December 13 - Josef Kramer, commandant of Bergen Belsen concentration camp (b. 1906)
December 13 - Elisabeth Volkenrath, supervisor at concentration camps (b. 1919)
December 16 - Giovanni Agnelli, Italian automobile manufacturer (b. 1866)
December 28 - Theodore Dreiser, American author (b. 1871)
Events
January 1 - World War II: In retaliation for the Malmedy massacre, U.S. troops massacre 30 SS prisoners at Chenogne.
January 1 - World War II: The German Luftwaffe launches Unternehmen Bodenplatte, a massive, but failed attempt to knock out Allied air power in northern Europe in a single blow.
January 3 - World War II: Admiral Chester W Nimitz is placed in command of all U.S. Naval forces in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Japan.
January 5 - The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland.
January 7 - World War II: British General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference in which he claims credit for victory in the Battle of the Bulge.
January 9 - The United States invades Luzon in the Philippines.
January 12 - World War II: The Soviets begin a large offensive against the Nazis in Eastern Europe.
January 16 - Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.
January 17 - Soviet forces capture the almost completely destroyed Polish city of Warsaw.
January 17 - The Nazis begin the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces close in.
January 17 - Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg disappears in Hungary while in Soviet custody.
January 18 - Liberation of the Budapest ghetto by the Red Army.
January 19 - World War II: Soviet forces liberate the ghetto of Łódź. Out of 230,000 inhabitants in 1940, less than 900 had survived Nazi occupation.
January 20 - Hungary ends its involvement in the Second World War, agreeing to an armistice with the Allies.
January 23 - World War II: Karl Dönitz launches Operation Hannibal.
January 25 - World War II: Battle of the Bulge ends.
January 27 - World War II: The Red Army arrives at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.
January 28 - World War II: Supplies begin to reach the Republic of China over the newly reopened Burma Road.
January 30 - The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with refugees, sinks in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, leading to the deadliest maritime disaster in known history, killing roughly 9,000 people.
January 30 - World War II: Raid at Cabanatuan: 126 American Rangers and Filipino resistance liberate 500 prisoners from the Cabanatuan POW camp.
January 30 - World War II: Hitler gives his last ever public address, a radio address on the 12th anniversary of his coming to power. (A subsequent address on February 24 was not read by Hitler.)
January 31 - US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed, the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion.
February 3 - World War II: The Soviet Union agrees to enter the Pacific Theatre conflict against Japan.
February 3 - World War II: As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17's of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin.
February 4 - World War II: The Yalta Conference begins.
February 5 - World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.
February 9 - The Battle of the Atlantic the HMS Venturer sinking U-Boat 864 off the coast of Norway.
February 13 - World War II: Red Army forces take Budapest, Hungary from Wehrmacht forces.
February 13 - World War II: Royal Air Force bombers are dispatched to Dresden, Germany to attack the city with a massive aerial bombardment (see Bombing of Dresden in World War II).
February 14 - World War II: On the second day of the bombing of Dresden , the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony.
February 14 - World War II: Prague is bombed probably due to a mistake in the orientation of the pilots bombing Dresden.
February 14 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially starting the U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relationship.
February 14 - World War II: Mostar is liberated by Yugoslav partisans.
February 16 - World War II: American forces land on Corregidor island in the Philippines.
February 21 - World War II: Japanese Kamikaze planes sink the escort carrier Bismarck Sea and damage the Saratoga.
February 23 - World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines and a commonly forgotten U.S. Navy Corpsman, reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo would later win a Pulitzer Prize.
February 23 - World War II: The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by American forces.
February 23 - World War II: Capitulation of German garrison in Poznań, the city is liberated by Soviet and Polish forces.
February 23 - World War II: The German town of Pforzheim is completely destroyed by a raid of 379 British bombers.
February 23 - World War II: The Verona Philharmonic Theatre is bombed by Allied forces. It would later be re-opened in 1975.
February 24 - Egyptian Premier Ahmed Maher Pasha is killed in Parliament after reading a decree.
February 25 - World War II: Turkey declares war on Germany.
March 3 - World War II: The American and Filipino troops take in Manila the Philippines.
March 4 - In the United Kingdom, Princess Elizabeth, later to become Queen Elizabeth II, joins the British Army as a driver.
March 4 - Lapland War: Finland declares war on Nazi Germany.
March 5 - World War II: The "Battle of the Ruhr" begins.
March 6 - A communist-dominated government under Petru Groza assumes power in Romania.
March 7 - World War II: American troops seize the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, establish a bridgehead on Germany soil and in desperate fighting begin to establish a lodgement. This event shakes up the whole Western Front and greatly hastens the end of WW-II.
March 8 - Allied forces move large numbers of troops across the Rhine River to significantly reinforce and expand their tenuous hold on the captured Ludendorff Bridge (Bridge at Remagen), allowing them to push armor across the river and better secure the nascent lodgement.
March 10 - The Army Air Force firebombs Tokyo, and the resulting firestorm kills more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians.
March 11 - World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy attempts a large-scale kamikaze attack on the U.S. Pacific fleet anchored at Ulithi atoll in Operation Tan No. 2.
March 16 - World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends but small pockets of Japanese resistance persist.
March 16 - Würzburg, Germany is 90% destroyed, with 5,000 dead, in only 20 minutes by British bombers.
March 17 - The Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen, Germany collapses, ten days after its capture.
March 18 - World War II: 1,250 American bombers attack Berlin.
March 19 - World War II: Off the coast of Japan, a dive bomber hits the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing 724 of her crew. Badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the U.S. under her own power.
March 19 - World War II: Adolf Hitler issues his "Nero Decree" ordering all industries, military installations, shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany to be destroyed.
March 21 - World War II: British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma.
March 22 - The Arab League is founded when a charter is adopted in Cairo, Egypt.
March 26 - World War II: In Iwo Jima, US forces declare Iwo Jima "secure."
March 27 - World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan's ports and waterways begins.
March 29 - World War II: Last day of V-1 flying bomb attacks on England.
March 30 - World War II: Soviet Union forces invade Austria and take Vienna, Polish and Soviet forces liberate Gdańsk.
March 30 - World War II: a defecting German pilot delivers a Messerschmitt Me 262A-1 to Americans.
April 2 - Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Brazil are established.
April 4 - World War II: American troops liberate Ohrdruf forced labor camp in Germany.
April 4 - World War II: Soviet Army takes control of Hungary.
April 5 - Cold War: Yugoslav leader Josip "Tito" Broz signs an agreement with the USSR to allow "temporary entry of Soviet troops into Yugoslav territory."
April 7 - World War II: The Japanese battleship Yamato, the largest battleship ever constructed, is sunk 200 miles north of Okinawa while en-route to a suicide mission in Operation Ten-Go.
April 7 - World War II: Visoko is liberated by the 7th, 9th and 17th Krajina brigades from the Tenth division of Yugoslav Partisan forces.
April 9 - World War II: The German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer is sunk.
April 9 - World War II: The Battle of Königsberg, in East Prussia, ends.
April 9 - The United States Atomic Energy Commission is formed.
April 11 - World War II: American forces liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp.
April 12 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies while in office; vice-president Harry Truman is sworn in as the 33rd President.
April 13 - German troops kill more than 1,000 political and military prisoners in Gardelegen Germany.
April 14 - Osijek, Croatia, is liberated from fascist occupation.
April 15 - The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated.
April 16 - The Red Army begins the final assault on German forces around Berlin.
April 16 - The United States Army liberates Nazi Sonderlager (high security) Prisoner of War camp Oflag IV-C (better known as Colditz Castle).
April 16 - More than 7,000 die when the German refugee ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine torpedo.
April 18 - Over 1,000 bombers attack the small island of Heligoland, Germany.
April 18 - Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Bolivia are established.
April 19 - The diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Guatemala are established.
April 20 - World War II: US troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to later cede the city to the Soviet Union.
April 20 - World War II: Fuehrerbunker: Adolf Hitler makes his last trip to the surface to award Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth.
April 21 - World War II: The Soviet Union forces south of Berlin at Zossen attack the German High Command headquarters.
April 22 - World War II: Prisoners at the Jasenovac concentration camp revolt. 520 are killed and 80 escape.
April 22 - World War II: Fuehrerbunker: After learning that Soviet forces have taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admits defeat in his underground bunker and states that suicide is his only recourse.
April 25 - Elbe Day: United States and Russian troops meet in Torgau along the River Elbe, cutting the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany in two, a milestone in the approaching end of World War II in Europe.
April 25 - The Nazi occupation army leaves Northern Italy after a general partisan insurrection by the Italian resistance movement. This day is taken as symbolic of the Liberation of Italy.
April 25 - Fifty nations gather in San Francisco, California to begin the United Nations Conference on International Organizations.
April 29 - The Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops.
April 30 - World War II: Fuehrerbunker: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for one day. Soviet soldiers raise the red flag over the Reichstag building.
May 1 - World War II: A German newsreader officially announces that Adolf Hitler has "fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany".
May 2 - World War II: Fall of Berlin: The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin and Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over the Reichstag building. German forces surrender in Italy. German forces surrender to the New Zealand Army in Trieste.
May 3 - World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay.
May 4 - World War II: The liberation of the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg by the British Army.
May 4 - World War II: The surrender of the North Germany Army to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
May 5 - World War II: German troops in the Netherlands and Denmark capitulate to Canadian and British forces, liberating these countries from Nazi occupation.
May 5 - World War II: Prague uprising against the Nazis.
May 5 - World War II: The Mauthausen concentration camp is liberated.
May 5 - World War II: Admiral Karl Dönitz, leader of Germany after Hitler's death, orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases.
May 6 - World War II: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (first was on December 11, 1941).
May 6 - World War II: The Prague Offensive, the last major battle of the Eastern Front, begins.
May 7 - World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document takes effect the next day.
May 8 - Hundreds of Algerian civilians are killed by French Army soldiers in the Sétif massacre.
May 8 - Combat in Europe ends in World War II: V-E Day. German forces agree to an unconditional surrender.
May 8 - End of the Prague uprising, today still celebrated as a national holiday in the Czech Republic.
May 9 - World War II: Partisans liberate Ljubljana.
May 9 - World War II: Hermann Göring is captured by the United States Army.
May 9 - World War II: Vidkun Quisling is arrested in Norway.
May 9 - World War II: The Red Army enters Prague (capitulation of Nazi occupation troops).
May 9 - World War II: The Soviet Union marks Victory Day.
May 9 - World War II: The Channel Islands are formally liberated by the British.
May 15 - World War II: The final skirmish in Europe is fought near Prevalje, Slovenia.
May 23 - World War II: Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, committs suicide while in Allied custody.
May 23 - World War II: The Flensburg government under Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz is dissolved when its members are captured and arrested by British forces at Flensburg in Northern Germany.
June 5 - Allied Control Council, military occupation governing body of Germany, formally takes power.
June 7 - Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes was premiered in London
June 10 - Australian Imperial Forces land in Brunei Bay to liberate Brunei.
June 15 - The General Dutch Youth League (ANJV) is founded in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
June 18 - William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) is charged with treason.
June 21 - World War II: The Battle of Okinawa ends.
June 23 - World War II: The Battle of Okinawa ends when organised resistance of Imperial Japanese Army forces collapses in the Mabuni area on the southern tip of the main island.
June 26 - The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco.
June 29 - Carpathian Ruthenia was annexed by Soviet Union.
July 5 - World War II: Liberation of the Philippines declared.
July 16 - Manhattan Project: The Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon at the Trinity site near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
July 20 - The US Congress approves the Bretton Woods Agreement.
July 23 - The post war legal processes against Philippe Pétain begin.
July 26 - The Labour Party wins the United Kingdom general election of July 5 by a landslide, removing Winston Churchill from power.
July 26 - The Potsdam Declaration is signed in Potsdam, Germany.
July 26 - The US Navy cruiser Indianapolis arrives at Tinian with the warhead for the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
July 28 - A U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26.
July 29 - The BBC Light Programme radio station was launched for mainstream light entertainment and music.
July 30 - World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), killing 883 seamen.
July 31 - Pierre Laval, the fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria.
July 31 - John K. Giles attempts to escape from Alcatraz prison.
August 2 - World War II: Potsdam Conference, in which the Allied Powers discuss the future of defeated Germany, concludes.
August 6 - World War II: Hiroshima is devastated when an atomic bomb, "Little Boy", is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people were killed instantly, and some tens of thousands died in subsequent years due to burns and radiation poisoning.
August 7 - President Harry Truman announces the bombing of Hiroshima with an atomic bomb while returning from the Potsdam Conference aboard the heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
August 8 - World War II: the Soviet Union declares war on Japan and begins the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation.
August 8 - The United Nations Charter is signed by the United States, which becomes the third nation to join.
August 9 - World War II: Nagasaki is devastated when an atomic bomb, "Fat Man", is dropped by the United States B-29 Bockscar. 70,000 people are killed instantly.
August 16 - An assassination attempt was made on Japan's prime minister, Kantaro Suzuki.
August 17 - Indonesian Declaration of Independence.
August 19 - Vietnam War: Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh take power in Hanoi, Vietnam.
August 25 - Ten days after World War II ends with Japan announcing its surrender, armed supporters of the Communist Party of China kill Baptist missionary John Birch, regarded by some of the American right as the first victim of the Cold War.
August 30 - Hong Kong is liberated from Japan by British Armed Forces.
August 31 - The Liberal Party of Australia is founded by Robert Menzies.
September 2 - Combat in World War II ends in the Pacific Theater: The final official surrender of Japan is accepted aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
September 2 - Vietnam declares its independence, forming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
September 5 - Cold War: Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet Union embassy clerk, defects to Canada, exposing Soviet espionage in North America, signalling the beginning of the Cold War.
September 5 - Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist Tokyo Rose, is arrested in Yokohama.
September 7 - Japanese forces on Wake Island, which they had held since December of 1941, surrender to U.S. Marines.
September 8 - Cold War: United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier.
September 9 - Second Sino-Japanese War: Japan formally surrenders to China.
September 10 - Mike the Headless Chicken is decapitated; he survives for another 18 months before choking to death.
September 11 - World War II: Liberation of the Japanese-run POW and civilian internee camp at Batu Lintang, Kuching, Sarawak on the island of Borneo by Australian 9th Division forces. Over 2,000 prisoners, including women and children, were due to be executed on September 15.
September 15 - A hurricane in southern Florida and the Bahamas destroys 366 planes and 25 blimps at NAS Richmond.
September 18 - General Douglas MacArthur moves his command headquarters to Tokyo.
September 19 - Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce) is sentenced to death in London.
September 30 - Bourne End rail crash, Hertfordshire, England killed 43
October 5 - Hollywood Black Friday: A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators turns into a bloody riot at the gates of Warner Brothers' studios.
October 6 - Baseball: Billy Sianis and his pet billy goat are ejected from Wrigley Field during Game 4 of the 1945 World Series (see Curse of the Billy Goat).
October 9 - Parade in NYC for Fleet Admiral Nimitz and 13 USN/USMC Medal of Honor recipients
October 10 - The Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang signed a principle agreement in Chongqing about the future of post-war China. Later, the pact is commonly referred to as the Double-Ten Agreement.
October 12 - World War II: Desmond Doss is the first conscientious objector to receive the U.S. Medal of Honor.
October 15 - World War II: The former premier of Vichy France Pierre Laval is shot by a firing squad for treason.
October 16 - The Food and Agriculture Organization was founded in Quebec City, Canada.
October 17 - A massive number of people, headed by CGT and Evita, gather in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina to demand Juan Peron's release. This is known to the Peronists as the Día de la lealtad (day of loyalty). It's considered the birthday of Peronism.
October 18 - The USSR's nuclear program receives plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
October 18 - A group of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, led by Mario Vargas, Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, staged a coup d'etát against then president Isaías Medina Angarita, who was overthrown by the end of the day.
October 21 - Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
October 21 - Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón married actress Evita.
November 10 - Heavy fighting in Surabaya between Indonesian nationalists and returning colonialists after World War II, is celebrated as Heroes' Day (Hari Pahlawan).
November 16 - Cold War: The United States Army secretly admits 88 German scientists and engineers to help in the development of rocket technology.
November 20 - Nuremberg Trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.
November 29 - The Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia is declared.
December 4 - By a vote of 65 to 7, the United States Senate approves United States participation in the United Nations (the UN was established on October 24, 1945).
December 5 - Flight 19 is lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
December 15 - Occupation of Japan: General Douglas MacArthur orders that Shinto be abolished as state religion of Japan.
December 26 - CFP franc and CFA franc are created.
December 27 - The World Bank was created with the signing of an agreement by 28 nations.
December 28 - The Congress of the United States officially recognizes the Pledge of Allegiance.
