Also Within This Year in History:
1945
World War II ended in 1945, after Germany surrendered in May and Japan capitulated in August, days after powerful new atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Two months later, 29 nations ratified a charter to form the United Nations. Writer George Orwell coined the term “cold war,” predicting icy relations between the U.S. and U.S.S.R., while popular songs like “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive" and “Sentimental Journey” reflected the stateside mood as some 4 million G.I.s returned home.
In preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and mainland Japan, Gen. Douglas MacArthur is placed in command of all U.S. ground forces and Adm. Chester Nimitz is placed…
Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the American 6th Army land on the Lingayen Gulf of Luzon, another step in the capture of the Philippine Islands from the Japanese. The Japanese controlled…
Adolf Hitler takes to his underground bunker, where he remains for 105 days until he died by suicide. Hitler retired to his bunker after deciding to remain in Berlin for…
Soviet troops liberate the Polish capital from German occupation. Warsaw was a battleground since the opening day of fighting in the European theater. Germany declared war by launching an air…
On January 20, 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president to be elected to three terms in office, is inaugurated to his fourth—and final—term. At the height of the Great…
The most decorated man of the war, American Lt. Audie Murphy, is wounded in France. Born the son of Texas sharecroppers on June 20, 1925, Murphy served three years of…
On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops enter Auschwitz, Poland, freeing the survivors of the network of concentration camps—and finally revealing to the world the depth of the horrors perpetrated there.…
Pvt. Eddie Slovik becomes the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion—and the only one who suffered such a fate during World War II. Pvt.…
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin meet to discuss the Allied war effort against Germany and Japan and to try and settle some…
On February 11, 1945, a week of intensive bargaining by the leaders of the three major Allied powers ends in Yalta, a Soviet resort town on the Black Sea. It…
On the evening of February 13, 1945, a series of Allied firebombing raids begins against the German city of Dresden, reducing the “Florence of the Elbe” to rubble and flames,…
Operation Detachment, the U.S. Marines’ invasion of Iwo Jima, is launched. Iwo Jima was a barren Pacific island guarded by Japanese artillery, but to American military minds, it was prime…
The U.S. flag was raised at Iwo Jima on Mt. Suribachi, the Alamo siege began, Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine, and a sheep named Dolly was cloned at the…
February 23, 1945: During the bloody Battle for Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment of the 5th Division take the crest of…
On February 26, an ammunition dump on the Philippine island of Corregidor is blown up by a remnant of the Japanese garrison, causing more American casualties on the eve of…
Finland, under increasing pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union, finally declares war on its former partner, Germany. After the German invasion of Poland, the USSR, wanting…
Members of the Dutch Resistance who were attempting to hijack a truck in Apeldoorn, Holland, ambush Lt. Gen. Hanns Rauter, an SS officer. During the following week, the German SS…
On the night of March 9, 1945, U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next…
On this day, the commander of the German Home Army, Gen. Friedrich Fromm, is shot by a firing squad for his part in the July plot to assassinate the Fuhrer.…
Representatives from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen meet in Cairo to establish the Arab League, a regional organization of Arab states. Formed to foster economic growth…
