1945

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1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar).

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Events

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January

January 5 - The 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 - World War II: The Soviet Union begin a very large offensive in Eastern Europe against the Nazis.
January 13 - A Soviet patrol arrests Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary.
January 16 - Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker
January 17 - World War II: Soviets occupy Warsaw
January 17 - Holocaust: Nazis begin to evacuate from Auschwitz concentration camp
January 20 - Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated to an unprecedented fourth term as President of the United States.
January 20 - Hungary drops out of the Second World War, agreeing to an armistice with the Allies.
January 24 - First successful launch of the German A4b-Rocket
January 27 - The Red Army arrives at Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland and find the Nazi concentration camp where 1.3 million people were murdered.
January 28 - World War II: Supplies begin to reach China over the newly reopened Burma Road.
January 30 - The Wilhelm Gustloff with about 10,000 Nazi troops and refugees from Gotenhafen in the Gdansk Bay sunk with three torpedoes from the Soviet submarine S-13. More 9,300 drowned in the Baltic Sea.
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.

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February

Image:Yalta Conference.jpg

February 2 - World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill leave to meet with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference.
February 3 - World War II: Soviet Union agrees to enter the Pacific Theatre conflict against Japan.
February 4 - World War II: 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 - World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila
February 9 - Walter Ulbricht becomes the leader of German communists in Moscow
February 10 - World War II: The SS General von Steuben sunk by the Soviet submarine S-13.
February 13 - World War II: Soviet Union forces capture Budapest, Hungary from the Nazis.
February 13 - World War II: The Royal Air Force bombs Dresden, Germany.
February 14 - Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru join the United Nations.
February 16 - World War II: American forces land on Corregidor island in the Philippines.
February 16 - American forces recapture the Bataan Peninsula
February 19 - World War II: 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 - World War II: Following the American victory at the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines reach the top of Mount Surabachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo will later win a Pulitzer Prize.
February 23 - World War II: The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by American forces.
February 23 - World War II: Capitulation of German garrison in Poznań, city is liberated by Red Army and Polish forces.
February 24 - Egyptian Premier Ahmed Maher Pasha is killed in Parliament after reading a decree.

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March

March 1 - Jesse Holman Jones starts his term of office as U.S. Secretary of Commerce, serving under President Franklin D. Roosevelt
March 2 - Launch of the 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 - World War II: Previously neutral Finland declares war on the Axis powers.
March 3 - A possible experimental atomic test blast occurs at the Nazis' Ohrdruf military testing area [1].
March 6 - Communist-led government formed in Romania
March 7 - World War II: 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 - World War II: American B-29 bombers attack Japan with incendiary bombs. Tokyo is fire-bombed killing 100,000 citizens.
March 16 - World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends but small pockets of Japanese resistance persist.
March 17 - World War II: Japanese city of Kobe is fire-bombed by 331 B-29 bombers, killing over 8,000.
March 18 - World War II: 1,250 American bombers attack Berlin.
March 19 - World War II: Adolf Hitler orders that all industries, military installations, shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany be destroyed.
March 19 - Off the coast of Japan, bombers hit the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing 800 of her crew and crippling the ship.
March 21 - World War II: British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma
March 22 - The Arab League was formed with the adoption of a charter in Cairo, Egypt.
March 29 - The "Clash of Titans": George Mikan and Bob Kurland duelled at Madison Square Garden. OSU defeats DePaul 52-44.
March 30 - World War II: 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.
From February 14, 1936, to March 1, 1945, AG Weser launched a total of 162 U-boats.

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April

April 1 - World War II: United States troops land on Okinawa in the last campaign of the war. The Battle of Okinawa starts.
April 4 - World War II: American troops liberate Ohrdruf death camp in Germany.
April 7 - World War II: The Japanese battleship Yamato is sunk 200 miles north of Okinawa while in-route to a suicide mission.
April 7 - 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.
April 10 - The Allied Forces liberated their first Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald.
April 12 - United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945) dies suddenly at Warm Springs, Georgia; Vice President Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) takes the Oath of Office.
April 15 - Bergen-Belsen concentration camp liberated.
April 16 - Singer Priscilla Paris, of the Paris Sisters, was born in San Francisco
April 16 - World War II: The Goya sunk by the Soviet submarine L-3.
April 25 - Founding negotiations of United Nations in San Francisco
April 25 - World War II: Elbe Day, United States and Soviet troops link up at the Elbe River, cutting Germany in two
April 26 - last "successful" german panzer-offensive in Bautzen, the city is recaptured
April 27 - U.S. Ordinance troops find the coffins of Frederick Wilhelm I, Frederick the Great, Paul Von Hindenburg,and his wife
April 28 - Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are executed by Italian partisans as they attempt to flee the country. Their bodies are then hung by their heels in the public square of Milan.
April 29 - Start of Operation Manna.
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.

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May

Image:Red army soldiers raising the soviet flag on the roof of the reichstag berlin germany.jpg

Image:British VE Day.jpg

May 1 - Joseph Goebbels and his wife commit suicide after killing their 6 children. Karl Dönitz appoints Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk as the new Chancellor of Germany.
May 1 - World War II: Troops of Yugoslav 4th Army together with Slovene 9th Corpus NOV enter Trieste.
May 2 - World War II: The Soviet Union announces the fall of Berlin. Soviet soldiers hoist the red flag over the Reichstag building.
May 2 - World War II: 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 2 - The last postage stamp utilized by Manzhouguo is issued.
May 3 - World War II: Sinkings of the floating-jails Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the RAF in the Lübeck Bay.
May 3 - 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 - World War II: Liberation of the concentration camp Neuengamme near Hamburg by the British army.
May 4 - World War II: Reddition of the North Germany army by Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
May 4 - World War II: Holland liberated by Canadian troops. [2]
May 5 - World War II: Prague uprising against the Nazis.
May 5 - Ezra Pound, poet and author, is arrested by American soldiers in Italy for treason.
May 5 - World War II: US armored unit liberates prisoners of Mauthausen concentration camp - including Simon Wiesenthal
May 5 - World War II: Canadian soldiers liberate the city of Amsterdam from Nazi occupation.
May 5 - World War II: Admiral Karl Dönitz orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases.
May 5 - World War II: 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 - World War II: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (first was on December 11, 1941).
May 7 - World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document will take effect the next day.
May 8 - World War II: V-E Day (Victory in Europe, as Nazi Germany surrenders) commemorates the end of World War II in Europe.
May 8 - World War II: British 8th Army together with Slovene partisan troops and motorized detachment of Yugoslav 4th Army arrives to Carinthia and Klagenfurt.
May 8-May 29 - In Algeria, thousands die as French troops and released Italian POW's brutally kill what is estimated as 45 thousand Algerian citizens(setif rebellion).in the biggest massacre in the world along with Hiroshima.
May 9 - World War II: Hermann Göring is captured by the United States Army; Norway arrests Vidkun Quisling; Soviet Union marks V-E Day.
May 9 - World War II: Red Army enters Prague (capitulation of German occupation troops)
May 9 - World War II: General Alexander Löhr Commander of German Army Group E near Topolšica, Slovenia, signs capitulation of German occupation troops.
May 9 - World War II: Occupation of the Channel Islands ends with the liberation by British troops. Alderney, annex of the concentration camp Neuengamme liberated.
May 12 - World War II: Yugoslav Army capitulates to the New Zealand Army, in Trieste and hands over the city.
May 15 - World War II: the last WWII battle in Europe is fought at Poljana near Slovenj Gradec, Slovenia
May 18 - The Death of the second KKK founder William Joseph Simmons. William died in Atlanta. He is survived by his wife.
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.
May 23 - Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi Gestapo, commits suicide in British custody.
May 25 - In Atlantic, ships can finally keep their lights lit. Leo Szilard begs Harry S. Truman not to use the bomb. [3]
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. He is hanged in January of 1946.
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

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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. [4]
June 12 - Yugoslav Army leaves Trieste, leaving the New Zealand Army in control.
June 21 - World War II: The Battle of Okinawa ends.
June 24 - World War II: 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

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July

July 1 - World War II: Germany is divided between Allied occupation forces
July 5 - World War II: Liberation of the Philippines declared.
July 8 - World War II: Harry S. Truman informed that Japan will talk peace if she can keep the Emperor. [5]
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 17 - World War II: 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 - World War II: Harry S. Truman approves order for atomic bombs to be used. [6]
July 23 - World War II: French marshall 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.
July 26 - Potsdam Declaration demands Japan's unconditional surrender; Article 12 permitting Japan to retain the Emperor had been deleted by Truman. [7]
July 28 - An Army Air Forces B-25 bomber accidentally crashes into the Empire State Building, killing 14 people.
July 28 - World War II: Japan rejects Potsdam Declaration [8].
July 29 - The BBC Light Programme radio station was launched, aimed at mainstream light entertainment and music.
July 30 - World War II: 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 Butler MacVey III is later court-martialed.
July 31 - World War II: Pierre Laval, fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria.

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August

Image:Nagasakibomb.jpg

Image:Shigemitsu-signs-surrender.jpg

August 6 - World War II: the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The United States detonates an atomic bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan at 8:16 AM (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. Soviets declare war on Japan.
August 9 - World War II: The United States detonates an atomic bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" over the city of Nagasaki, Japan at 11:02 AM (local time).
August 9 - World War II: The Soviet Union begins its offensive against Japan in the then Japanese controlled Chinese region of Manchuria. [9]
August 10 - World War II: Japan offers to surrender to the Allies, "...provided this does not prejudice the sovereignty of the Emperor."
August 10 - World War II: US drops warning leaflets on Nagasaki. [10]
August 11 - World War II: 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 - World War II: Emperor Hirohito accepts the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.
August 15 - World War II: 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.
August 15 - Korea gains independence following Japan's surrender
August 17 - Indonesian nationalists Sukarno and Mohammed Hatta declare the independence of Republic of Indonesia, Sukarno as a president. Dutch colonial authorities do not approve
August 19 - Vietnam War: Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh take power in Hanoi, Vietnam.
End of August - Chinese Civil War: Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek meet in Chongqing to discuss an end to hostilities between the Communists and the Nationalists.

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September

September 2 - World War II ends: The final official surrender of Japan was accepted by Supreme Allied Commander General Douglas MacArthur and 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.
September 2 - Ho Chi Minh promulgates the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, and unity from the north to the south.
September 4 - World War II: 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.
September 8 - Hideki Tojo, Japanese prime minister during most of World War II, attempts suicide to avoid facing a war crimes tribunal.
September 9 - "First actual case of bug being found" Moth found in Relay 70, Panel F Mark II Aiken Relay Computer
September 11 - Radio Republik Indonesia starts broadcasting.
September 12 - Japanese army formally surrendered in Singapore.
September 20 - Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru demand that British troops leave India

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October

Image:Flag of the United Nations.svg

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 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 - World War II: Former premier of Vichy France, Pierre Laval, is executed by firing squad for treason.
October 17 - Colonel Juan Peron stages a coup d'état, becoming ruler of Argentina.
October 18 - The first German war crimes trial begins in Nuremberg.
October 18 - 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 23 - Jackie Robinson signs a contract with the Montreal Royals.
October 24 - United Nations founded.
October 24 - Norwegian Nazi leader, Vidkun Quisling, is shot by firing squad for treason.
October 27 - Indonesian separatists riot and fight Dutch and British security forces.
October 29 - Getulio Vargas, president of Brazil, resigns.
October 29 - At Gimbels Department Store in New York City, the first ballpoint pens go on sale at $12.50 each.

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November

November 1 - John H. Johnson publishes the first issue of the magazine Ebony.
November 1 - Telechron introduces the model 8H59 "Musalarm", the first clock radio.
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.[11]
November 16 - Cold War: The United States controversially imports 88 German scientists to help in the production of rocket technology.
November 16 - Yeshiva College founded
November 20 - Nuremberg Trials begin: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals of World War II start at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.
November 29 - The Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia is declared (this day was celebrated as Republic Day until 1990s). Marshal Tito is named president.
November 29 - Assembly of the world's first general purpose electronic computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), is completed. It covers 1800 feet of floor space. The first set of calculations is run on the computer.

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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 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.
December 27 - Terror strikes against British military bases in Palestine.

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Unknown date

Foundation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Poland has two rival governments
Discovery of Nag Hammadi scriptures
Dutch painter Han van Meegeren is arrested for collaboration with Nazis but the paintings he had sold to Hermann Göring are found to be his fakes.
Female suffrage in Guatemala and Japan
Saskatchewan Government Insurance, the first state-owned automobile insurance company in North America, is created.
Denmark recognizes independent Iceland
US house of representatives calls for unrestricted Jewish immigration to Palestine in order to establish a Jewish commonwealth there
Roben Hollis Fleet pays $11.550.000 alimony to his second wife Dorothy

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Ongoing events

Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945)

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Science and technology

Arthur C. Clarke puts forward the idea of a communications satellite in a Wireless World magazine article.
At the Mayo Clinic, streptomycin is first used to treat tuberculosis.
Percy Spencer accidentally discovers that microwaves can heat food. Invention of the microwave oven follows.
Grand Rapids, Michigan and Newburgh, New York become the first cities to add fluoride to drinking water.
The first nuclear reactor outside of the U.S. is built in Chalk River, Ontario, Canada.
High-altitude, west-to-east winds across the Pacific Ocean — discovered by the Japanese in 1942 and by Americans in 1944 — are dubbed the jet stream.
Salvador Edward Luria and Alfred Day Hershey independently recognize that viruses undergo mutations.
The herbicide 2,4-D is introduced; it is later used as a component of Agent Orange.
A team led by Charles DuBois Coryell discovers chemical element 61, the only one still missing between 1 and 96 on the periodic table. The new element is called promethium.
Raymond Libby develops oral penicillin.
American Canamid discovers folic acid, a vitamin abundent in green leafy vegetables, liver, kidney, and yeast.
The first geothermal milk pasteurization occurs in Klamath Falls, Oregon, USA.