January 1945 in History

Events in History

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima

Jan 3 Admiral Chester Nimitz begins planning assaults on Okinawa and Iwo Jima in Japan

United States Marines raise the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi, during the Battle of Iwo Jima

Jan 3 Allies land on west coast of Burma, conquer Akyab

Event of Interest

Jan 3 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill visits France

Jan 3 Cato-Meridian School, New York, installs germicidal lamps in every room
Jan 3 Greek General Plastiras forms government
Jan 3 John Patrick's play "The Hasty Heart" premieres in NYC
Jan 3 US aircraft carriers attack Okinawa
Jan 4 Germans execute resistance fighters in Amsterdam
Jan 4 US jeep-aircraft carrier Ommaney Bay sinks after Japanese kamikaze attack
Jan 5 Surprise attack on Liese-Aktion-office on Marnix St, Amsterdam

Event of Interest

Jan 7 Lord Haw-Haw (William Joyce) reports total German victory in the Ardennes

Jan 7 The last surface engagement between Allies and Japanese in the Pacific campaign, World War II
Jan 8 "Youth for Christ" organizes

Event of Interest

Jan 9 US soldiers led by Gen Douglas MacArthur invades Philippines

Jan 10 LA Railway (with 5 streetcar lines) forced to close
Jan 12 German forces in Belgium retreat in Battle of Bulge
Jan 12 The Soviets begin a large offensive against the Nazis in Eastern Europe
Jan 12 US Task Force 38 destroys 41 Japanese ships in Battle of South China Sea
Jan 14 In Greece, Communists and the British agree to a cease-fire in the struggle to control Athens (and with it Greece)
Jan 15 Every Amsterdammer gets 3 kg of sugar beets
Jan 15 Red Army frees Crakow-Plaszow concentration camp

Manhattan Project

Jan 15 The Manhattan Project's G-5 Group, headed by Physicist's Donald Kerst and Seth Neddermeyer, take their first betatron pictures of a nuclear implosion at the Los Alamos Laboratory

Event of Interest

Jan 16 Adolf Hitler moves into the Fuhrerbunker, his underground bunker in Berlin

Jan 16 Scottish 52nd land division and 1st Commando brigade-assault at Heinsberg
Jan 16 US 1st & 3rd army meet at Houffalise

Event of Interest

Jan 17 Auschwitz concentration camp begins evacuation

Jan 17 Gilbert Dodds, record miler (4:05.3), retires to do gospel work
Jan 17 Soviet army enters the devastated city of Warsaw and clears German resistance
Jan 17 Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis, arrested by Soviet secret police in Hungary
Jan 18 Soviet Armed Forces enter Krakow, Poland to push Germans out, only to eventually occupy entire country

Event of Interest

Jan 20 Franklin D. Roosevelt sworn-in for an unprecedented (and never to be repeated) 4th term as US President

Jan 20 The Hungarian Provisional Government concludes an armistice with the USSR, US, and Britain, agree to pay reparations and to join the war against Germany
Jan 21 British troops land on Ramree, near coast of Burma
Jan 22 Burma highway reopens
Jan 22 Heavy US air raid on Okinawa
Jan 23 Dutch Premier Pieter Gerbrandy, exiled in London, tenders his resignation

Event of Interest

Jan 23 World War II: Karl Dönitz launches Operation Hannibal to evacuate German soldiers and civilians from Prussia by sea

Jan 24 Scottish 52nd Lowland division occupies Heinsberg
Jan 25 Grand Rapids, Michigan, becomes 1st US city to fluoridate its water
Jan 25 Japanese occupiers of Batavia arrest Indo-European youths
Jan 25 West Africa 82nd division occupies Myohaung, Burma
Jan 26 Soviet forces reach Auschwitz concentration camp
Jan 27 Nazi occupiers forbid food transport to West (The Netherlands)
Jan 27 Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps in Poland [1]
Jan 27 Wally van Hall, Dutch banker and resistance leader, arrested
Jan 28 Dutch airplanes dump pamphlets on Java
Jan 28 General "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell and truck convoy reopen Burma Road to China
Jan 28 Swedish ships bring food to starving Netherlands
Jan 30 "Wilhelm Gustloff" torpedoed off Danzig by Soviet sub-c 9,400 die
Jan 30 American Rangers and Filipino resistance fighters liberate over 500 Allied POWs from Japanese at Cabanatuan
Jan 31 Soviet troops reach the Oder River, less that 50 miles from Berlin
Jan 31 US 4th Infantry division occupies Elcherrath

Birthdays in History

Jan 1 Gail Zappa (née Sloatman), American business secretary and wife of musician and composer Frank Zappa, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 2015)
Jan 1 Glen Loates, Canadian artist and painter of wildlife and landscapes, born in Toronto, Ontario
Jan 1 Peter Duncan, Australian politician (Member of Parliament, 1984-96; Minister for Employment and Education, 1988-90), born in Melbourne, Australia)
Jan 2 Slobodan Praljak, Bosnian Croat general & war criminal, born in Čapljina, Independent State of Croatia (d. 2017)
Jan 4 Richard R. Schrock, American chemist, Nobel laureate
Jan 4 Vesa-Matti Loiri, Finnish entertainer
Jan 6 Allen Appel, American novelist, born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Jan 6 Barry Lopez, American author (Of Wolves & Men), born in Port Chester, New York
Jan 7 Dick Marty, Swiss politician & prosecutor, born in Sorengo, Switzerland
Jan 7 Raila Odinga, Kenyan politician, Prime Minister of Kenya (2008-2013), born in Maseno, Kenya
Jan 10 Gunther von Hagens [Gunther Gerhard Liebchen], German anatomist who invented the plastination technique for preserving tissue specimens, born in Alt-Skalden, Nazi Germany
Jan 11 Samdech Preah Sanghareach Bour Kry, Supreme Patriarch of the Cambodian Dhammayutt Order
Jan 13 [Eileen] Joy[ce] Chant [Rutter], UK, sci-fi author (High Kings)
Jan 14 Einar Hakonarson, Icelandic painter, born in Reykjavik, Iceland
Jan 14 Vonetta McGee, American actress, born in San Francisco, California, (d. 2010)
Jan 15 Princess Michael of Kent, British royal, born in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic

Jan 15 Vince Foster, American lawyer, born in Hope, Arkansas (d. 1993)
Jan 15 William R. Higgins, USMC colonel, born in Danville, Kentucky (d. 1990)
Jan 19 Vadim Abdrashitov, director (Fox Hunt, Parade of Planets)
Jan 21 Andrew Stein, President of NYC council (D)
Jan 23 Mike Harris, Canadian lawyer and politician (Premier of Ontario, 1995-2002), born in Toronto, Ontario
Jan 24 D. Todd Christofferson, American LDS apostle, born in American Fork, Utah
Jan 24 John Garamendi, American politician, born in Camp Blanding Joint Training Center, Florida
Jan 26 Barbara Kruger, American conceptual artist, born in Newark, New Jersey
Jan 27 Harold Cardinal, Cree political leader (d. 2005)
Jan 27 Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, North Irish peace activist (Nobel 1976)
Jan 28 Nick Raynsford, British MP
Jan 30 Michael Dorris, American novelist & scholar, born in Louisville, Kentucky (d. 1997)
Jan 31 Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond, British judge, 1st woman to head UK Supreme Court, born in Leeds, England

Weddings in History

Barbara Bush & George H. W. Bush

Jan 6 Future 41st US President George H. W. Bush (20) weds Barbara Pierce (19) at the First Presbyterian Church in Rye, New York

Deaths in History

Jan 2 Bertram Home Ramsay, English naval officer (Admiral who oversaw Dunkirk evacuations and Normandy landings), dies during a plane crash in France at 61
Jan 3 Edgar Cayce, American psychic (b. 1877)
Jan 3 Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski, Polish writer (Lenin: God of the Godless), dies at 68
Jan 6 Edith Frank, mother of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank, dies from starvation at the age of 44
Jan 6 Vladimir Vernadsky, Russian mineralogist (b. 1863)
Jan 8 Jac[obus] P. Thijsse, Dutch biologist and educator (Omgang met planten), dies at 79
Jan 8 Karl Krafft, Swiss astrologer who was manipulated by the Nazi regime, dies of typhus fever enroute to Buchenwald concentration camp at 44
Jan 9 Jüri Uluots, Estonian Prime Minister (b. 1890)
Jan 10 Rudolf Borchardt, writer, dies at 67
Jan 11 Ada Negri, Italian poet and author (Il Libro di Mara, only woman admitted to Academy of Italy), dies at 74
Jan 16 Dennis Donnini, British rifleman (Victoria Cross), dies in battle at 19
Jan 18 Frits van Hall, Dutch sculptor (Monument Indië-Nederland (originally known as Van Heutsz monument), 1935), WWII resistance fighter, executed by the Nazis at 45
Jan 19 Ernest-Bernard Allo, French Dominican theologist, dies at 71
Jan 21 Rash Behari Bose, Indian revolutionary leader against the British Raj in India, dies at 58
Jan 22 Alfred Wolfenstein, German writer, dies at 61
Jan 22 Arthur Symons, Welsh poet and critic (co-founder Savoy magazine), dies at 79
Jan 22 Else Lasker-Schuler, German-born poet (b. 1869)
Jan 22 Johan Eykman, theologist (World Church), dies at 52
Jan 23 Helmuth James von Moltke, German jurist who opposed Nazi (July 20th Plot), executed at 37
Jan 27 Antal Szerb, Hungarian author and historian, dies at 43
Jan 30 Gottlieb Haberlandt, Austrian botanist, dies at 90
Jan 31 Eddie Slovik, 1st US executed for desertion since Civil War at 25