January
January 27: The Soviet Red Army liberates Auschwitz.
January – WWII: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine continues; the United States Army crosses the Siegfried Line.
January 1 – WWII: Germany begins Operation Bodenplatte, an attempt by the Luftwaffe to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Countries
January 5 – Australia recognize the Polish Committee of National Liberation as the government of Poland.
January 7 – WWII: British General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference at Zonhoven describing his supporting role at the Battle of the Bulge.
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: A Soviet patrol arrests Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary.
January 18 – The Holocaust: The SS begins 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 20 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated to a fourth term as President of the United States, the only President ever to exceed two terms.
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.
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 26 – WWII: Infantry action at Holtzwihr, France, for which Audie Murphy is awarded the Medal of Honor.[1]
January 27 – The Holocaust: The Soviet Red Army liberates the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps.
January 28 – WWII: Supplies begin to reach China over the newly reopened Burma Road.
January 30 - WWII
MV Wilhelm Gustloff, with over 10,000 mainly civilian Germans from Gotenhafen (Gdynia) is sunk in Gdańsk Bay by three torpedoes from the Soviet submarine S-13 in the Baltic Sea; up to 9,400 are thought to have died – the greatest loss of life in a single ship sinking in war action 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 to be delivered personally, on broadcast radio, expressing the belief that Germany will triumph.
January 31 – WWII: Eddie Slovik is executed by firing squad near Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines for desertion, the only U.S. soldier since the American Civil War ever executed for this offense.
February
The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, February 2, 1945.
During the Battle of Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines land on the island, February 19, 1945.
February – Raymond L. Libby of American Cyanamid's research laboratories at Stamford, Connecticut, announces a method of orally administering the antibiotic penicillin.[2]
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.
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 6 – French writer Robert Brasillach is executed for collaboration with the Germans.
February 7 – WWII: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.
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: 3,608 drown when the troopship SS General von Steuben is sunk by the Soviet submarine S-13.[3]
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 13 – WWII:
Soviet forces capture Budapest, Hungary, from the Nazis.
Royal Air Force bombing of Dresden, Germany.
February 14 – Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru join the United Nations.
February 16 – WWII:
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 19–February 20 – 980 Japanese soldiers die as a result of a killing spree by long saltwater crocodiles in Ramree, Burma.[4]
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: end of the Battle of Monte Castello, after nearly three months of fighting, Brazilian troops expel German forces of a pivot point in the (Tuscan) North Apennines, where their artillery was impeding the advance of British 8th 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, freed the captives of the Los Baños internment camp.
The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by combined American and Filipino ground troops.
American and Filipino troops enter Intramuros, Manila.
The German garrison in Poznań capitulates to Red Army and Polish troops.
Bombing of Pforzheim: Heaviest of a series of bombing raids on Pforzheim in 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 allies side.
February 24 – The Egyptian Premier Ahmad Mahir Pasha is killed in Parliament after reading a decree.
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 – Anne Frank dies of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Lower Saxony, Germany.
March 1 – 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 U.S. 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.[5]
March 3 – WWII:
Finland declares war on the Axis powers.
United States and Filipino troops take Manila, Philippines.
Bombing of the Bezuidenhout: The British Royal Air Force accidentally bombs the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood in The Hague, Netherlands, killing 511 people.
A possible experimental atomic test blast occurs at the Nazis' Ohrdruf military testing area.[dubious – discuss]
March 4 – In the United Kingdom, The Princess Elizabeth, later to become Queen Elizabeth II, joins the British Army's Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service as a truck driver/mechanic.
March 4 – Football club FC Red Star (in Serbian: FK Crvena Zvezda) formed in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
March 5 – WWII: Brazilian troops take Castelnuovo (Vergato), in the last prior operations for the Allied Spring 1945 offensive in Italy.
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: American troops seize the bridge over the Rhine at Remagen, Germany and begin to cross.
March 8
Josip Broz Tito forms a government in Yugoslavia.
The 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 in neutral Switzerland to negotiate 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.
March 9 – The film Les Enfants du Paradis premieres in Paris.
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.
Sammarinese general election gives San Marino the world's first democratically elected communist government, which will hold power to 1957.[6][7]
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 – The 17th Academy Awards ceremony is held, broadcast via radio for the first time. Best Picture goes to Going My Way.
March 16 – WWII: The Battle of Iwo Jima unofficially ends, with pockets of guerrilla resistance persisting until the official conclusion of the battle.
March 17 – WWII: Kobe, Japan is is fire-bombed by 331 B-29 bombers, killing over 8,000 people.
March 18 – WWII: 1,250 American bombers attack Berlin.
March 19 – WWII:
Adolf Hitler orders that all industries, military installations, machine shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany be destroyed.
Off the coast of Japan, bombers hit the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing about 800 of her crewmen and crippling the ship.
March 21 – WWII
British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma.
Bulgarian and Soviet troops successfully defend the north bank of the Drava River as the Battle of the Transdanubian Hills concludes.
March 22
Arab League is formed with the adoption of a charter in Cairo, Egypt.
St. Mary's Cathedral, Hildesheim, is destroyed in an air raid.
March 24
WWII – Operation Varsity: Two airborne divisions capture bridges across the Rhine River to aid the Allied advance.
Sylvester the cat, a cartoon character, debuts in Life with Feathers.
March 26 – WWII: The Battle of Iwo Jima officially ends, with the destruction of the remaining areas of Japanese resistance.
March 29
WWII: The Red Army almost destroys the German 4th Army in the Heiligenbeil Pocket in East Prussia.
The "Clash of Titans": George Mikan and Bob Kurland duel at Madison Square Garden 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.
Alger Hiss is congratulated in Moscow for his part in bringing positions of Western powers and the Soviet Union closer to each other at the Yalta Conference.
April
The Japanese battleship Yamato explodes after persistent attacks from U.S. aircraft during the Battle of Okinawa, 7 April 1945.
Adolf Hitler, along with his wife Eva Braun, committed suicide on 30 April 1945.
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 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.
April 7 – WWII:
The only flight of the German ramming unit known as the Sonderkommando Elbe takes place, resulting in the loss of some 24 B-17s and B-24s of the United States Eighth Air Force.
The Japanese battleship Yamato is sunk 200 miles (320 km) north of Okinawa while en route on a suicide mission.
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 Dohnanyi 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.
April 11 – Buchenwald concentration camp is liberated by the United States Army.
April 12 – President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt dies suddenly at Warm Springs, Georgia; Vice President Harry S. Truman becomes the 33rd President.
April 14 – WWII: The Canadian First Army assumes military control of the Netherlands where German forces are trapped in the Atlantic wall fortifications along the coastline.[8]
April 15 – WWII:
The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated by British and Canadian forces.
The Canadian First Army reaches the coast in northern Holland and captures Arnhem.
April 16 – WWII:
Battle of Berlin begins.
The Canadians take Harlingen, and occupy Leeuwarden and Groningen in the Netherlands.
6,500 drown when Goya is sunk by Soviet submarine L-3.
April 17 – WWII:
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.
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.
April 22 – WWII:
Heinrich Himmler, through Count Bernadotte, puts forth an offer of German surrender to the Western Allies, but not the Soviet Union.
Adolf Hitler privately concedes defeat in his underground Berlin bunker after learning Felix Steiner could not mobilize enough men to launch a counterattack on the Soviets who had just broken through Germany.
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 29 June 1941. Hitler regards this as treason.
April 24 – 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: United States and Soviet troops link up at the Elbe River, cutting Germany in two.
April 25–26 – WWII: Last major strategic bombing raid by RAF Bomber Command, the destruction of the oil refinery at Tønsberg in southern Norway 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.[9]
Nazi surrenders mean the British and Canadians now control the German border with Switzerland from Basle to Lake Constance.
April 27
U.S. Ordnance troops find the coffins of Frederick William I of Prussia, Frederick the Great, Paul von Hindenburg, and his wife.
The Western Allies flatly reject any offer of surrender by Germany other than unconditional on all fronts.
April 28
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.
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-Obersturmbannfuehrer Eugen Wenner (representing Waffen-SS General Karl Wolf) 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.
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.
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 – 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. Karl Dönitz succeeds Hitler as President of Germany (Reichspräsident) and Joseph Goebbels succeeds as Chancellor of Germany (Reichskanzler), in accordance with Hitler's political testament of the previous day.
May
May – Interpol (being headquartered in Berlin) effectively ceases to exist (it is recreated on June 3, 1946).
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 Magda commit suicide after killing their six children. Karl Dönitz appoints Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk as the new 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.
May 2 – WWII:
The Soviet Union announces the fall of Berlin. Soviet soldiers hoist the Red flag over the Reich Chancellery.
Prague liberated by Red Army in May 1945.
Lübeck is liberated by the British Army.
Surrender of Axis troops in Italy comes into effect.
Troops of the New Zealand Army 2nd Division enter Trieste a day after the Yugoslavs; the German Army in Trieste surrenders to the New Zealand Army.
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; released by them, 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, Thielbek and Deutschland 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 to start the U.S. space program).
German Protestant theologian Gerhard Kittel is arrested by the French forces in Tübingen, Germany.
May 4 – WWII:
German surrender at Lüneburg Heath: All German armed forces in northwest Germany, Denmark and Holland surrender unconditionally to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, officially coming into effect on May 5 at 08:00 hours British Double (and German) Summer Time.
Holland is liberated by British and Canadian troops.[10]
Denmark is liberated.[11]
Admiral Karl Dönitz orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to bases in Norway.[12]
The Holy Crown of Hungary is found by the United States Army 86th Infantry Division. The United States government keeps the crown in Fort Knox for safekeeping from the Soviets until it is returned to Hungary on 6 January 1978.
May 5 – WWII:
Prague uprising: Prague rises up against occupying Nazi forces.
The US 11th Armored Division liberates the prisoners of Mauthausen concentration camp, including Simon Wiesenthal.
American soldiers fighting in the Pacific theater listen to radio reports of Victory in Europe Day on May 8, 1945.
Canadian soldiers liberate the city of Amsterdam from Nazi occupation.
A Japanese fire balloon kills five children and a woman, Elsie Mitchell, near Bly, Oregon, when it explodes as they drag it from the woods. They are the only people killed by an enemy attack on the American mainland during WWII.
May 6
WWII: 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 fascist puppet state established in the Croatian and Bosnian parts of occupied Yugoslavia, flees Zagreb for a location near Klagenfurt in Austria rather than fall into the hands of the Yugoslav Partisans, initiating the events of the Bleiburg repatriations.[13][14]
May 7 – WWII: General Alfred Jodl signs the unconditional German Instrument of Surrender at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war, officially coming into effect on May 8 at 23:01 hours Central European Time (00:01 hours May 9 German Summer Time).
May 8 – WWII:
Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day) as Nazi Germany surrenders, marking the end of WWII in Europe, with the final surrender being to the Soviets in Berlin, attended by representatives of the Western Powers.
Canadian troops move into Amsterdam, after German troops surrender.
Surrender of the Dodecanese is signed in Symi.
The British 8th 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.
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.
a black and white image of two Marines in their combat uniforms. One Marine is providing cover fire with his M1 Thompson submachinegun 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.
Marines of 1st Marine Division fighting on Okinawa, May 1945.
May 9 – WWII:
The Soviet Union marks V-E Day.
The Red Army enters Prague.
Hermann Göring surrenders to the United States Army near Radstadt.
The Norwegian resistance movement in Oslo, Norway, arrests the traitor Vidkun Quisling.
General Alexander Löhr, Commander of German Army Group E near Topolšica, Slovenia, signs the capitulation of German occupation troops.
The German occupation of the Channel Islands ends with their liberation by British troops. Alderney, an annex of the Neuengamme concentration camp, is among the islands liberated.
May 12
Argentinian labour leader José Peter declares the Federación Obrera de la Industria de la Carne 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 – Bleiburg tragedy (Croatian: "Way of the Cross"): 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 Josip Broz Tito, are force-marched through Croatia and Serbia, interned or massacred, with thousands dying.[15][16]
May 23
The Flensburg Government is dissolved by the Allies and President of Germany Karl Dönitz and Chancellor of Germany Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk are arrested by British forces 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 – William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw") is captured. He is later charged with high treason in London for his English-language wartime broadcasts on 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 paintings he has sold to Hermann Göring (Koch) are later found to be his own fakes.
May 30 – The Iranian government demands that all Soviet and British troops leave the country.
June
Dwight Eisenhower and Georgy Zhukov, June 5, 1945.
June 1 – The British take over Lebanon and Syria.
June 5 – The 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.
The Franck Committee recommends against a surprise nuclear bombing of Japan.[17]
June 12 – The Yugoslav Army leaves Trieste, leaving the New Zealand Army in control.
June 21 – WWII: The Battle of Okinawa ends with US 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.
June 29 – Czechoslovakia cedes Carpathian Ruthenia to the Soviet Union.
June 30 – Distribution of John von Neumann's First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, 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
July 16: Trinity Test at night in New Mexico.
July 1 – WWII: Germany is divided between the Allied occupation forces.
July 5 – Australian Prime Minister John Curtin dies of a heart attack at age 60.
July 4 – The Brazilian cruiser Bahia is sunk by an accidentally induced explosion, killing more than 300 and stranding the survivors in shark-infested waters.
July 5 – WWII: The Philippines are declared liberated.
July 8 – WWII: Harry S. Truman is informed that Japan will talk peace if it can retain the reign of the Emperor.[17]
July 9 – A forest fire breaks out in the Tillamook Burn (the third in that area of Oregon since 1933).
July 15 – The Scott Morrison Award of Minor Hockey Excellence was first given; first recipient is Gordie Howe.
July 14 – Italy declares war on Japan.
July 16 – The Trinity Test, the first of an atomic bomb, using about six kilograms of plutonium, succeeds in 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–August 2 – WWII – Potsdam Conference: At Potsdam, the three main Allied leaders hold their final summit of the war.
July 21 – WWII: President Harry S. Truman approves the order for atomic bombs to be used against Japan.[17]
July 23 – WWII: French marshal Philippe Pétain, who headed the Vichy government during WWII, goes on trial for treason.
July 26 – Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after his Conservative Party is soundly defeated by the Labour Party in the 1945 general election. Clement Attlee becomes the new Prime Minister. It is the first time that Labour has governed Britain with a majority in the House of Commons.[18]
July 26 – 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.[17]
July 27 – WWII: Bombing of Aomori – Two USAAF B-29s dropped a total of 60,000 leaflets on the city of Aomori, Japan, warning civilians of an air raid and urge them to leave immediately.
July 28 – An U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building, killing 14 people, including all on board.
July 28 – WWII: Japan ambiguously rejects the Potsdam Declaration.[17]
July 29
The BBC Light Programme radio station is launched, aimed at mainstream light entertainment and music.
WWII: Bombing of Aomori: Aomori is firebombed by 63 USAAF B-29 heavy bombers, killing 1,767 civilians and destroying 18,045 homes.
July 30 – WWII: The heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis is hit and sunk by torpedoes from the Japanese submarine I-58 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.
August
August 9: The mushroom cloud from the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air.
September 2: Japan signs the Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri.
August 6 – WWII: Atomic bombing of Hiroshima: A United States B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay, drops an atomic bomb, codenamed "Little Boy", on Hiroshima, Japan, at 8:15 a.m. (local time). The atomic bombings are believed to have resulted in between 129,000 and 246,000 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 USS Augusta (CA-31) in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
August 8
The United Nations Charter is ratified by the United States Senate, and this nation becomes the third to join the new international organization.
WWII: The Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
August 9 – WWII:
Atomic bombing of Nagasaki: A United States B-29 Bomber, Bockscar, drops an atomic bomb, codenamed "Fat Man", on Nagasaki, Japan, at 11:02 a.m. (local time).
The Soviet Union begins its army offensive against Japan in the northern part of the Japanese-held Chinese region of Manchuria.[19]
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 saying that Emperor Hirohito will be subject to the authority of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces.
August 11–25 – Soviet troops complete 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., U.S. President Harry S. Truman announces the Japanese surrender.
The August Revolution in Vietnam begins with the Viet Minh taking over the capital Hanoi who where assisted by the Japanese.
August 15
WWII: Gyokuon-hōsō: Emperor Hirohito's announcement of the unconditional surrender of Japan is broadcast on the radio a little after noon (Japan Standard Time). This is probably the first time an Emperor of Japan has been heard by the common people. Delivered in formal classical Japanese and without directly referring to surrender, 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 Occupation of Japan. Korea gains independence.
Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization 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 to 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, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
The allegorical dystopian novella Animal Farm by George Orwell, a satire on Stalinism, is first published by Fredric Warburg in London.
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.
August 23 – Soviet–Japanese War – Joseph Stalin ordered conveying a Japanese army prisoner of war to the Soviet Union. (Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union)
August 30 – WWII: Vietnam's capital Hanoi is overthrown 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.
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.[20] This vitamin is abundant in green leaf vegetables, liver, kidney, and yeast.[21]
September
September 2 – WWII ends:
Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita surrenders to Filipino 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 Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, 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.[22]
September 2 – Democratic Republic of Viet Nam is officially established, by Ho Chi Minh.[22]
September 4 – WWII: Japanese forces surrender on Wake Island after hearing word of their country's surrender.
September 5
Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a Japanese American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist "Tokyo Rose", is arrested in Yokohama.
The Russian code clerk Igor Gouzenko comes forward with numerous documents implicating the Soviet Union in many spy rings in North America: both in the United States and in Canada.
September 8
American troops occupy southern Korea, while the Soviet Union occupies the north, with the dividing line being the 38th parallel of latitude. This arrangement proves to be the indirect beginning of a divided Korea which will lead to the Korean War in 1950.
Hideki Tōjō, Japanese prime minister during most of WWII, attempts suicide to avoid facing a war crimes tribunal.
September 9 – Chiang Kai-Shek officially accepts the Japanese capitulation at Nanking.[22]
September 10 – Vidkun Quisling is sentenced to death as a Nazi collaborator, in Norway.[22]
September 11
Radio Republik Indonesia starts broadcasting.
The Batu Lintang camp in Sarawak, Borneo is liberated by Australian forces.
September 12 – The Japanese Army formally surrenders to the British in Singapore.
September 18 – Typhoon Makurazaki in Japan kills 3,746 people.
September 20 – Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru demand that all British troops depart India.
October
October 24: The United Nations is formed. This was its flag. The modern version is slightly retouched.
October 18: Nuremberg trials begin, after Buchenwald closed.
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 A4 rockets are launched near Cuxhaven in order to show Allied forces the rocket with liquid fuel.
October 2– George Albert Smith becomes president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
October 3–10 – The Detroit Tigers win the World Series against the Chicago Cubs; the Cubs have not returned to the World Series since.
October 4 – The Partizan Belgrade sports society is founded in Belgrade, Serbia.
October 5 – A strike by the Set Decorator's Union in Hollywood results in a riot.
October 9 – Pierre Laval is sentenced to death for collaboration with the Nazis.[22]
October 14 – Czechoslovakia: A new provisional national assembly is elected.[22]
October 15 – WWII: Pierre Laval, the former premier of Vichy France, is shot to death by a firing squad for treason against France.
October 15–21 – The Fifth Pan-African Congress is held in Manchester.
October 16 – Food and Agriculture Organization established as a specialized agency of the United Nations.
October 17 – A massive number of people, headed for CGT, gather in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina to demand Juan Perón's release. This is known to the Peronists as the Día de la lealtad (Loyalty Day) and considered the founding day of Peronism.
October 18 – Isaías Medina Angarita, president of Venezuela, is overthrown by a military coup.[22]
October 19 – Members of the Indonesian People's Army attack Anglo-Dutch forces in Indonesia.[22]
October 20 – Mongolians vote for independence from China.[22]
October 21 – Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
October 22 – Rómulo Betancourt is named provisional president of Venezuela.[22]
October 23 – Jackie Robinson signs a contract with the Montreal Royals baseball team.
October 24
The United Nations is founded by ratification of its Charter, by 29 nations.[22]
International Court of Justice ("World Court") established by the United Nations Charter.
The Norwegian Nazi leader Vidkun Quisling is shot to death by a firing squad for treason against Norway.[22]
October 25 – Getúlio Vargas is deposed as president in Brazil. José Linhares is named as temporary president.[22]
October 27 – Indonesian separatists riot and fight Dutch and British security forces.
October 29
Getúlio Vargas resigns as the president of Brazil.
At Gimbels Department Store in New York City, the first ballpoint pens go on sale at $12.50 each.
October 30 – The undivided country of India joins the United Nations. Pakistan is formed and joins later.
November
November 1
International Labour Organization's new constitution comes into effect.
John H. Johnson publishes the first issue of the magazine Ebony.
Telechron introduces the model 8H59 Musalarm, the first clock radio.
November 5 – Colombia joins the United Nations.
November 6 – Indonesians reject an offer of autonomy from the Dutch.[22]
November 9 – Soo bahk do Moo Duk Kwan is founded.
November 11 – Marshal Josip Broz Tito and the People's Front win a deciding majority (85%) in the Yugoslavian assembly.[22]
November 15
Harry S. Truman, Clement Attlee, and Mackenzie King share nuclear information with the U.N. and call for a United Nations Atomic Energy Commission.[17][22]
An offensive is begun in Manchuria by the Chinese Nationalists against further infiltration by the Chinese Communists.[22]
November 16
Charles de Gaulle is unanimously elected president, of France, by the provisional government.[22]
Cold War: The United States controversially imports 88 German scientists to help in the production of rocket technology.
The Friendly Ghost, the first Noveltoon featuring Casper is released.
The motion picture The Lost Weekend, starring Ray Milland, is released. The most realistic film portrayal of alcoholism up to this time, it wins several Academy Awards in the following year.
Yeshiva College is founded in New York City.
November 18 – The Tudeh party starts a bloodless coup and will form Azerbaijan within days. Soviet troops prevent Iranian troops from getting involved.
November 20 – The Nuremberg Trials begin: Trials against 22 Nazi war criminals of WWII start at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.[22]
November 26 – U.S. Ambassador to China Patrick J. Hurley resigns after he is unable to broker a deal between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse Tung.[22]
November 28 – An earthquake in Balochistan (Pakistan) causes a tsunami and kills 4,000.
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 1,800 square feet (170 m2) of floor space, and the first set of calculations is run on it.
December
December 2
General Eurico Gaspar Dutra is elected president of Brazil.
French banks (Banque de France, BNCI, CNEP, Crédit Lyonnais, and Société Générale) nationalized.
December 3 – Communist demonstrations in Athens presage the Greek Civil War.
December 4 – By a vote of 65–7, the United States Senate approves the entry of the United States into the United Nations.
December 5 – A flight of United States Navy TBF Avenger torpedo bombers known as Flight 19 disappears on a training exercise from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale.
December 21 – General George S. Patton dies from injuries sustained in a car accident on December 9 in Germany.
December 27
Twenty-eight nations sign an agreement creating the World Bank.
Terror strikes are carried out against British military bases in Palestine.
January 27: The Soviet Red Army liberates Auschwitz.
January – WWII: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine continues; the United States Army crosses the Siegfried Line.
January 1 – WWII: Germany begins Operation Bodenplatte, an attempt by the Luftwaffe to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Countries
January 5 – Australia recognize the Polish Committee of National Liberation as the government of Poland.
January 7 – WWII: British General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference at Zonhoven describing his supporting role at the Battle of the Bulge.
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: A Soviet patrol arrests Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary.
January 18 – The Holocaust: The SS begins 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 20 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated to a fourth term as President of the United States, the only President ever to exceed two terms.
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.
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 26 – WWII: Infantry action at Holtzwihr, France, for which Audie Murphy is awarded the Medal of Honor.[1]
January 27 – The Holocaust: The Soviet Red Army liberates the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps.
January 28 – WWII: Supplies begin to reach China over the newly reopened Burma Road.
January 30 - WWII
MV Wilhelm Gustloff, with over 10,000 mainly civilian Germans from Gotenhafen (Gdynia) is sunk in Gdańsk Bay by three torpedoes from the Soviet submarine S-13 in the Baltic Sea; up to 9,400 are thought to have died – the greatest loss of life in a single ship sinking in war action 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 to be delivered personally, on broadcast radio, expressing the belief that Germany will triumph.
January 31 – WWII: Eddie Slovik is executed by firing squad near Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines for desertion, the only U.S. soldier since the American Civil War ever executed for this offense.
February
The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, February 2, 1945.
During the Battle of Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines land on the island, February 19, 1945.
February – Raymond L. Libby of American Cyanamid's research laboratories at Stamford, Connecticut, announces a method of orally administering the antibiotic penicillin.[2]
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.
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 6 – French writer Robert Brasillach is executed for collaboration with the Germans.
February 7 – WWII: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.
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: 3,608 drown when the troopship SS General von Steuben is sunk by the Soviet submarine S-13.[3]
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 13 – WWII:
Soviet forces capture Budapest, Hungary, from the Nazis.
Royal Air Force bombing of Dresden, Germany.
February 14 – Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru join the United Nations.
February 16 – WWII:
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 19–February 20 – 980 Japanese soldiers die as a result of a killing spree by long saltwater crocodiles in Ramree, Burma.[4]
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: end of the Battle of Monte Castello, after nearly three months of fighting, Brazilian troops expel German forces of a pivot point in the (Tuscan) North Apennines, where their artillery was impeding the advance of British 8th 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, freed the captives of the Los Baños internment camp.
The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by combined American and Filipino ground troops.
American and Filipino troops enter Intramuros, Manila.
The German garrison in Poznań capitulates to Red Army and Polish troops.
Bombing of Pforzheim: Heaviest of a series of bombing raids on Pforzheim in 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 allies side.
February 24 – The Egyptian Premier Ahmad Mahir Pasha is killed in Parliament after reading a decree.
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 – Anne Frank dies of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Lower Saxony, Germany.
March 1 – 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 U.S. 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.[5]
March 3 – WWII:
Finland declares war on the Axis powers.
United States and Filipino troops take Manila, Philippines.
Bombing of the Bezuidenhout: The British Royal Air Force accidentally bombs the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood in The Hague, Netherlands, killing 511 people.
A possible experimental atomic test blast occurs at the Nazis' Ohrdruf military testing area.[dubious – discuss]
March 4 – In the United Kingdom, The Princess Elizabeth, later to become Queen Elizabeth II, joins the British Army's Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service as a truck driver/mechanic.
March 4 – Football club FC Red Star (in Serbian: FK Crvena Zvezda) formed in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
March 5 – WWII: Brazilian troops take Castelnuovo (Vergato), in the last prior operations for the Allied Spring 1945 offensive in Italy.
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: American troops seize the bridge over the Rhine at Remagen, Germany and begin to cross.
March 8
Josip Broz Tito forms a government in Yugoslavia.
The 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 in neutral Switzerland to negotiate 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.
March 9 – The film Les Enfants du Paradis premieres in Paris.
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.
Sammarinese general election gives San Marino the world's first democratically elected communist government, which will hold power to 1957.[6][7]
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 – The 17th Academy Awards ceremony is held, broadcast via radio for the first time. Best Picture goes to Going My Way.
March 16 – WWII: The Battle of Iwo Jima unofficially ends, with pockets of guerrilla resistance persisting until the official conclusion of the battle.
March 17 – WWII: Kobe, Japan is is fire-bombed by 331 B-29 bombers, killing over 8,000 people.
March 18 – WWII: 1,250 American bombers attack Berlin.
March 19 – WWII:
Adolf Hitler orders that all industries, military installations, machine shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany be destroyed.
Off the coast of Japan, bombers hit the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing about 800 of her crewmen and crippling the ship.
March 21 – WWII
British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma.
Bulgarian and Soviet troops successfully defend the north bank of the Drava River as the Battle of the Transdanubian Hills concludes.
March 22
Arab League is formed with the adoption of a charter in Cairo, Egypt.
St. Mary's Cathedral, Hildesheim, is destroyed in an air raid.
March 24
WWII – Operation Varsity: Two airborne divisions capture bridges across the Rhine River to aid the Allied advance.
Sylvester the cat, a cartoon character, debuts in Life with Feathers.
March 26 – WWII: The Battle of Iwo Jima officially ends, with the destruction of the remaining areas of Japanese resistance.
March 29
WWII: The Red Army almost destroys the German 4th Army in the Heiligenbeil Pocket in East Prussia.
The "Clash of Titans": George Mikan and Bob Kurland duel at Madison Square Garden 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.
Alger Hiss is congratulated in Moscow for his part in bringing positions of Western powers and the Soviet Union closer to each other at the Yalta Conference.
April
The Japanese battleship Yamato explodes after persistent attacks from U.S. aircraft during the Battle of Okinawa, 7 April 1945.
Adolf Hitler, along with his wife Eva Braun, committed suicide on 30 April 1945.
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 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.
April 7 – WWII:
The only flight of the German ramming unit known as the Sonderkommando Elbe takes place, resulting in the loss of some 24 B-17s and B-24s of the United States Eighth Air Force.
The Japanese battleship Yamato is sunk 200 miles (320 km) north of Okinawa while en route on a suicide mission.
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 Dohnanyi 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.
April 11 – Buchenwald concentration camp is liberated by the United States Army.
April 12 – President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt dies suddenly at Warm Springs, Georgia; Vice President Harry S. Truman becomes the 33rd President.
April 14 – WWII: The Canadian First Army assumes military control of the Netherlands where German forces are trapped in the Atlantic wall fortifications along the coastline.[8]
April 15 – WWII:
The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated by British and Canadian forces.
The Canadian First Army reaches the coast in northern Holland and captures Arnhem.
April 16 – WWII:
Battle of Berlin begins.
The Canadians take Harlingen, and occupy Leeuwarden and Groningen in the Netherlands.
6,500 drown when Goya is sunk by Soviet submarine L-3.
April 17 – WWII:
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.
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.
April 22 – WWII:
Heinrich Himmler, through Count Bernadotte, puts forth an offer of German surrender to the Western Allies, but not the Soviet Union.
Adolf Hitler privately concedes defeat in his underground Berlin bunker after learning Felix Steiner could not mobilize enough men to launch a counterattack on the Soviets who had just broken through Germany.
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 29 June 1941. Hitler regards this as treason.
April 24 – 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: United States and Soviet troops link up at the Elbe River, cutting Germany in two.
April 25–26 – WWII: Last major strategic bombing raid by RAF Bomber Command, the destruction of the oil refinery at Tønsberg in southern Norway 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.[9]
Nazi surrenders mean the British and Canadians now control the German border with Switzerland from Basle to Lake Constance.
April 27
U.S. Ordnance troops find the coffins of Frederick William I of Prussia, Frederick the Great, Paul von Hindenburg, and his wife.
The Western Allies flatly reject any offer of surrender by Germany other than unconditional on all fronts.
April 28
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.
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-Obersturmbannfuehrer Eugen Wenner (representing Waffen-SS General Karl Wolf) 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.
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.
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 – 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. Karl Dönitz succeeds Hitler as President of Germany (Reichspräsident) and Joseph Goebbels succeeds as Chancellor of Germany (Reichskanzler), in accordance with Hitler's political testament of the previous day.
May
May – Interpol (being headquartered in Berlin) effectively ceases to exist (it is recreated on June 3, 1946).
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 Magda commit suicide after killing their six children. Karl Dönitz appoints Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk as the new 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.
May 2 – WWII:
The Soviet Union announces the fall of Berlin. Soviet soldiers hoist the Red flag over the Reich Chancellery.
Prague liberated by Red Army in May 1945.
Lübeck is liberated by the British Army.
Surrender of Axis troops in Italy comes into effect.
Troops of the New Zealand Army 2nd Division enter Trieste a day after the Yugoslavs; the German Army in Trieste surrenders to the New Zealand Army.
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; released by them, 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, Thielbek and Deutschland 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 to start the U.S. space program).
German Protestant theologian Gerhard Kittel is arrested by the French forces in Tübingen, Germany.
May 4 – WWII:
German surrender at Lüneburg Heath: All German armed forces in northwest Germany, Denmark and Holland surrender unconditionally to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, officially coming into effect on May 5 at 08:00 hours British Double (and German) Summer Time.
Holland is liberated by British and Canadian troops.[10]
Denmark is liberated.[11]
Admiral Karl Dönitz orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to bases in Norway.[12]
The Holy Crown of Hungary is found by the United States Army 86th Infantry Division. The United States government keeps the crown in Fort Knox for safekeeping from the Soviets until it is returned to Hungary on 6 January 1978.
May 5 – WWII:
Prague uprising: Prague rises up against occupying Nazi forces.
The US 11th Armored Division liberates the prisoners of Mauthausen concentration camp, including Simon Wiesenthal.
American soldiers fighting in the Pacific theater listen to radio reports of Victory in Europe Day on May 8, 1945.
Canadian soldiers liberate the city of Amsterdam from Nazi occupation.
A Japanese fire balloon kills five children and a woman, Elsie Mitchell, near Bly, Oregon, when it explodes as they drag it from the woods. They are the only people killed by an enemy attack on the American mainland during WWII.
May 6
WWII: 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 fascist puppet state established in the Croatian and Bosnian parts of occupied Yugoslavia, flees Zagreb for a location near Klagenfurt in Austria rather than fall into the hands of the Yugoslav Partisans, initiating the events of the Bleiburg repatriations.[13][14]
May 7 – WWII: General Alfred Jodl signs the unconditional German Instrument of Surrender at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war, officially coming into effect on May 8 at 23:01 hours Central European Time (00:01 hours May 9 German Summer Time).
May 8 – WWII:
Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day) as Nazi Germany surrenders, marking the end of WWII in Europe, with the final surrender being to the Soviets in Berlin, attended by representatives of the Western Powers.
Canadian troops move into Amsterdam, after German troops surrender.
Surrender of the Dodecanese is signed in Symi.
The British 8th 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.
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.
a black and white image of two Marines in their combat uniforms. One Marine is providing cover fire with his M1 Thompson submachinegun 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.
Marines of 1st Marine Division fighting on Okinawa, May 1945.
May 9 – WWII:
The Soviet Union marks V-E Day.
The Red Army enters Prague.
Hermann Göring surrenders to the United States Army near Radstadt.
The Norwegian resistance movement in Oslo, Norway, arrests the traitor Vidkun Quisling.
General Alexander Löhr, Commander of German Army Group E near Topolšica, Slovenia, signs the capitulation of German occupation troops.
The German occupation of the Channel Islands ends with their liberation by British troops. Alderney, an annex of the Neuengamme concentration camp, is among the islands liberated.
May 12
Argentinian labour leader José Peter declares the Federación Obrera de la Industria de la Carne 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 – Bleiburg tragedy (Croatian: "Way of the Cross"): 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 Josip Broz Tito, are force-marched through Croatia and Serbia, interned or massacred, with thousands dying.[15][16]
May 23
The Flensburg Government is dissolved by the Allies and President of Germany Karl Dönitz and Chancellor of Germany Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk are arrested by British forces 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 – William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw") is captured. He is later charged with high treason in London for his English-language wartime broadcasts on 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 paintings he has sold to Hermann Göring (Koch) are later found to be his own fakes.
May 30 – The Iranian government demands that all Soviet and British troops leave the country.
June
Dwight Eisenhower and Georgy Zhukov, June 5, 1945.
June 1 – The British take over Lebanon and Syria.
June 5 – The 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.
The Franck Committee recommends against a surprise nuclear bombing of Japan.[17]
June 12 – The Yugoslav Army leaves Trieste, leaving the New Zealand Army in control.
June 21 – WWII: The Battle of Okinawa ends with US 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.
June 29 – Czechoslovakia cedes Carpathian Ruthenia to the Soviet Union.
June 30 – Distribution of John von Neumann's First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, 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
July 16: Trinity Test at night in New Mexico.
July 1 – WWII: Germany is divided between the Allied occupation forces.
July 5 – Australian Prime Minister John Curtin dies of a heart attack at age 60.
July 4 – The Brazilian cruiser Bahia is sunk by an accidentally induced explosion, killing more than 300 and stranding the survivors in shark-infested waters.
July 5 – WWII: The Philippines are declared liberated.
July 8 – WWII: Harry S. Truman is informed that Japan will talk peace if it can retain the reign of the Emperor.[17]
July 9 – A forest fire breaks out in the Tillamook Burn (the third in that area of Oregon since 1933).
July 15 – The Scott Morrison Award of Minor Hockey Excellence was first given; first recipient is Gordie Howe.
July 14 – Italy declares war on Japan.
July 16 – The Trinity Test, the first of an atomic bomb, using about six kilograms of plutonium, succeeds in 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–August 2 – WWII – Potsdam Conference: At Potsdam, the three main Allied leaders hold their final summit of the war.
July 21 – WWII: President Harry S. Truman approves the order for atomic bombs to be used against Japan.[17]
July 23 – WWII: French marshal Philippe Pétain, who headed the Vichy government during WWII, goes on trial for treason.
July 26 – Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after his Conservative Party is soundly defeated by the Labour Party in the 1945 general election. Clement Attlee becomes the new Prime Minister. It is the first time that Labour has governed Britain with a majority in the House of Commons.[18]
July 26 – 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.[17]
July 27 – WWII: Bombing of Aomori – Two USAAF B-29s dropped a total of 60,000 leaflets on the city of Aomori, Japan, warning civilians of an air raid and urge them to leave immediately.
July 28 – An U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building, killing 14 people, including all on board.
July 28 – WWII: Japan ambiguously rejects the Potsdam Declaration.[17]
July 29
The BBC Light Programme radio station is launched, aimed at mainstream light entertainment and music.
WWII: Bombing of Aomori: Aomori is firebombed by 63 USAAF B-29 heavy bombers, killing 1,767 civilians and destroying 18,045 homes.
July 30 – WWII: The heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis is hit and sunk by torpedoes from the Japanese submarine I-58 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.
August
August 9: The mushroom cloud from the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air.
September 2: Japan signs the Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri.
August 6 – WWII: Atomic bombing of Hiroshima: A United States B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay, drops an atomic bomb, codenamed "Little Boy", on Hiroshima, Japan, at 8:15 a.m. (local time). The atomic bombings are believed to have resulted in between 129,000 and 246,000 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 USS Augusta (CA-31) in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
August 8
The United Nations Charter is ratified by the United States Senate, and this nation becomes the third to join the new international organization.
WWII: The Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
August 9 – WWII:
Atomic bombing of Nagasaki: A United States B-29 Bomber, Bockscar, drops an atomic bomb, codenamed "Fat Man", on Nagasaki, Japan, at 11:02 a.m. (local time).
The Soviet Union begins its army offensive against Japan in the northern part of the Japanese-held Chinese region of Manchuria.[19]
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 saying that Emperor Hirohito will be subject to the authority of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces.
August 11–25 – Soviet troops complete 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., U.S. President Harry S. Truman announces the Japanese surrender.
The August Revolution in Vietnam begins with the Viet Minh taking over the capital Hanoi who where assisted by the Japanese.
August 15
WWII: Gyokuon-hōsō: Emperor Hirohito's announcement of the unconditional surrender of Japan is broadcast on the radio a little after noon (Japan Standard Time). This is probably the first time an Emperor of Japan has been heard by the common people. Delivered in formal classical Japanese and without directly referring to surrender, 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 Occupation of Japan. Korea gains independence.
Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization 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 to 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, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
The allegorical dystopian novella Animal Farm by George Orwell, a satire on Stalinism, is first published by Fredric Warburg in London.
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.
August 23 – Soviet–Japanese War – Joseph Stalin ordered conveying a Japanese army prisoner of war to the Soviet Union. (Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union)
August 30 – WWII: Vietnam's capital Hanoi is overthrown 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.
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.[20] This vitamin is abundant in green leaf vegetables, liver, kidney, and yeast.[21]
September
September 2 – WWII ends:
Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita surrenders to Filipino 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 Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, 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.[22]
September 2 – Democratic Republic of Viet Nam is officially established, by Ho Chi Minh.[22]
September 4 – WWII: Japanese forces surrender on Wake Island after hearing word of their country's surrender.
September 5
Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a Japanese American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist "Tokyo Rose", is arrested in Yokohama.
The Russian code clerk Igor Gouzenko comes forward with numerous documents implicating the Soviet Union in many spy rings in North America: both in the United States and in Canada.
September 8
American troops occupy southern Korea, while the Soviet Union occupies the north, with the dividing line being the 38th parallel of latitude. This arrangement proves to be the indirect beginning of a divided Korea which will lead to the Korean War in 1950.
Hideki Tōjō, Japanese prime minister during most of WWII, attempts suicide to avoid facing a war crimes tribunal.
September 9 – Chiang Kai-Shek officially accepts the Japanese capitulation at Nanking.[22]
September 10 – Vidkun Quisling is sentenced to death as a Nazi collaborator, in Norway.[22]
September 11
Radio Republik Indonesia starts broadcasting.
The Batu Lintang camp in Sarawak, Borneo is liberated by Australian forces.
September 12 – The Japanese Army formally surrenders to the British in Singapore.
September 18 – Typhoon Makurazaki in Japan kills 3,746 people.
September 20 – Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru demand that all British troops depart India.
October
October 24: The United Nations is formed. This was its flag. The modern version is slightly retouched.
October 18: Nuremberg trials begin, after Buchenwald closed.
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 A4 rockets are launched near Cuxhaven in order to show Allied forces the rocket with liquid fuel.
October 2– George Albert Smith becomes president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
October 3–10 – The Detroit Tigers win the World Series against the Chicago Cubs; the Cubs have not returned to the World Series since.
October 4 – The Partizan Belgrade sports society is founded in Belgrade, Serbia.
October 5 – A strike by the Set Decorator's Union in Hollywood results in a riot.
October 9 – Pierre Laval is sentenced to death for collaboration with the Nazis.[22]
October 14 – Czechoslovakia: A new provisional national assembly is elected.[22]
October 15 – WWII: Pierre Laval, the former premier of Vichy France, is shot to death by a firing squad for treason against France.
October 15–21 – The Fifth Pan-African Congress is held in Manchester.
October 16 – Food and Agriculture Organization established as a specialized agency of the United Nations.
October 17 – A massive number of people, headed for CGT, gather in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina to demand Juan Perón's release. This is known to the Peronists as the Día de la lealtad (Loyalty Day) and considered the founding day of Peronism.
October 18 – Isaías Medina Angarita, president of Venezuela, is overthrown by a military coup.[22]
October 19 – Members of the Indonesian People's Army attack Anglo-Dutch forces in Indonesia.[22]
October 20 – Mongolians vote for independence from China.[22]
October 21 – Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
October 22 – Rómulo Betancourt is named provisional president of Venezuela.[22]
October 23 – Jackie Robinson signs a contract with the Montreal Royals baseball team.
October 24
The United Nations is founded by ratification of its Charter, by 29 nations.[22]
International Court of Justice ("World Court") established by the United Nations Charter.
The Norwegian Nazi leader Vidkun Quisling is shot to death by a firing squad for treason against Norway.[22]
October 25 – Getúlio Vargas is deposed as president in Brazil. José Linhares is named as temporary president.[22]
October 27 – Indonesian separatists riot and fight Dutch and British security forces.
October 29
Getúlio Vargas resigns as the president of Brazil.
At Gimbels Department Store in New York City, the first ballpoint pens go on sale at $12.50 each.
October 30 – The undivided country of India joins the United Nations. Pakistan is formed and joins later.
November
November 1
International Labour Organization's new constitution comes into effect.
John H. Johnson publishes the first issue of the magazine Ebony.
Telechron introduces the model 8H59 Musalarm, the first clock radio.
November 5 – Colombia joins the United Nations.
November 6 – Indonesians reject an offer of autonomy from the Dutch.[22]
November 9 – Soo bahk do Moo Duk Kwan is founded.
November 11 – Marshal Josip Broz Tito and the People's Front win a deciding majority (85%) in the Yugoslavian assembly.[22]
November 15
Harry S. Truman, Clement Attlee, and Mackenzie King share nuclear information with the U.N. and call for a United Nations Atomic Energy Commission.[17][22]
An offensive is begun in Manchuria by the Chinese Nationalists against further infiltration by the Chinese Communists.[22]
November 16
Charles de Gaulle is unanimously elected president, of France, by the provisional government.[22]
Cold War: The United States controversially imports 88 German scientists to help in the production of rocket technology.
The Friendly Ghost, the first Noveltoon featuring Casper is released.
The motion picture The Lost Weekend, starring Ray Milland, is released. The most realistic film portrayal of alcoholism up to this time, it wins several Academy Awards in the following year.
Yeshiva College is founded in New York City.
November 18 – The Tudeh party starts a bloodless coup and will form Azerbaijan within days. Soviet troops prevent Iranian troops from getting involved.
November 20 – The Nuremberg Trials begin: Trials against 22 Nazi war criminals of WWII start at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.[22]
November 26 – U.S. Ambassador to China Patrick J. Hurley resigns after he is unable to broker a deal between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse Tung.[22]
November 28 – An earthquake in Balochistan (Pakistan) causes a tsunami and kills 4,000.
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 1,800 square feet (170 m2) of floor space, and the first set of calculations is run on it.
December
December 2
General Eurico Gaspar Dutra is elected president of Brazil.
French banks (Banque de France, BNCI, CNEP, Crédit Lyonnais, and Société Générale) nationalized.
December 3 – Communist demonstrations in Athens presage the Greek Civil War.
December 4 – By a vote of 65–7, the United States Senate approves the entry of the United States into the United Nations.
December 5 – A flight of United States Navy TBF Avenger torpedo bombers known as Flight 19 disappears on a training exercise from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale.
December 21 – General George S. Patton dies from injuries sustained in a car accident on December 9 in Germany.
December 27
Twenty-eight nations sign an agreement creating the World Bank.
Terror strikes are carried out against British military bases in Palestine.