Graphic Year of 
1945| Graphic Year of |
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| 1945 |
| Jan 9: American forces invade Phillipine island of Luzon 16: Battle of the Bulge ends in German defeat 17: Red Army liberates Warsaw 19: German lines collapse on Eastern Front; full retreat begins 20: Hungary signs armistice with Allies 26: Soviets liberate Auschwitz 27: Red Army occupies Lithuania |
Feb 4-11: Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin meet at Yalta Conference 13-14: Allied incendiary raid creates firestorm in Dresden 19: American forces land on Iwo Jima |
Mar 3: American forces liberate Manila in the Phillipines; Finland declares war on Germany 7: Allies capture Cologne; Ludendorff Rail Bridge on Rhine River captured intact at Ramagen 9: Tokyo firebombed 16: Japanese resistance on Iwo Jima ends 21: Allies take Mandalay, Burma 30: Red Army liberates Danzig |
| Apr 1: American troops encircle German forces in the Ruhr 12: Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies of stroke; Truman becomes President; Allies liberate Belsen and Buchenwald concentration camps 16: Red Army launches Berlin offensive; Allies take Nuremberg 18: German forces in the Ruhr capitulate 28: Mussolini hanged by Italian partisans; Venice falls to Allied forces 29: Dachau concentration camp liberated 30: Adolf Hitler and wife Eva Braun commit suicide in Chancellery bunker |
May 2: All German forces in Italy surrender 7: Unconditional surrender of all German forces 8: Victory in Europe (VE) Day 23: SS Reichführer Heinrich Himmler commits suicide |
June 5: Allies divide Germany into occupation zones 26: United Nations World Charter signed in San Francisco |
| July 16: First U.S. atomic bomb tested at Los Alamos, New Mexico; Potsdam Conference opens 26: Clement Attlee becomes British Prime Minister |
Aug 6: First atomic bomb dropped Hiroshima 8: Soviet Union declares war on Japan; Soviet forces invade Manchuria 9: Second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki 14: Unconditional surrender of Japanese forces 15: Victory over Japan (VJ) Day |
Sept 2: Japanese sign surrender documents on battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay |
| Oct |
Nov 20: Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal begins |
Dec |
1945