January 9 – WWII: American and Australian troops land at
Lingayen Gulf on western coast of the largest Philippine island of
Luzon, occupied by Japan since 1942.
The Holocaust: Swedish diplomat
Raoul Wallenberg, who has saved thousands of Jews, is taken into custody by a Soviet patrol during the
Siege of Budapest and is never again seen publicly.
January 18 –
The Holocaust: The
SS begins the evacuation of
Auschwitz concentration camp. Nearly 60,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, are forced to march to other locations in Germany; as many as 15,000 die. The 7,000 too sick to move are left without supplies being distributed.
January 21–
22 (night) – At the
Grünhagen railroad station, located in
East Prussia at this date, two trains, heading for
Elbing, collide. At dawn the station is reached by
Soviet Army infantry and tanks which destroy the station, killing between 140 and 150 people.
German Grand Admiral
Karl Dönitz orders the start of
Operation Hannibal, the mass evacuation by sea of German troops and civilians from the
Courland Pocket,
East Prussia and the
Polish Corridor, evacuating an estimated 800,000-900,000 German civilians and 350,000 soldiers from advancing Soviet forces.
MV Wilhelm Gustloff, with over 10,000 mainly civilian Germans from Gotenhafen (
Gdynia) is sunk in
Gdańsk Bay by three
torpedoes from
Soviet submarine S-13 in the
Baltic Sea; up to 9,400, 5,000 of whom are children, are thought to have died – the greatest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history.
February 8 – The Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, championed by charismatic native leader
Elizabeth Peratrovich, is passed by the territorial Senate, after the legislature defeated a previous bill in 1943.
The capital of the
Philippines, Manila, is liberated by combined American and Filipino ground troops. American and Filipino troops enter
Intramuros.
The German garrison in
Poznań capitulates to
Red Army and Polish troops.
Bombing of Pforzheim: The heaviest of a series of bombing raids on
Pforzheim, Germany by Allied aircraft is carried out by the British
Royal Air Force. As many as 17,600 people, or 31.4% of the town's population, are killed in the raid and about 83% of the town's buildings destroyed, two-thirds of its complete area and between 80 and 100% of the inner city.
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.
Battle of Kolberg concludes with the Baltic seaport (designated a key Festung (fortress) by the Germans) taken by Polish and Soviet forces and ethnic Germans evacuated or expelled.[17]
Adolf Hitler issues the "
Nero Decree" ordering that all industries, military installations, machine shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany be destroyed ahead of Allied advances, but
Albert Speer, placed in charge of the implementation, deliberately disobeys it.
Off the coast of Japan, bombers hit the
aircraft carrierUSS Franklin, killing about 800 of her crewmen and crippling the ship.
March 26 – WWII: The
Battle of Iwo Jima officially ends, with the destruction of the remaining areas of Japanese resistance, although there are
Japanese holdouts here until 1949.
The
Red Army pushes most of the Axis forces out of Hungary into Austria.
American official
Alger Hiss is congratulated in Moscow for his part in bringing the positions of the Western powers and the Soviet Union closer to each other, at the
Yalta Conference.
Japanese battleship Yamato and nine other warships take part in
Operation Ten-Go, a suicide attack on Allied forces engaged in the Battle of Okinawa. Yamato is sunk by U.S. Navy aircraft in the
East China Sea 200 miles (320 km) north of
Okinawa with the loss of 2,055 of 2,332 crew, together with five other Japanese warships.
A
devastating tornado outbreak occurs across the United States, which kills 128 people and injures over 1,000 others. This outbreak is heavily overshadowed by the death of President Roosevelt.[18][19]
The
First Canadian Army assumes military control of the Netherlands, where German forces are trapped in the Atlantic Wall fortifications along the coastline.[20]
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.
Heinrich Himmler, through
Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg, puts forth an offer of German surrender to the Western Allies, but not the Soviet Union.
Adolf Hitler finally concedes that "everything is lost"[21] at a meeting in the Führerbunker after learning that SS-ObergruppenführerFelix Steiner cannot mobilize enough men to launch a counterattack on the
Soviet forces which have completely surrounded Berlin.
Hermann Göring sends the
Göring Telegram to Hitler, seeking confirmation that he should take over leadership of Germany, in accordance with the decree of June 29, 1941. Hitler regards this as treason.
The bodies of
Benito Mussolini, his mistress,
Clara Petacci, and other followers are hung by their heels at a gas station in the public square of
Milan, Piazzale Loreto, following their execution by Italian partisans after an attempt to flee the country.
Troops of the
Yugoslav 4th Army, together with the
Slovene 9th Corpus NOV, enter
Trieste.
Mass suicide in Demmin: An estimated 700–2,500 suicides take place, after 80% of the town has been destroyed by the Soviets during the past three days.
German surrender at Lüneburg Heath: All German armed forces in northwest Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands surrender unconditionally to Field Marshal
Bernard Montgomery, effective on May 5 at 08:00 hours British Double (and German) Summer Time.
The Netherlands is liberated by British and Canadian troops.[29]
Canadian soldiers liberate the city of
Amsterdam from
Nazi occupation.
A Japanese
fire balloon kills six people, Elsie Mitchell and five children, near
Bly, Oregon, when it explodes as they drag it from the woods. These are the only people killed by an enemy attack on the American mainland during WWII.
At 02:41, General
Alfred Jodl signs the unconditional
German Instrument of Surrender in
SHAEF HQ at
Reims, France, to end Germany's participation in the war. Surrender is effective on May 8 at 23:01 hours Central European Time (00:01 hours May 9 German Summer Time). This afternoon
Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Leading Minister in the rump
Flensburg Government, makes a broadcast announcing the German surrender and American journalist
Edward Kennedy breaks an Allied embargo on news of the signing.[35]
Numerous RAF
Lancasters land in Germany to repatriate British prisoners of war. Some 4,500 ex-POWs are flown back to Great Britain over the next 24 hours.
Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) is observed by the western European powers as
Nazi Germany surrenders, marking the end of WWII in Europe.
Shortly before midnight (May 9 Moscow time) the final
German Instrument of Surrender is signed at the seat of the Soviet Military Administration in Berlin-
Karlshorst, attended by
Allied representatives.
Canadian troops move into
Amsterdam, after German troops surrender.
May 8–
29 –
Sétif and Guelma massacre: in
Algeria, thousands die as French troops and released Italian POWs kill an estimated 6,000 to 40,000 Algerian citizens.
May 28 – U.S.-born Irish-raised
William Joyce ("
Lord Haw-Haw") is captured on the German border. He is later charged in London with high treason for his English-language wartime broadcasts from German radio, convicted, and then hanged in January 1946.
German communists, led by
Walter Ulbricht, arrive in Berlin.
Dutch painter
Han van Meegeren is arrested for collaboration with the Nazis, but the "Dutch Golden Age" paintings he has sold to
Hermann Göring (Koch) are later proved to be his own fakes.
May 30 – The
Iranian government demands that all Soviet and British troops leave the country.
May –
Interpol (being headquartered in Berlin) effectively ceases to exist (it is recreated on
June 3,
1946).
July 4 –
Brazilian cruiser Bahia is sunk by an accidentally induced explosion, killing more than 300 and stranding the survivors in shark-infested waters.
The
1945 United Kingdom general election is held, though some constituencies delay their polls for local holiday reasons. Counting of votes and declaration of results are delayed until July 26 to allow for voting by the large number of service personnel still overseas.
The
Trinity Test, the first of an
atomic bomb, using about six kilograms of
plutonium, succeeds in unleashing an explosion equivalent to that of 22 kilotons of TNT.
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. President Truman officially informs Stalin that the U.S. has a powerful new weapon.
July 21 – WWII: President
Harry S. Truman approves the order for atomic bombs to be used against Japan.[40]
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.[40]
July 30 – WWII: 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; in 2000, he is posthumously exonerated.[44]
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.
Bombing of Kumagaya, Japan, by the United States using conventional bombs, beginning at 00:23.
Hirohito surrender broadcast(Gyokuon-hōsō): Emperor
Hirohito's announcement of the unconditional
surrender of Japan is broadcast on the radio a little after noon (12:00
Japan Standard Time is 03:00 GMT). This is probably the first time an
Emperor of Japan has been heard by the common people. Delivered in formal
classical Japanese, without directly referring to surrender and following official censorship of the country's weak position, the recorded speech is not immediately easily understood by ordinary people. The Allies call this day
Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day). This ends the period of
Japanese expansionism, and begins the period of the
Occupation of Japan and sets the stage for Korean independence.
Philippines President
José P. Laurel issues an Executive Proclamation putting an end to the
Second Philippine Republic, thus ending his term as President of the Philippines.
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 – U.S. troops arrive in
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 when North Korea invades in
1950.
Chairman of the Nationalist Government of China
Chiang Kai-shek officially accepts the Japanese capitulation at
Nanking.[48]
Japanese troops in
Keijō (present day
Seoul) formally relinquish control over Southern Korea to the United States, effectively ending Japan's 35-year rule of Korea.[49][50]
The Japanese Army formally surrenders to the British in
Singapore.
The office of
governor-general of Korea is disbanded by the United States Army Military Government in Korea, formally ending Japan's 35-year rule in Korea.
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.
^Girbig, Werner (1975). Six Months to Oblivion: The Eclipse of the Luftwaffe Fighter Force Over the Western Front, 1944/45.
Schiffer Publishing. p. 74.
ISBN978-0-88740-348-4.
^Grazulis, Thomas P. (1993). Significant tornadoes, 1680–1991: A Chronology and Analysis of Events. St. Johnsbury, Vermont: Environmental Films. pp. 922–925.
ISBN1-879362-03-1.
^"Festung Kolberg 1945" (in Polish). Archived from the original on August 11, 2007. Retrieved March 21, 2024.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (
link)
^Ziemke, Earl F. (1969). Battle for Berlin: End of the Third Reich. Ballantine's Illustrated History of World War II, Battle Book #6. Ballantine Books.
^Smythe, John (1967). Bolo Whistler: The Life of General Sir Lashmer Whistler. London: Muller.
^"Central Europe Campaign – 522nd Field Artillery Battalion". Archived from
the original on March 20, 2016. Retrieved January 12, 2015. Jewish prisoners from the outer Dachau camps were marched to Dachau, and then 70 miles south. Many of the Jewish marchers weighed less than 80 pounds. Shivering in their tattered striped uniforms, the "skeletons" marched 10 to 15 hours a day, passing more than a dozen Bavarian towns. If they stopped or fell behind, the SS guards shot them and left their corpses along the road.
^Killen, John (2003). The Luftwaffe: A History. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. pp. 299–300.
ISBN978-1-78159-110-9.
^Colin F. Baxter; John Martin Carroll, eds. (2007). The American Military Tradition: From Colonial Times to the Present. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 181.
ISBN9780742544284.
^Angier, R. B.; Boothe, J. H.; Hutchings, B. L.; Mowat, J. H.; Semb, J.; Stokstad, E. L. R.; Subbarow, Y.; Waller, C. W.; Cosulich, D. B.; Fahrenbach, M. J.; Hultquist, M. E.; Kuh, E.; Northey, E. H.; Seeger, D. R.; Sickels, J. P.; Smith Jr, J. M. (1945). "Synthesis of a Compound Identical with the L. Casei Factor Isolated from Liver". Science. 102 (2644): 227–28.
Bibcode:
1945Sci...102..227A.
doi:
10.1126/science.102.2644.227.
PMID17778509.
^Myers, Brian Reynolds (December 16, 2023).
"The Power to Mystify". Sthele Press. Assertion that the emperor's surrender 'abruptly' ended Japan's occupation of the peninsula, which in fact continued in the southern part for more than three weeks?
^[Sinclair, Sir Edwyn Sinclair Alexander-, of Freswick (1865–1945)]
^Billy Altman, Laughter's Gentle Soul: The Life of Robert Benchley. (New York City:
W. W. Norton, 1997.
ISBN0-393-03833-5) Pages 352-362
^Inge, Tonette Bond. Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, ed. Charles Reagan Wilson and William R. Ferris. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Page 884.
^Theodore Dreiser Recalled. Clemson University Press. 2017. p. 311.
ISBN9781942954446.
Further reading
Ian Buruma. Year Zero: A History of 1945 (Penguin Press; 2013) 368 pages; covers liberation, revenge, decolonization, and the rise of the United Nations.
excerpt
International News Service, It Happened In 1945 The Essential Year Book (1946)
Keith Lowe. Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II (2012)
excerpt and text search
McDannald, A. H. ed. The Americana Annual 1946 (1946) events of 1945
online; encyclopedia yearbook global coverage in 950pp
Walter Yust, ed. 10 Eventful Years, 1937 – 1946 Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1947, 4 vol., encyclopedia yearbook
online
January 9 – WWII: American and Australian troops land at
Lingayen Gulf on western coast of the largest Philippine island of
Luzon, occupied by Japan since 1942.
The Holocaust: Swedish diplomat
Raoul Wallenberg, who has saved thousands of Jews, is taken into custody by a Soviet patrol during the
Siege of Budapest and is never again seen publicly.
January 18 –
The Holocaust: The
SS begins the evacuation of
Auschwitz concentration camp. Nearly 60,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, are forced to march to other locations in Germany; as many as 15,000 die. The 7,000 too sick to move are left without supplies being distributed.
January 21–
22 (night) – At the
Grünhagen railroad station, located in
East Prussia at this date, two trains, heading for
Elbing, collide. At dawn the station is reached by
Soviet Army infantry and tanks which destroy the station, killing between 140 and 150 people.
German Grand Admiral
Karl Dönitz orders the start of
Operation Hannibal, the mass evacuation by sea of German troops and civilians from the
Courland Pocket,
East Prussia and the
Polish Corridor, evacuating an estimated 800,000-900,000 German civilians and 350,000 soldiers from advancing Soviet forces.
MV Wilhelm Gustloff, with over 10,000 mainly civilian Germans from Gotenhafen (
Gdynia) is sunk in
Gdańsk Bay by three
torpedoes from
Soviet submarine S-13 in the
Baltic Sea; up to 9,400, 5,000 of whom are children, are thought to have died – the greatest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history.
February 8 – The Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, championed by charismatic native leader
Elizabeth Peratrovich, is passed by the territorial Senate, after the legislature defeated a previous bill in 1943.
The capital of the
Philippines, Manila, is liberated by combined American and Filipino ground troops. American and Filipino troops enter
Intramuros.
The German garrison in
Poznań capitulates to
Red Army and Polish troops.
Bombing of Pforzheim: The heaviest of a series of bombing raids on
Pforzheim, Germany by Allied aircraft is carried out by the British
Royal Air Force. As many as 17,600 people, or 31.4% of the town's population, are killed in the raid and about 83% of the town's buildings destroyed, two-thirds of its complete area and between 80 and 100% of the inner city.
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.
Battle of Kolberg concludes with the Baltic seaport (designated a key Festung (fortress) by the Germans) taken by Polish and Soviet forces and ethnic Germans evacuated or expelled.[17]
Adolf Hitler issues the "
Nero Decree" ordering that all industries, military installations, machine shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany be destroyed ahead of Allied advances, but
Albert Speer, placed in charge of the implementation, deliberately disobeys it.
Off the coast of Japan, bombers hit the
aircraft carrierUSS Franklin, killing about 800 of her crewmen and crippling the ship.
March 26 – WWII: The
Battle of Iwo Jima officially ends, with the destruction of the remaining areas of Japanese resistance, although there are
Japanese holdouts here until 1949.
The
Red Army pushes most of the Axis forces out of Hungary into Austria.
American official
Alger Hiss is congratulated in Moscow for his part in bringing the positions of the Western powers and the Soviet Union closer to each other, at the
Yalta Conference.
Japanese battleship Yamato and nine other warships take part in
Operation Ten-Go, a suicide attack on Allied forces engaged in the Battle of Okinawa. Yamato is sunk by U.S. Navy aircraft in the
East China Sea 200 miles (320 km) north of
Okinawa with the loss of 2,055 of 2,332 crew, together with five other Japanese warships.
A
devastating tornado outbreak occurs across the United States, which kills 128 people and injures over 1,000 others. This outbreak is heavily overshadowed by the death of President Roosevelt.[18][19]
The
First Canadian Army assumes military control of the Netherlands, where German forces are trapped in the Atlantic Wall fortifications along the coastline.[20]
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.
Heinrich Himmler, through
Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg, puts forth an offer of German surrender to the Western Allies, but not the Soviet Union.
Adolf Hitler finally concedes that "everything is lost"[21] at a meeting in the Führerbunker after learning that SS-ObergruppenführerFelix Steiner cannot mobilize enough men to launch a counterattack on the
Soviet forces which have completely surrounded Berlin.
Hermann Göring sends the
Göring Telegram to Hitler, seeking confirmation that he should take over leadership of Germany, in accordance with the decree of June 29, 1941. Hitler regards this as treason.
The bodies of
Benito Mussolini, his mistress,
Clara Petacci, and other followers are hung by their heels at a gas station in the public square of
Milan, Piazzale Loreto, following their execution by Italian partisans after an attempt to flee the country.
Troops of the
Yugoslav 4th Army, together with the
Slovene 9th Corpus NOV, enter
Trieste.
Mass suicide in Demmin: An estimated 700–2,500 suicides take place, after 80% of the town has been destroyed by the Soviets during the past three days.
German surrender at Lüneburg Heath: All German armed forces in northwest Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands surrender unconditionally to Field Marshal
Bernard Montgomery, effective on May 5 at 08:00 hours British Double (and German) Summer Time.
The Netherlands is liberated by British and Canadian troops.[29]
Canadian soldiers liberate the city of
Amsterdam from
Nazi occupation.
A Japanese
fire balloon kills six people, Elsie Mitchell and five children, near
Bly, Oregon, when it explodes as they drag it from the woods. These are the only people killed by an enemy attack on the American mainland during WWII.
At 02:41, General
Alfred Jodl signs the unconditional
German Instrument of Surrender in
SHAEF HQ at
Reims, France, to end Germany's participation in the war. Surrender is effective on May 8 at 23:01 hours Central European Time (00:01 hours May 9 German Summer Time). This afternoon
Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Leading Minister in the rump
Flensburg Government, makes a broadcast announcing the German surrender and American journalist
Edward Kennedy breaks an Allied embargo on news of the signing.[35]
Numerous RAF
Lancasters land in Germany to repatriate British prisoners of war. Some 4,500 ex-POWs are flown back to Great Britain over the next 24 hours.
Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) is observed by the western European powers as
Nazi Germany surrenders, marking the end of WWII in Europe.
Shortly before midnight (May 9 Moscow time) the final
German Instrument of Surrender is signed at the seat of the Soviet Military Administration in Berlin-
Karlshorst, attended by
Allied representatives.
Canadian troops move into
Amsterdam, after German troops surrender.
May 8–
29 –
Sétif and Guelma massacre: in
Algeria, thousands die as French troops and released Italian POWs kill an estimated 6,000 to 40,000 Algerian citizens.
May 28 – U.S.-born Irish-raised
William Joyce ("
Lord Haw-Haw") is captured on the German border. He is later charged in London with high treason for his English-language wartime broadcasts from German radio, convicted, and then hanged in January 1946.
German communists, led by
Walter Ulbricht, arrive in Berlin.
Dutch painter
Han van Meegeren is arrested for collaboration with the Nazis, but the "Dutch Golden Age" paintings he has sold to
Hermann Göring (Koch) are later proved to be his own fakes.
May 30 – The
Iranian government demands that all Soviet and British troops leave the country.
May –
Interpol (being headquartered in Berlin) effectively ceases to exist (it is recreated on
June 3,
1946).
July 4 –
Brazilian cruiser Bahia is sunk by an accidentally induced explosion, killing more than 300 and stranding the survivors in shark-infested waters.
The
1945 United Kingdom general election is held, though some constituencies delay their polls for local holiday reasons. Counting of votes and declaration of results are delayed until July 26 to allow for voting by the large number of service personnel still overseas.
The
Trinity Test, the first of an
atomic bomb, using about six kilograms of
plutonium, succeeds in unleashing an explosion equivalent to that of 22 kilotons of TNT.
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. President Truman officially informs Stalin that the U.S. has a powerful new weapon.
July 21 – WWII: President
Harry S. Truman approves the order for atomic bombs to be used against Japan.[40]
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.[40]
July 30 – WWII: 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; in 2000, he is posthumously exonerated.[44]
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.
Bombing of Kumagaya, Japan, by the United States using conventional bombs, beginning at 00:23.
Hirohito surrender broadcast(Gyokuon-hōsō): Emperor
Hirohito's announcement of the unconditional
surrender of Japan is broadcast on the radio a little after noon (12:00
Japan Standard Time is 03:00 GMT). This is probably the first time an
Emperor of Japan has been heard by the common people. Delivered in formal
classical Japanese, without directly referring to surrender and following official censorship of the country's weak position, the recorded speech is not immediately easily understood by ordinary people. The Allies call this day
Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day). This ends the period of
Japanese expansionism, and begins the period of the
Occupation of Japan and sets the stage for Korean independence.
Philippines President
José P. Laurel issues an Executive Proclamation putting an end to the
Second Philippine Republic, thus ending his term as President of the Philippines.
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 – U.S. troops arrive in
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 when North Korea invades in
1950.
Chairman of the Nationalist Government of China
Chiang Kai-shek officially accepts the Japanese capitulation at
Nanking.[48]
Japanese troops in
Keijō (present day
Seoul) formally relinquish control over Southern Korea to the United States, effectively ending Japan's 35-year rule of Korea.[49][50]
The Japanese Army formally surrenders to the British in
Singapore.
The office of
governor-general of Korea is disbanded by the United States Army Military Government in Korea, formally ending Japan's 35-year rule in Korea.
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.
^Girbig, Werner (1975). Six Months to Oblivion: The Eclipse of the Luftwaffe Fighter Force Over the Western Front, 1944/45.
Schiffer Publishing. p. 74.
ISBN978-0-88740-348-4.
^Grazulis, Thomas P. (1993). Significant tornadoes, 1680–1991: A Chronology and Analysis of Events. St. Johnsbury, Vermont: Environmental Films. pp. 922–925.
ISBN1-879362-03-1.
^"Festung Kolberg 1945" (in Polish). Archived from the original on August 11, 2007. Retrieved March 21, 2024.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (
link)
^Ziemke, Earl F. (1969). Battle for Berlin: End of the Third Reich. Ballantine's Illustrated History of World War II, Battle Book #6. Ballantine Books.
^Smythe, John (1967). Bolo Whistler: The Life of General Sir Lashmer Whistler. London: Muller.
^"Central Europe Campaign – 522nd Field Artillery Battalion". Archived from
the original on March 20, 2016. Retrieved January 12, 2015. Jewish prisoners from the outer Dachau camps were marched to Dachau, and then 70 miles south. Many of the Jewish marchers weighed less than 80 pounds. Shivering in their tattered striped uniforms, the "skeletons" marched 10 to 15 hours a day, passing more than a dozen Bavarian towns. If they stopped or fell behind, the SS guards shot them and left their corpses along the road.
^Killen, John (2003). The Luftwaffe: A History. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. pp. 299–300.
ISBN978-1-78159-110-9.
^Colin F. Baxter; John Martin Carroll, eds. (2007). The American Military Tradition: From Colonial Times to the Present. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 181.
ISBN9780742544284.
^Angier, R. B.; Boothe, J. H.; Hutchings, B. L.; Mowat, J. H.; Semb, J.; Stokstad, E. L. R.; Subbarow, Y.; Waller, C. W.; Cosulich, D. B.; Fahrenbach, M. J.; Hultquist, M. E.; Kuh, E.; Northey, E. H.; Seeger, D. R.; Sickels, J. P.; Smith Jr, J. M. (1945). "Synthesis of a Compound Identical with the L. Casei Factor Isolated from Liver". Science. 102 (2644): 227–28.
Bibcode:
1945Sci...102..227A.
doi:
10.1126/science.102.2644.227.
PMID17778509.
^Myers, Brian Reynolds (December 16, 2023).
"The Power to Mystify". Sthele Press. Assertion that the emperor's surrender 'abruptly' ended Japan's occupation of the peninsula, which in fact continued in the southern part for more than three weeks?
^[Sinclair, Sir Edwyn Sinclair Alexander-, of Freswick (1865–1945)]
^Billy Altman, Laughter's Gentle Soul: The Life of Robert Benchley. (New York City:
W. W. Norton, 1997.
ISBN0-393-03833-5) Pages 352-362
^Inge, Tonette Bond. Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, ed. Charles Reagan Wilson and William R. Ferris. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Page 884.
^Theodore Dreiser Recalled. Clemson University Press. 2017. p. 311.
ISBN9781942954446.
Further reading
Ian Buruma. Year Zero: A History of 1945 (Penguin Press; 2013) 368 pages; covers liberation, revenge, decolonization, and the rise of the United Nations.
excerpt
International News Service, It Happened In 1945 The Essential Year Book (1946)
Keith Lowe. Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II (2012)
excerpt and text search
McDannald, A. H. ed. The Americana Annual 1946 (1946) events of 1945
online; encyclopedia yearbook global coverage in 950pp
Walter Yust, ed. 10 Eventful Years, 1937 – 1946 Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1947, 4 vol., encyclopedia yearbook
online