makes a broadcast announcing the German surrender and American journalist
Edward Kennedy breaks an Allied embargo on news of the signing. • Numerous RAF
Lancasters land in Germany to repatriate British prisoners of war. Some 4,500 ex-POWs are flown back to Great Britain over the next 24 hours. •
May 8 – WWII: •
Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) is observed by the western European powers as
Nazi Germany surrenders, marking the end of WWII in Europe, the anniversary has commemorated within 80 years later in
2025. • Shortly before midnight (May 9 Moscow time) the final
German Instrument of Surrender is signed at the seat of the Soviet Military Administration in Berlin-
Karlshorst, attended by
Allied representatives. • Canadian troops move into
Amsterdam, after German troops surrender. • The surrender of the
Dodecanese is signed in
Symi. • The
Prague uprising ends with a ceasefire. • The
Eighth British Army, together with Slovene partisan troops and a motorized detachment of the Yugoslav 4th Army, arrives in
Carinthia and
Klagenfurt. The
Croatian Armed Forces of the
Independent State of Croatia are ordered by their commanders not to surrender to the
Yugoslav Partisans, but to attempt to retreat to Austria and surrender to the British, part of the events leading to the
Bleiburg repatriations. •
Hermann Göring surrenders himself to the United States Army near
Radstadt. •
May 8–
29 –
Sétif and Guelma massacre: in
Algeria, thousands die as French troops and released Italian POWs kill an estimated 6,000 to 40,000 Algerian citizens. •
May 9 – WWII: • The
Soviet Union marks
VE Day as the
Red Army enters
Prague, celebrated in the USSR as
Victory Day. •
Vidkun Quisling and other members of the
collaborationist Quisling regime in Norway surrender to the Resistance (
Milorg) and
police at
Møllergata 19 in Oslo, as part of the
legal purge in Norway after World War II. • General
Alexander Löhr, Commander of German Army Group E near Topolšica,
Slovenia, signs the capitulation of German occupation troops. •
Liberation of the German-occupied Channel Islands: British forces take the surrender of the occupying troops, with Royal Navy ships
HMS Bulldog arriving in
St Peter Port,
Guernsey, and
HMS Beagle in
St Helier,
Jersey. •
May 10 – WWII:
Liberation of the German-occupied Channel Islands: Occupation of
Sark ends, with British forces taking the surrender of the occupying troops and leaving them under the orders of Dame
Sibyl Hathaway. •
May 12 •
Argentinian labour leader José Peter declares the
Meat Industry Workers Federation dissolved. •
Rev. W. V. Awdry's children's book
The Three Railway Engines, first of
The Railway Series, is published in England. •
May 14–
15 – WWII:
Battle of Poljana: The last battle of the War in Europe is fought at Poljana near
Slovenj Gradec,
Slovenia. •
May 15 – WWII:
Surrender at Bleiburg – Retreating troops of the
Croatian Armed Forces of the former puppet
Independent State of Croatia (intermingled with fleeing civilians) attempt to surrender to the British Army at
Bleiburg, but are directed to surrender to
Yugoslav Partisans, who open fire on them. The remainder, after orders are given by
Tito, are force-marched through Croatia and
Serbia, interned or massacred, with thousands dying. •
May 16 – WWII:
Liberation of the German-occupied Channel Islands: Occupation of
Alderney ends, with British forces taking the surrender of the occupying troops, the civilian population having been evacuated. •
May 18 – WWII:
Operation Unthinkable – British prime minister
Winston Churchill secretly requests his military chiefs of staff to consider a plan for British, American and reactivated German forces to attack the Soviet
Red Army on July 1 to preserve the independence of Poland. The operation is ruled militarily unfeasible. •
May 23 • The
Flensburg Government is dissolved by the Allies, and
German president Karl Dönitz and
German chancellor Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk are arrested by British
RAF Regiment personnel at
Flensburg. They are respectively the last German
head of state and
head of government until
1949. •
Heinrich Himmler, former head of the
Nazi SS, commits suicide in British custody. •
May 28 – U.S.-born Irish-raised
William Joyce ("
Lord Haw-Haw") is captured on the German border. He is later charged in London with high treason for his earlier English-language wartime broadcasts from German radio, convicted, and then hanged in January 1946. •
May 29 • German communists, led by
Walter Ulbricht, arrive in Berlin. • Dutch painter
Han van Meegeren is arrested for collaboration with the Nazis, but the "Dutch Golden Age" paintings he has sold to
Hermann Göring (Koch) are later proved to be his own fakes. •
May 30 – The
Iranian government demands that all Soviet and British troops leave the country.
June –
Dwight Eisenhower,
Georgy Zhukov and
Arthur Tedder. •
June 1 – The British take over
Lebanon and
Syria. •
June 5 – The
Allied Control Council, the military occupation governing body of Germany, formally takes power. •
June 7 – King
Haakon VII of Norway returns to Norway five years to the day after leaving for exile in Britain. •
June 11 •
William Lyon Mackenzie King is re-elected as Canadian prime minister. • The Franck Committee recommends against a surprise nuclear bombing of Japan. •
June 12 – The
Yugoslav Army leaves
Trieste, leaving the
New Zealand Army in control. •
June 21 – WWII: The
Battle of Okinawa ends, with U.S. occupation of the island until
1972. •
June 24 – WWII: A
victory parade is held in
Red Square in Moscow. •
June 25 –
Seán T. O'Kelly is elected the second
President of Ireland. •
June 26 – The
United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco. •
June 29 –
Czechoslovakia cedes
Carpathian Ruthenia to the
Soviet Union. •
June 30 –
John von Neumann's
First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC is distributed, containing the first published description of the logical design of a computer, with
stored-program and instruction data stored in the same address space within the memory (
von Neumann architecture).
July –
Trinity test at night in
New Mexico. •
July 1 • WWII: Germany and its capital Berlin are
divided between the
Allied occupation forces.
German reunification will not take place until
1990. • WWII: Australian and other Allied forces launch an invasion of the east coast of Japanese-occupied
Borneo near
Balikpapan. •
July 2 – The
1945 Sheikh Bashir rebellion breaks out in
Burao and
Erigavo in
British Somaliland, led by
Sheikh Bashir, a
Somali religious leader. •
July 4 –
Brazilian cruiser Bahia is sunk by an accidentally induced explosion, killing more than 300 and stranding the survivors in shark-infested waters. •
July 5 • The
1945 United Kingdom general election is held, though some constituencies delay their polls for local holiday reasons. Counting of votes and declaration of results are delayed until July 26 to allow for voting by the large number of service personnel still overseas. •
John Curtin, 14th
Prime Minister of Australia, dies in office from heart failure at the age of 60. He is briefly replaced by his deputy
Frank Forde, who serves as the 15th Prime Minister until a
Labor Party leadership election is held to replace Curtin. • WWII: The
Philippines are declared liberated. •
July 6–
7 –
Schio massacre: 54 prisoners, mostly fascist sympathisers, are killed by members of the
Italian resistance movement in
Schio. •
July 8 – WWII:
Harry S. Truman is informed that Japan will talk peace if it can retain the reign of the Emperor. • The
Potsdam Declaration demands Japan's unconditional surrender; Article 12, permitting Japan to retain the reign of the Emperor, has been deleted by President Truman. •
July 29 – The
BBC Light Programme radio station is launched in the United Kingdom, aimed at
mainstream light entertainment and
music. •
July 30 – WWII: Heavy cruiser is hit and sunk by torpedoes from the in the
Philippine Sea. Some 900 survivors jump into the sea and are adrift for up to four days. Nearly 600 die before help arrives. Captain
Charles B. McVay III of the cruiser is later court-martialed and convicted; in 2000, he is posthumously exonerated.
August – The mushroom cloud from the
nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. – Surrender of the Japanese Army in Central China (Memorial in Wuhan). •
August 6 – WWII:
Atomic bombing of Hiroshima – United States
Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay drops a
uranium-235 atomic bomb, codenamed "
Little Boy", on the Japanese city of
Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. local time, resulting in between 90,000 and 146,000 deaths. •
August 7 – U.S. President Harry Truman announces the successful atomic bombing of Hiroshima, while he is returning from the Potsdam Conference aboard the U.S. Navy heavy cruiser , in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. •
August 8 • The
United Nations Charter is ratified by the United States Senate. • WWII: The Soviet Union declares war on Japan. •
August 9 – WWII: •
Atomic bombing of Nagasaki: United States
B-29 Bockscar drops a
plutonium-239 atomic bomb, codenamed "
Fat Man", on the Japanese city of
Nagasaki at 11:02 a.m. local time, resulting in between 39,000 and 80,000 deaths. • The
Soviet–Japanese War opens: The
Soviet Union begins its army
offensive against Japan, in the northern part of the Japanese-held puppet region of
Manchuria, including the
25th Army (Soviet Union)'s advance into the northern peninsula of
Korea. •
August 10 – WWII: Japan offers to surrender to the Allies, "provided this does not prejudice the sovereignty of the Emperor". •
August 11 • WWII: The
Allies reply to the Japanese surrender offer by stating that Emperor
Hirohito will be subject to the authority of the
Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces. •
The Holocaust:
Kraków pogrom –
Róża Berger is shot dead by Polish militia. •
August 11–
25 – Soviet troops complete the occupation of
Sakhalin. •
August 13 – The
Zionist World Congress approaches the British government to discuss the founding of the country of
Israel. •
August 14 – WWII: Emperor
Hirohito accepts the terms of the
Potsdam Declaration. His recorded announcement of this is smuggled out of the
Tokyo Imperial Palace. At 19:00 hrs in
Washington, D.C. (23:00
GMT), U.S. president
Harry S. Truman announces the Japanese surrender. •
August 15 • WWII: •
Bombing of Kumagaya, Japan, by the United States using conventional bombs, beginning at 00:23. •
Hirohito surrender broadcast (Gyokuon-hōsō): Emperor
Hirohito's announcement of the unconditional
surrender of Japan is broadcast on the radio a little after noon (12:00
Japan Standard Time is 03:00 GMT). This is probably the first time an
Emperor of Japan has been heard by the common people. Delivered in formal
classical Japanese, without directly referring to surrender and following official censorship of the country's weak position, the recorded speech is not immediately easily understood by ordinary people. The Allies call this day
Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day). This ends the period of
Japanese expansionism, and begins the period of the
Occupation of Japan and sets the stage for Korean independence. • The
August Revolution in
Vietnam begins, with the
Viet Minh taking over the capital
Hanoi, taking advantage of the collapse of Japanese power. • The Provisional
International Civil Aviation Organization is founded as a specialized agency of the
United Nations. •
August 17 • Philippines President
José P. Laurel issues an Executive Proclamation putting an end to the
Second Philippine Republic, thus ending his term as President of the Philippines. •
Proclamation of Indonesian Independence: Indonesian nationalists
Sukarno and
Mohammad Hatta declare the independence of the Republic of
Indonesia, with Sukarno as president and
Mohammad Hatta as vice-president, igniting the
Indonesian National Revolution against the
Dutch Empire. •
August 18 – WWII:
Death of Subhas Chandra Bose – Indian nationalist leader
Subhas Chandra Bose is killed as a result of his overloaded Japanese plane crashing in
Japanese Taiwan. •
August 19 –
Chinese Civil War:
Mao Zedong and
Chiang Kai-shek meet in
Chongqing to discuss an end to hostilities between the
Communists and the
Nationalists.12 •
August 23 –
Soviet–Japanese War:
Joseph Stalin orders the detention of
Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union. •
August 25 •
Bảo Đại abdicates as
Emperor of Vietnam, ending 2,000 years of dynastic and monarchic rule in the country and 143 years of the
Nguyễn dynasty. •
Paris marks the first anniversary of
its liberation. •
August 28 – The
American-led Allied
Occupation of Japan effectively begins with
General Douglas MacArthur's arrival at
Atsugi Air Base. •
August 30 – WWII: •
Vietnam's capital
Hanoi is taken by the
Viet Minh, which ends the French occupation in what becomes
North Vietnam, and thus the southern provinces become
South Vietnam. This ends the
August Revolution. •
Liberation of Hong Kong from
Japanese control, when the British Royal Navy returns
Hong Kong to its interrupted British colonial status (1841–1997). •
August 31 • WWII: Allied troops arrest German
field marshal Walther von Brauchitsch. • A team at
American Cyanamid's Lederle Laboratories,
Pearl River, New York, led by
Yellapragada Subbarow, announces they have obtained
folic acid in a pure crystalline form. This
vitamin is abundant in green
leaf vegetables,
liver,
kidney, and
yeast.
September – Japan signs the
Instrument of Surrender aboard the
USS Missouri. – Japanese troops formally relinquish control of Southern Korea over to the United States, effectively ending Japan's 35-year
rule over Korea. •
September 2 – World War II ends: • Japanese general
Tomoyuki Yamashita surrenders to Philippine and American forces at
Kiangan, Ifugao. • The final official
Japanese Instrument of Surrender is accepted by the Supreme Allied Commander, General
Douglas MacArthur, and
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz for the United States, and delegates from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, China, and others from a Japanese delegation led by
Mamoru Shigemitsu, on board the American battleship USS
Missouri in
Tokyo Bay. • General
Douglas MacArthur is given the title of
Supreme Commander Allied Powers, and is also tasked with the occupation of Japan. • The
Democratic Republic of Vietnam is officially established, by
Ho Chi Minh. •
September 9 • Chairman of the Nationalist Government of China
Chiang Kai-shek officially accepts the Japanese capitulation at
Nanking. •
September 10 –
Vidkun Quisling is sentenced to death for being a Nazi collaborator in Norway. •
September 20 –
Mohandas Gandhi and
Jawaharlal Nehru demand that all British troops depart India. •
September 24 –
Postwar anti-Jewish violence in Slovakia: The
Topoľčany pogrom is carried out in Czechoslovakia.
October –
Nuremberg trials begin, after
Buchenwald closes. •
October –
Arthur C. Clarke puts forward the idea of a
geosynchronous communications satellite, in a
Wireless World magazine article. •
October 1–
15 –
Operation Backfire: Three captured
V-2 rockets are launched under British control near
Cuxhaven, as part of an Allied evaluation of the technology. •
October 2 –
George Albert Smith becomes
president of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. •
October 4 – The
Partizan Belgrade sports club is founded in
Belgrade,
Serbia. •
October 5 –
Hollywood Black Friday: A strike by the Set Decorator's Union in Hollywood results in a riot. •
October 8–
15 – Hadamar Trial: Personnel of the
Hadamar Euthanasia Centre, now in the American zone of
Allied-occupied Germany, are the first to be tried for systematic extermination in
Nazi Germany. •
October 9 – Former prime minister
Pierre Laval is sentenced to death, for collaboration with the
Nazis in
Vichy France. •
November 29 • The
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is declared (this day is celebrated as Republic Day until the 1990s).
Marshal Tito is named president. • Assembly of the world's first general purpose electronic computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer (
ENIAC), is completed in the United States, covering of floor space, and the first set of calculations is run on it.
December •
December 1 – German general
Anton Dostler is executed by firing squad in Italy for the
war crime of ordering the summary execution of captured U.S. commandos. The U.S. military tribunal which has tried him has not accepted his plea of "
superior orders", setting a precedent for future Allied
war crimes trials. •
December 2 • General
Eurico Gaspar Dutra is elected president of Brazil. • French banks (
Bank of France,
BNCI,
CNEP,
Crédit Lyonnais and
Société Générale) are nationalized. •
December 3 –
Communist demonstrations in
Athens presage the
Greek Civil War. •
December 4 – The
United States Senate approves the entry of the United States into the
United Nations by a vote of 65–7. •
December 5 –
Flight 19 of
United States Navy Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers disappears on a training exercise from
Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale. •
December 9 – American General
George S. Patton is involved in a car accident in Germany, resulting in his death on December 21. •
December 21 –
Iraq joins the
United Nations. •
December 27 – Twenty-one nations ratify the articles creating the
World Bank. •
December 29 –
Expulsion of Germans from Hungary is ordered by the Soviet-dominated Hungarian government.
Date unknown • A team at
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (led by
Charles D. Coryell) discovers
chemical element 61, the only one still missing between 1 and 96 on the
periodic table, which they will name
promethium. Found by analysis of fission products of irradiated uranium fuel, its discovery is not made public until 1947. • The Australian government introduces an Assisted Passage Migration Scheme to encourage the immigration of British subjects, at a fare of
£10, hence they become known as "
Ten Pound Poms". • The first geothermal milk pasteurization is done in
Klamath Falls, Oregon, United States. ==Births==