1945 Events

1945 Coretta Scott Enrolls At Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio
Wanting a better life for their children, the Scotts sent all three to college. Coretta, who graduated at the top of her high school class in 1945, won a scholarship to study elementary e...
1945 Fidel Castro studies law at Havana University
In late 1945, Castro entered law school at the University of Havana. He became immediately embroiled in the political culture at the University, which was a reflection of the volatile pol...
1945 Frank Sinatra co-stars with Gene Kelly in Anchors Aweigh
When Sinatra returned to the Paramount in October 1944, 35,000 fans caused a near riot outside the venue because they were not allowed in. In 1945, Sinatra co-starred with Gene Kelly in ...
1945 Jackie Robinson plays for Kansas City Monarchs in Negro Leagues
In early 1945, while still at Sam Huston College, Robinson received an offer to play for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues. Robinson's contract was for $400 a month. In al...
1945 Louis Armstrong forms six piece group called the All Stars
Following a highly successful small-group jazz concert at New York Town Hall on May 17, 1947, featuring Armstrong with trombonist/singer Jack Teagarden, Armstrong's manager Joe Glaser dis...
1945 The Architects' Collaborative (TAC) Formed
The Architects' Collaborative (TAC) was an American architectural firm formed by Walter Gropius and seven younger architects in 1945 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The other partners were N...
1945 Jan
to 1945 May
Operation Dracula
During World War II, Operation Dracula was the name given to an airborne and amphibious attack on Rangoon by British and Indian forces, part of the Burma Campaign. When it was launched, t...
1945 Jan 1
to 1945 Jan 25
 Operation Nordwind
Operation North Wind (Unternehmen Nordwind) was the last major German offensive of the Second World War on the Western Front. It began on 1 January 1945 in Alsace and Lorraine in north-ea...
1945 Jan 1 Unternehmen Bodenplatte
Unternehmen Bodenplatte (English: Operation Baseplate or Operation Ground Plate), launched on January 1, 1945, was an attempt by the Luftwaffe to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Coun...
1945 Jan 6 George Herbert Walker Bush Marries Barbara Pierce
On January 6, 1945, George Herbert Walker Bush, on leave from active duty in World War II, married former Smith College student Barbara Pierce. The bride was twenty years old—the groom he...
1945 Jan 7 Hitler Agrees to Withdraw Forces from the Ardennes
While the German offensive had ground to a halt, they still controlled a dangerous salient in the Allied line. Patton’s Third Army in the south, centered around Bastogne, would attack nor...
1945 Jan 9 Sixth US Army Arrives at Lingayen Gulf
On 15 December 1944, landings against minimal resistance were made on the southern beaches of the island of Mindoro, a key location in the planned Lingayen Gulf operations, in support of ...
1945 Jan 12
to 1945 Feb 2
 Vistula–Oder Offensive
The Vistula-Oder Offensive was a successful Red Army operation on the Eastern Front in the European Theatre of World War II; it took place between 12 January, 1945 and 2 February, 1945. T...
1945 Jan 13
to 1945 May 9
 East Prussian Offensive
The East Prussian Offensive was a strategic offensive by the Red Army against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front (World War II). It lasted from 13 January 1945 to 25 April 1945, th...
1945 Jan 14 Operation Blackcock Begins
Operation Blackcock was the code name for the clearing of the Roer Triangle formed by the towns of Roermond, Sittard and Heinsberg. It was conducted by the 2nd British Army in January 194...
1945 Jan 15 Time Magazine Publishes Story Entitled 'Foo-Fighter' Regarding Multiple Alleged UFO Sightings by WWII Pilots
If it was not a hoax or an optical illusion, it was certainly the most puzzling secret weapon that Allied fighters have yet encountered. Last week U.S. night fighter pilots based in Franc...
1945 Jan 17 Chełmno Extermination Camp is Abandoned by SS with the Approach of the Red Army
Beginning in September 1944, a group of Jewish prisoners, presumably brought from outside the Wartheland District, was forced to exhume and cremate any remaining corpses from the mass gra...
1945 Jan 19
to 1945 Jan 23
 Bombing Raids on Montfort
Between Friday evening January 19 and Tuesday 23 January the Dutch village of Montfort was shelled or bombed on seven occasions, and was hit by more than 100 bombs. Most of these fell in ...
1945 Jan 20 Franklin Roosevelt's fourth inauguration
The fourth inauguration was conducted without fanfare. Because of the expense and impropriety of festivity during the height of war, the oath of office was taken on the South Portico of...
1945 Jan 21 Operation Matador (1945)
Operation Matador was an amphibious thrust, during the Burma Campaign in January 1945, to capture the strategic port of Kyaukpyu, located at the northern tip of Ramree Island, south of Ak...
1945 Jan 27 Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp Liberated by the 322nd Rifle Division of the Red Army
The last selection took place on October 30, 1944. The next month, Heinrich Himmler ordered the crematoria destroyed before the Red Army reached the camp. The gas chambers of Birkenau wer...
1945 Jan 31 Eighth United States Army Lands at Nasugbu
On 31 Jan, MacArthur visited the US 1st Cavalry Division and gave Major General Mudge an order: "Go to Manila. Go around the Nips, bounce off the Nips, but go to Manila. Free the internee...
1945 Feb Agatha Christie publishes Sparkling Cyanide
One year ago on November 2, seven people sat down to dinner at the Luxembourg. One of them, Rosemary Barton, never got up. She was thought to have committed suicide due to post-flu depres...
1945 Feb 3 American Forces Arrive in Manila
By February 3, the American forces had begun to converge on Manila from different directions. With help of intelligence supplied by Filipino guerrillas, the US elements had been able to f...
1945 Feb 4
to 1945 Feb 11
 Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, was the wartime meeting from 4 February 1945 to 11 February 1945 among the heads of gov...
1945 Feb 5 37th Infantry Division Moves into Manila
The primarily US forces involved were represented by the 37th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavarly Division, smaller airborne units, forces already highly experienced in combat, junge wa...
1945 Feb 6 Bob Marley Born
Robert "Bob" Nesta Marley (February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist for the ska, rocksteady and reg...
1945 Feb 8 Anglo-Canadian Forces Begin Operation Veritable (Battle of the Reichswald)
Operation Veritable was a Second World War pincer movement conducted by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army Group to clear and occupy the land between the Rhine and Maas rivers. ...
1945 Feb 10 American Forces Take Control of Pasig River
The battle for Manila was one of the only urban combat experiences for the US Army in the Pacific. General Robert Beitler, US Army 37th Division was given the assignment to capture Manila...
1945 Feb 11 Japanese Garrison on Provisor Island Falls to 37th Division
Administering a city requires not only looking out for the needs of the individual inhabitants, but also safeguarding city functions such as water and power. Lt. Gen. Krueger was therefo...
1945 Feb 12 US Forces Complete Encirclement of Manila
After the American landing at Lingayen Gulf on January 9, 1945, the US Army sped toward Manila. The city became a battlefield from February 4 to March 3, 1945 in street-to-street fighting...
1945 Feb 13 The British Royal Air Force Bombs The City Of Dresden
"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed... I fe..." —Winston Churchill
1945 Feb 14 Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp is Liberated by Soviet Forces
At its peak activity in 1944, the Gross-Rosen complex had up to sixty subcamps located in eastern Germany and occupied Poland. In its final stage, the population of the Gross-Rosen camps ...
1945 Feb 19 U.S. Marines Land on Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima (February 19 – March 26, 1945), or Operation Detachment, was a battle in which the United States fought for and captured Iwo Jima (lit. Sulfur Island) from Japan. T...
1945 Feb 23 Allied Forces Cross the Roer River through Operation Grenade
The U. S. Breakthrough Begins with the Crossing of the Roer: The Ninth Army's crossing of the Roer was a short, violent struggle against the Germans and the river. Forty-five minutes afte...
1945 Feb 23 U.S. Marines Capture Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima
On February 19, 1945, as part of their island-hopping strategy to defeat Japan, the United States invaded Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima was originally not a target, but the relatively quick fall of ...
1945 Mar Anne Frank Dies of Typhus, Along with Her Sister, at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp
Both sisters died of typhus in March 1945, just a few weeks before British troops liberated Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945. SS officials also selected Anne's parents for labor. Anne's mo...
1945 Mar Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn are Divorced
In the spring of 1944 Hemingway finally decided to go to Europe to report the war, heading first to London where he wrote articles about the RAF and about the war’s effects on England. Wh...
1945 Mar Michael Edward Reagan is Adopted
He was born in California to Irene Flaugher (born 1916- died December 26, 1985), a single woman from Kentucky[4] who became pregnant through an affair with an army corporal named John Bou...
1945 Mar 4 American and Filipino Forces Secure Control of Intramuros
On the afternoon of 3 March Lieutenant General Oscar W. Griswold, commander of 14th Corps, reported to Gen. Krueger of 6th Army that all resistance had ceased. The struggle to capture Ma...
1945 Mar 7 American Forces Capture the Ludendorff Bridge and Cross the Rhine into Germany through Operation Lumberjack
The Ludendorff Bridge (in World War II, frequently called the Bridge at Remagen) was a railway bridge across the Rhine in Germany, connecting the villages of Remagen and Erpel between two...
1945 Mar 8 SS General Karl Wolff Offers Plan for Local Surrender of German Forces in Northern Italy During Secret Negotiations with Western Allies
During World War II, Operation Crossword or Operation Sunrise was a series of secret negotiations conducted in March 1945 in Switzerland between representatives of the Nazi Germany and th...
1945 Mar 9 "Children Of Paradise" Is Released
Les Enfants du Paradis, released as Children of Paradise in North America, is a 1945 film by French director Marcel Carné, made during the Nazi occupation of France. Set among the Parisia...
1945 Mar 9 Japanese Army Officials Intern French Indochina Authorities, Assume Control of French Asian Territory
During World War II, the French were defeated by the Germans in 1940. For French Indochina, this meant that the colonial authorities became Vichy French, allies of the German-Italian Axis...
1945 Mar 15 17th Academy Awards
The 17th Academy Awards marked the first time this awards ceremony was broadcast nationally on the ABC Radio network. Through the 1940’s, the ceremony and academy rules continued to ev...
1945 Mar 17 Collapse of the Ludendorff Bridge
Later on March 17, ten days after its capture, the bridge suddenly collapsed into the Rhine. Twenty-eight U.S. Army engineers were killed while working to strengthen the bridge, and 93 ot...
1945 Mar 19 With Defeat Looming, Adolf Hitler Orders the Destruction of Remaining German Industry
By late 1944, the Red Army had driven the Germans back into Central Europe and the Western Allies were advancing into Germany. Hitler realized that Germany had lost the war, but allowed n...
1945 Mar 21 Operation Bowler
By early 1945 northern Italy's rail and road network had undergone severe damage, forcing the Germans to resort to shipping goods into Venice and then moving them from there along rivers ...
1945 Mar 23 Allied Forces Cross the Rhine into Germany (Operation Plunder)
Commencing on the night of 23 March 1945 during World War II, Operation Plunder was the crossing of the Rhine river at Rees, Wesel, and south of the Lippe River by the British Second Army...
1945 Mar 24 Operation Varsity
Operation Varsity (24 March 1945) was a joint American–British airborne operation that took place toward the end of World War II. Involving more than 16,000 paratroopers and several thous...