What Happened in 1945

Important Events

  • Jan 20 Franklin D. Roosevelt sworn-in for an unprecedented (and never to be repeated) 4th term as US President
  • Jan 27 Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps in Poland
  • Feb 13 Allied planes begin bombing Dresden, Germany; a firestorm results and over 22,000 die
  • Feb 13 USSR captures Budapest, after a 49-day battle with Germany; 159,000 die
  • Feb 19 US 5th Fleet launches invasion of Iwo Jima against the Japanese with 30,000 US Marines
  • Feb 23 US Marines raise American flag on top of Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima. Photo of which by Joe Rosenthall later became iconic, inspiring the Marine Corps War Memorial sculpture
  • Mar 23 Battle of Okinawa: US Navy ships bomb the Japanese island of Okinawa in preparation for the Allied invasion; it would become the largest battle of the Pacific War in World War II
  • Apr 25 "Elbe Day" - US and Soviet forces meet at Torgau, Germany on the Elbe River during the invasion of Germany in WWII
  • Apr 26 Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, leader of France's Vichy collaborationist regime during WW II, arrested for treason
  • Apr 27 Italian partisans capture Benito Mussolini at Dongo (Lake Como)
More Historical Events

1945 in Film & TV

  • Jul 6 Abbott and Costello's film "The Naughty Nineties" released featuring longest version of their "Who's on First" routine
  • Sep 28 "Mildred Price" starring Joan Crawford opens at Strand
  • Nov 29 "The Lost Weekend", based on Charles R. Jackson's novel, directed by Billy Wilder and starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman premieres in Los Angeles (Academy Awards Best Picture 1946)

1945 in Music

  • Mar 15 Billboard publishes its 1st album chart (King Cole Trio is #1)
  • Jun 5 Benjamin Britten's opera "Peter Grimes" premieres in London
  • Nov 26 Charlie "Bird" Parker leads recording session for the Savoy label marketed as the "greatest Jazz session ever" with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis

Did You Know?

Physicist Raemer Schreiber and Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva arrive on the Pacific island of Tinian with the plutonium core used to assemble the Fat Man bomb used in the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9

On July 28, 1945

Famous People Born in 1945

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World Leaders in 1945

Famous People in 1945

Would You Believe?

"Elevator girl" Betty Lou Oliver survives falling 75 storeys after fog causes a US bomber plane to crash into the Empire State Building, breaking the cables supporting the elevator she was operating. This remains a world record for the longest survived elevator fall

On July 28, 1945

Famous Weddings

  • Jan 6 Future US President George H. W. Bush marries Barbara Pierce at the First Presbyterian Church in Rye NY
  • Jan 6 Future 41st US President George H. W. Bush (20) weds Barbara Pierce (19) at the First Presbyterian Church in Rye, New York
  • Jan 29 Actress Gloria Swanson (45) weds William N. Davey

Famous Divorces

  • Dec 21 American author and journalist "The Old Man and the Sea" Ernest Hemingway and journalist Martha Gellhorn divorce after 5 years of marriage.
  • Dec 25 Actor John Wayne (38) divorces Josephine Saenz (37) after 12 years of marriage
More Weddings & Divorces

Famous Deaths

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Articles on Events in 1945