1945

Years: 1942 1943 1944 - 1945 - 1946 1947 1948

Decades: 1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s

Events of 1945

(Below, many events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.)

January

• January 5 - Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland.
• January 7 - British General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference at Zonhoven describing his contribution to the Battle of the Bulge.
• January 12 - WWII: The Soviet Union begins the Vistula-Oder Offensive in Eastern Europe against the Germans.
• January 16 - Adolf Hitler moves his command into an underground bunker, the Führerbunker.
• January 17 - WWII: Soviet Union occupies Warsaw.
• January 20
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated to an unprecedented fourth term as President of the United States.
  • Hungary drops out of the Second World War, agreeing to an armistice with the Allies.
• January 23 - Begin of Operation Hannibal
• January 24 - First successful launch of the German A4b-Rocket
• January 28 - WWII: Supplies begin to reach China over the newly reopened Burma Road.
• January 30
  • The liner Wilhelm Gustloff (ship) with over 10,000 mainly civilian Germans sailing out of Gotenhafen (Gydnia]) in the Danzig Bay is sunk by 3 torpedoes from the Soviet submarine S-13 in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Pomerania.
  • 121 American Soldiers and the Filipino guerrillas commence the Raid of Cabanatuan, freeing 513 American & British POWs from the Japanese-held camp at Cabanatuan City, Philippines.
• January 31 - Eddie Slovik is executed by firing squad for desertion, the first American soldier since the American Civil War, and last to date to be executed for this offence.

February

• February 2 - WWII: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill leave to meet with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference.
• February 3 - WWII: Soviet Union agrees to enter the Pacific Theater conflict against Japan.
• February 4 - WWII: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin begin the Yalta Conference (ends February 11)
• February 6 - French writer Robert Brasillach executed for collaboration with the Germans
• February 7 - WWII: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila
• February 9 - Walter Ulbricht becomes the leader of German communists in Moscow
• February 10 - WWII: The SS General von Steuben sunk by the Soviet submarine S-13.
• February 13 - WWII:
  • Soviet Union forces capture Budapest, Hungary from the Germans.
  • The Royal Air Force bombs Dresden, Germany.
• February 14 - Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru join the United Nations.
• February 16 - WWII:
  • American and Filipino forces land on Corregidor island in the Philippines.
  • American and Filipino forces recapture the Bataan Peninsula
• February 19 - WWII: Battle of Iwo Jima - about 30,000 United States Marines landed on Iwo Jima starting the battle.
• February 21 - Last launch of an A4-rocket at Peenemünde
• February 23 - WWII:
  • During the 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 will later win a Pulitzer Prize.
  • The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by American and Filipino forces.
  • The liberating Filipino and American troops entering in Intramuros, Manila by the attack from the Japanese forces.
  • Capitulation of German garrison in Poznań, city is taken by Red Army and Polish forces.
• February 24 - Egyptian Premier Ahmed Maher Pasha is killed in Parliament after reading a decree.

March

• March 1 - Franklin D. Roosevelt gives what will be his last address to a joint session of Congress, reporting on the Yalta Conference.
• March 2
  • Former US Vice-President Henry Agard Wallace starts his term of office as US Secretary of Commerce, serving under President Franklin D. Roosevelt
  • Launch of the Bachem Ba 349 Natter from Stetten am kalten Markt. The Natter was the first manned rocket and developed as anti-aircraft weapon. The launch failed and the pilot died.
• March 3 - WWII:
  • Previously neutral Finland declares war on the Axis powers.
  • The United States and Filipino troops take Manila.
• March 4 - In the United Kingdom, Princess Elizabeth, later to become Queen Elizabeth II, joins the British Army as a driver.
• March 6 - Communist-led government formed in Romania
• March 7 - WWII: American troops seize the bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany and begin to cross.
• March 8 - Josip Broz Tito forms a government in Yugoslavia
• March 9-March 10 - WWII: American B-29 bombers attack Japan with incendiary bombs. Tokyo is fire-bombed killing 100,000 citizens.
• March 10 - WWII: The Battle of Mindanao founded to the battles of the American and Philippine Commonwealth troops together with the Allied Filipino Guerrillas against the Japanese.
• March 16 - WWII: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends, with small pockets of guerrilla resistance persisting past the official conclusion of the battle.
• March 17 - WWII: Japanese city of Kobe is fire-bombed by 331 B-29 bombers, killing over 8,000.
• March 18 - WWII: 1,250 American bombers attack Berlin.
• March 19 - WWII: Off the coast of Japan, bombers hit the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing 800 of her crew and crippling the ship.
• March 21 - WWII: British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma
• March 22 - The Arab League is formed with the adoption of a charter in Cairo, Egypt.
• March 30
  • WWII: Soviet Union forces invade Austria and take Vienna.
  • Alger Hiss congratulated in Moscow for his part in bringing about the Western betrayal at the Yalta Conference.

April

• April 1 - WWII: United States troops land on Okinawa in the last campaign of the war. The Battle of Okinawa starts.
• April 7 - WWII:
  • The Japanese battleship Yamato is sunk 200 miles north of Okinawa while enroute on a suicide mission.
  • Visoko was liberated by the 7th, 9th and 17th Krajina brigades from the Tenth division of Yugoslav Partisan forces.
  • Kantaro Suzuki becomes the Prime Minister of Japan
• April 9
  • Abwehr conspirators Wilhelm Canaris, Hans Oster and Hans Dohanyi are hanged at Flossenberg concentration camp along with pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
  • WWII: Battle of Königsberg, in East Prussia, ends.
• April 12 - United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945) dies suddenly at Warm Springs, Georgia; Vice President Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) becomes the 33rd President.
• April 16 - WWII: The Goya sunk by the Soviet submarine L-3.
• April 18 - U.S. war correspondent Ernie Pyle is killed by Japanese machine gun fire on the island of Ie Shima off Okinawa.
• April 24 - Retreating German troops destroy all the bridges over the Adige in Verona.
• April 25
  • Founding negotiations of United Nations in San Francisco
  • WWII: Elbe Day, United States and Soviet troops link up at the Elbe River, cutting Germany in half.
• April 26 - Battle of Bautzen (World War II) - last "successful" German panzer-offensive in Bautzen, the city is recaptured.
• April 28 - Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are murdered by Communist partisans as they attempt to flee the country.
• April 29 - Start of Operation Manna: British Lancaster bombers drop food into the Netherlands to prevent the starvation of the civilian population.
• April 30 - Adolf Hitler and his wife of one day, Eva Braun, commit suicide as Red Army approaches Führerbunker in Berlin. Karl Dönitz succeeds Hitler as President of Germany. Joseph Goebbels succeeds Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.

May

• May 1 - WWII:
  • Hamburg Radio announces that Hitler has died in battle, "...fighting up to his last breath against Bolshevism."
  • Joseph Goebbels and his wife commit suicide after killing their six children. Karl Dönitz appoints Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk as the new Chancellor of Germany.
  • Troops of Yugoslav 4th Army together with Slovene 9th Corpus NOV enter Trieste.
• May 2 - WWII:
  • The Soviet Union announces the fall of Berlin.
  • Troops of New Zealand Army 2nd Division enter Trieste a day after the Yugoslavs. German Army in Trieste surrenders to the New Zealand Army.
• May 3 - WWII:
  • Sinkings of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the RAF in the Lübeck Bay.
  • Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and 120 members of his team surrender to US forces. They later help start the US space program.
• May 4 - WWII:
  • Rendition of the North Germany army by Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
  • Canadian troops occupy Holland. German troops officially surrender one day later.
• May 5 - WWII:
  • Prague uprising against the German occupation.
  • Ezra Pound, poet and author, is arrested by American soldiers in Italy for treason.
  • Canadian soldiers take the city of Amsterdam.
    • Admiral Karl Dönitz orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases.
  • A Japanese balloon bomb killed five children and a woman, Elsie Mitchell near Bly, Oregon, when it exploded as they dragged it from the woods. They were the only people killed by enemy attack on the United States mainland during World War II.
• May 6 - WWII: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (first was on December 11, 1941).
• May 7 - WWII: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Rheims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document will take effect the next day.
• May 8 - WWII:
  • V-E Day (Victory in Europe, as Germany surrenders) commemorates the end of World War II in Europe.
  • British 8th Army together with Slovene partisan troops and motorized detachment of Yugoslav 4th Army arrives to Carinthia and Klagenfurt.
• May 9 - WWII:
  • Hermann Göring is captured by the United States Army
  • Norway arrests Vidkun Quisling
  • Soviet Union marks V-E Day.
  • Red Army enters Prague.
  • General Alexander Löhr Commander of German Army Group E near Topolšica, Slovenia, signs surrender.
• May 14 - May 15 - WWII: the Battle of Poljana: the last battle of WWII in Europe is fought at Poljana near Slovenj Gradec, Slovenia
• May 23
  • President of Germany Karl Dönitz and Chancellor of Germany Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk are arrested by British forces at Flensburg. They would respectively be the last German Head of state and Head of government until 1949.
  • Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Gestapo, commits suicide in British custody.
• May 28 - William Joyce, known as "Lord Haw-Haw" is captured. He is later charged with high treason in London for his English-language wartime broadcasts on German radio.
• May 29 - Group of German communists, Ulbricht in the lead, arrive in Berlin.
• May 30 - Iranian government demands that Soviet and British troops leave the country.

June

• June 1 - British take over Lebanon and Syria
• June 5 - Allied Control Council, military occupation governing body of Germany, formally takes power.
• June 6 - King Haakon VII of Norway returns to Norway
• June 11 - William Lyon Mackenzie King is re-elected as Canadian prime minister. Franck Committee recommends against a surprise nuclear bombing of Japan. [1]
• June 12 - Yugoslav Army leaves Trieste, leaving the New Zealand Army in control.
• June 21 - WWII: The Battle of Okinawa ends.
• June 24 - WWII: Victory parade in Red Square
• June 25 - Seán T. O'Kelly is elected the second President of Ireland.
• June 26 - United Nations charter signed.
• June 29 - Czechoslovakia cedes Ruthenia to Soviet Union

July

• July 1 - WWII: Germany is divided between Allied occupation forces
• July 5 - WWII: Liberation of the Philippines declared.
• July 8 - WWII: Harry S. Truman was informed that Japan will talk peace if she can keep the Emperor. [2]
• July 9 - A forest fire breaks out in the Tillamook Burn, the third fire in that area since 1933.
• July 16 - Nuclear testing: The Trinity Test, the first test of an atomic bomb, using 6 kilograms of plutonium, succeeds in detonating, unleashing an explosion equivalent to that of 19 kilotons of TNT.
• July 16 - WWII: A train collision near Munich, Germany kills 102 war prisoners.
• July 17 - WWII: Potsdam Conference - At Potsdam, the three main Allied leaders begin their final summit of the war. The meeting will end on August 2.
• July 21 - WWII: Harry S. Truman approves order for atomic bombs to be used. [3]
• July 23 - WWII: French marshal Philippe Pétain, who headed the Vichy government during World War II goes on trial, charged with treason.
• July 26
  • Winston Churchill resigns as Britain's prime minister after his Conservative Party is soundly defeated by the Labour Party in the 1945 general election. Clement Attlee becomes the new prime minister.
  • Potsdam Declaration demands Japan's unconditional surrender; Article 12 permitting Japan to retain the Emperor had been deleted by Truman. [4]
• July 28
  • An Army Air Forces B-25 bomber accidentally crashes into the Empire State Building, killing 14 people.
  • WWII: Japan rejects Potsdam Declaration [5].
• July 29 - The BBC Light Programme radio station was launched, aimed at mainstream light entertainment and music.
• July 30 - WWII: The USS Indianapolis is hit and sunk by the Japanese submarine I-58. Some 900 survivors jump into the sea and are adrift for 4 days. Nearly 600 die before help arrives. Captain Charles B. McVay III is later court-martialed.
• July 31 - WWII: Pierre Laval, fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria.

August

• August 6 - WWII: the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The United States detonates an atomic bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan at 8:15 a.m. (local time).
• August 7 - President Harry Truman announces the successful bombing of Hiroshima with an atomic bomb while returning from the Potsdam Conference aboard the heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
• August 8 - The United Nations Charter is ratified by the United States, and that nation becomes the third to join the new international organization. Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
• August 9 - WWII:
  • The United States detonates an atomic bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" over the city of Nagasaki, Japan at 11:02 a.m. (local time).
  • The Soviet Union begins its offensive against Japan in the then Japanese controlled Chinese region of Manchuria. [6]
• August 10 - WWII:
  • Japan offers to surrender to the Allies, "...provided this does not prejudice the sovereignty of the Emperor."
  • US drops warning leaflets on Nagasaki. [7]
• August 11 - WWII: Allies reply to the Japanese surrender offer by saying that Emperor Hirohito would be subject to the authority of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces.
• August 13 - Zionist World Congress approaches British government to talk about founding of Israel.
• August 14 - WWII: Emperor Hirohito accepts the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.
• August 15 - WWII:
  • Emperor Hirohito announces Japan's surrender on the radio. The United States called this day V-J Day (Victory in Japan). This ends the period of Japanese expansionism and begins the period of Occupied Japan.
  • Korea gains independence following Japan's surrender
• August 17
  • Indonesian nationalists Soekarno and Mohammed Hatta declare the independence of Republic of Indonesia, Soekarno as a president.
  • Animal Farm by George Orwell is first published by Fredric Warburg
• August 19 - Vietnam War: Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh take power in Hanoi, Vietnam.

September

• September 2
  • The Commanding of the Imperial Japanese Army general Tomoyuki Yamashita he was surrendered to the Filipino and American forces at Kiangan, Ifugao.
  • World War II ends: The final official surrender of Japan was accepted by Supreme Allied Commander General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz from a delegation led by Mamoru Shigemitsu, aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. But in Japan August 14 is well recognized as the day the Pacific War ended.
  • Ho Chi Minh promulgates the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, and unity from the north to the south.
• September 4 - WWII: Japanese forces surrender on Wake Island after hearing word of their nation's surrender.
• September 5 - Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist "Tokyo Rose," is arrested in Yokohama.
• September 8
  • US troops occupy southern Korea, Soviet Union occupy the north. This arrangement proves to be the beginning of a divided Korea.
  • Hideki Tojo, Japanese prime minister during most of World War II, attempts suicide to avoid facing a war crimes tribunal.
• September 11
  • Radio Republik Indonesia starts broadcasting.
  • Batu Lintang camp in Sarawak, Borneo liberated by Australian forces.
• September 12 - Japanese army formally surrendered in Singapore.
• September 18 - Typhoon Makurazaki in Japan kills 3,746.
• September 20 - Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru demand that British troops leave India

October

• October 1 - to October 15 - Launch of three A4 rockets near Cuxhaven in order to show Allied forces the rocket with liquid fuel (Operation Backfire)
• October 3 - to October 10 - Detroit Tigers won the World Series against the Chicago Cubs.
• October 4 - Established Partizan, sports society from Belgrade, Serbia.
• October 5 - A strike by the Set Decorator's Union in Hollywood results in riot
• October 10 - Russian code clerk Igor Gouzenko defects to Canada. He helps the West gain an understanding of Soviet spy rings in North America.
• October 15 - WWII: Former premier of Vichy France, Pierre Laval, is executed by firing squad for treason.
• October 17 - A massive number of people, headed for CGT, gather in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina to demand Juan Peron's release. This is known to the Peronists as the Día de la lealtad (day of loyalty) or San Perón (Saint Perón). It's considered the birthday of Peronism.
• October 18
  • The first German war crimes trial begins in Nuremberg.
  • Isaías Medina Angarita, president of Venezuela, is overthrown by a military coup.
• October 21 - Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
• October 24
  • United Nations founded.
  • Norwegian nationalist leader, Vidkun Quisling, is shot by firing squad for treason.
• October 27 - Indonesian separatists riot and fight Dutch and British security forces.
• October 29 - Getúlio Vargas, president of Brazil, resigns.

November

• November 13 - Charles De Gaulle elected head of a French provisional government
• November 15 - Harry S. Truman, Clement Attlee, and Mackenzie King call for a UN Atomic Energy Commission.[8]
• November 16 - Cold War: The United States controversially imports 88 German scientists to help in the production of rocket technology.
• November 20 - Nuremberg Trials begin: Trials against 24 German defendants of World War II start at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.
• November 28 - Earthquake in Balochistan (Pakistan) caused a tsunami and killed 4000.
• November 29 - The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is declared (this day was celebrated as Republic Day until 1990s). Marshal Tito is named president.

December

• December 2 - General Eurico Gaspar Dutra elected president of Brazil
• December 3 - Communist demonstrations in Athens - preliminary of the Greek Civil War
• December 4 - By a vote of 65 to 7, the United States Senate approves the entry of the United States into the United Nations.
• December 5 - A flight of USAF Avenger torpedo bombers known as Flight 19 disappears on a training exercise.
• December 21 - General George S. Patton dies from injuries sustained in a car accident on December 9.
• December 27
  • Twenty-eight nations sign an agreement creating the World Bank.
  • Zionist terror gangs attack British military bases in Palestine.

Births

• September 30 - Ehud Olmert, twelfth Prime Minister of Israel
• December 20 - Tom Tancredo, American politician

Deaths

• March 26 - David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1863)
• April 9 - Wilhelm Canaris, German admiral, Abwehr head, and traitor (d. 1945)
• April 12 - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States (b. 1882)
• April 30 - Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Hitler
• May 1- Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (suicide with his wife Magda Goebbels and their children) (b. 1897)
• May 18 - William Joseph Simmons, founder of the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (b. 1880)
• May 23 - Heinrich Himmler, NSDAP official (b. 1900)
• October 25 - Robert Ley, Third Reich labor minister (b. 1890)