Historical Events
Events 501 - 600 of 703
- 1945-04-26 World War II: Battle of Bautzen - last successful German tank-offensive of the war and last noteworthy victory of the Wehrmacht
- 1945-04-27 World War II: The Völkischer Beobachter, the newspaper of the Nazi Party, ceases publication
Battle of Interest
1945-05-05 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
- 1945-05-06 World War II: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (first was on December 11, 1941).
- 1945-05-09 World War II: Partisans liberate Ljubljana.
Historic Event
1945-05-09 World War II: Hermann Goering is captured by the United States Army
- 1945-05-09 World War II: The Soviet Union marks Victory Day
- 1945-05-09 World War II: The Channel Islands are formally liberated by the British
- 1945-05-15 World War II: The final skirmish in Europe is fought near Prevalje, Slovenia
Historic Event
1945-05-21 Nazi SS-Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler captured
- 1945-07-05 World War II: Liberation of the Philippines declared
- 1945-08-08 USSR declares war against Japan in WW II
- 1945-08-15 World War II: Korean Liberation Day.
Historic Event
1945-09-11 Hideki Tojo, Japanese Prime Minister during most of World War II, attempts suicide rather than face war crimes tribunal but fails - later he is hanged
Historic Event
1945-10-11 Chinese civil war begins between Kuomintang government led by Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong's Communist Party
- 1945-11-10 Heavy battle in Surabaya between Indonesian nationalists and returning colonialists after World War II, celebrated as Heroes' Day (Hari Pahlawan).
Sports History
1945-12-31 Before the biggest Adelaide Oval crowd of the season, batting maestro Don Bradman scores his first post-WWII century; 112 for South Australia v Australian Services
- 1946-02-11 World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 116 of 156 captured U-boats
- 1946-03-31 First election is held in Greece after World War II
- 1946-04-29 28 former Japanese leaders indicted in Tokyo as war criminals
- 1946-06-03 International Military Tribunal opens in Tokyo against 28 Japanese war criminals
Nuremberg Trials
1946-09-30 Twenty-two Nazi leaders, including Joachim von Ribbentrop and Hermann Goering, are found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death or prison at the Nuremberg war trials
- 1946-10-01 12 Nazi war criminals sentenced to death in Nuremberg
Execution
1946-10-16 10 Nazi leaders are hanged as war criminals after Nuremberg war trials, including Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Alfred Jodl
Historic Event
1946-12-19 War breaks out in Indochina as Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi
Historic Event
1947-05-03 Japan's post-war constitution goes into effect, granting universal suffrage, stripping Emperor Hirohito of all but symbolic power and outlawing Japan's right to make war
- 1948-05-28 Israeli Air Force is officially founded shortly after the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
- 1948-06-21 Rhodes conference on Israeli-Arab war opens
- 1948-09-05 In France, Robert Schuman becomes President of the Council while being Foreign minister, As such, he is the negotiator of the major treaties of the end of World War II.
- 1948-09-10 Bijz Criminal division sentences war criminal Jacob Folks to life
- 1948-11-12 Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo sentenced to death by war crimes tribunal
Radio History
1949-02-12 Panic in Quito, Ecuador, after "War of the Worlds" played on radio
- 1949-07-20 Israel's 19 month war of independence ends
- 1949-11-06 Greek civil war ends after 3 years with defeat of communist factions
- 1950-02-01 USSR demands condemnation of Emperor Hirohito for war crimes
- 1950-07-12 Hague Council of Annulment convicts German war criminals W Lages, FH Van de Funten and F Fischer to death
- 1950-09-26 UN troops in Korean War recapture South Korean capital of Seoul
- 1950-11-24 UN troops begin an assault intending to end Korean War by Christmas
- 1951-02-01 Alfred Krupp & 28 other German war criminals freed
- 1951-05-21 The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known as the 9th Street Art Exhibition - a gathering of a number of notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post war New York avant-garde, collectively know as the New York School.
Historic Event
1951-07-09 US President Harry Truman asks Congress to formally end state of war with Germany
- 1951-07-26 Netherlands ends state of war with Germany
- 1951-10-19 US President Harry Truman formally ends state of war with Germany
- 1951-10-25 Peace talks aimed at ending Korean War resumed in Panmunjom
- 1952-09-24 Dutch Minister of Justice Donker decides war criminal Willy Lages will not be executed but sentenced to life
- 1953-08-05 Operation "Big Switch"; Korean War prisoner exchanged at Panmunjom
- 1954-11-01 The Front de Libération Nationale fires the first shots of the Algerian War of Independence against France.
- 1955-01-15 USSR ends state of war with German Federal Republic
- 1955-01-25 Russia ends state of war with Germany
- 1955-11-05 The rebuilt Vienna State Opera reopens after it was destroyed in World War II, with Ludwig van Beethoven's "Fidelio"
- 1956-02-01 Hague Daily Newspaper reveals war crimes of Hague mayor Schokking
- 1956-04-03 German war criminals Hinrichsen, Ruhl, Siebens and Viebahn freed
- 1956-07-05 France raises tobacco tax 20% due to war in Algeria
- 1958-05-30 Unidentified soldiers killed in WW II & Korean War buried in Arlington
- 1958-09-14 Two rockets designed by the German engineer Ernst Mohr, the first German post-war rockets, reach the upper atmosphere.
- 1960-04-08 Netherlands and Germany sign accord concerning war casualties
- 1961-09-01 The Eritrean War of Independence officially begins with the shooting of the Ethiopian police by Hamid Idris Awate
'The Banality of Evil'
1961-12-12 Nazi German army officer Adolf Eichmann is found guilty of war crimes in Israel
- 1962-03-18 Algerian War ends after 7½ yrs (250,000 die), Ben Bella flees
Music History
1962-05-30 Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem" incorporating the poems of Wilfred Owen premieres, marking the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral
- 1962-08-30 Japan conducts a test of the NAMC YS-11, its first aircraft since the war and its only successful commercial aircraft from before or after the war.
- 1963-03-22 British Minister of War John Profumo denies having sex with Christine Keeler
- 1963-06-05 British Minister of War John Profumo resigns due to Christine Keeler scandal
Historic Event
1964-01-08 President Lyndon B. Johnson declares "War on Poverty"
- 1964-03-16 LBJ asks Congress to pass Economic Opportunity Act as part of his War on Poverty
- 1965-03-25 West German Bondsdag extends war crimes retribution
- 1965-11-27 15-25,000 demonstrate against war in Vietnam in Washington, D.C.
- 1966-03-26 Large-scale anti-Vietnam War protests take place in the United States, including in New York, Washington, D.C. and Chicago
- 1966-03-31 25,000 anti war demonstrators march in NYC
- 1966-08-06 US citizens demonstrate against war in Vietnam
- 1967-05-20 10,000 demonstrate against war in Vietnam
Six-Day War
1967-06-05 Six-Day War begins between Israel and the neighboring Arab states of Egypt, Jordan and Syria
- 1967-07-06 Nigerian Civil War erupts as Nigerian forces invade the secessionist state of Biafra
- 1967-10-21 Tens of thousands of anti-Vietnam War protesters march on the Pentagon, besieging the military headquarters for two days
- 1968-01-21 The Battle of Khe Sanh - one of the most publicized and controversial battles of the Vietnam War - begins at the Khe Sanh Air Base
- 1968-02-18 Thousands of people in West Berlin demonstrate against US involvement in the Vietnam War
- 1968-08-28 Police & anti-war demonstrators clash at Chicago's Democratic National Convention
- 1969-04-03 Vietnam War: U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announces that the United States will start a policy of "Vietnamization", reducing American involvement
- 1969-04-05 Massive anti-Vietnam War demonstrations occur in many U.S. cities
- 1969-07-07 German newspaper Der Spiegel reveals Bishop Defregger of Munich is a war criminal
- 1969-12-16 "War is Over! If You Want It, Happy Christmas from John & Yoko" posters begin appearing
- 1970-01-13 Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu flees Biafra into exile, leaving his deputy Philip Effiong to surrender to the Nigerian army, unofficially ending the Nigerian Civil War
- 1970-05-08 Construction workers break up an anti-war rally in NYC's Wall Street
Historic Event
1970-09-28 Anwar Sadat replaces the late Gamal Abdel Nasser as acting Egyptian President; elected president in October 1970
- 1970-10-15 Anwar Sadat elected 3rd President of Egypt, succeeding the late Gamal Abdel Nasser
- 1970-10-17 Anwar Sadat sworn in as the 3rd President of Egypt
- 1970-11-09 Trial of Seattle 8 anti-war protesters begins
- 1971-01-26 Dutch 2nd Chamber accepts law against limitation of war crimes
- 1971-04-25 About 200,000 anti-Vietnam War protesters march on Washington, D.C.
- 1971-05-03 Nixon administration arrests 13,000 anti-war protesters in 3 days
Music Recording
1971-10-28 John Lennon and Yoko Ono record "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" in NYC
- 1971-12-01 John Lennon and Yoko Ono release "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" in US
- 1971-12-03 India invades West Pakistan claiming hundreds of lives and starting the full scale Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
- 1972-01-24 Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.
- 1973-01-27 US & North Vietnam's William Rogers & Nguyen Duy Trinh sign cease-fire, ending longest US war and military draft
- 1973-07-20 The US Senate passes the War Powers Act
- 1973-10-06 Yom Kippur War begins as Syria & Egypt attack Israel
- 1973-10-24 Yom Kippur War ends, Israel 65 miles from Cairo, 26 from Damascus
- 1974-02-05 John Murtha becomes the first Vietnam War veteran elected to the United States Congress
- 1974-03-07 "USS Monitor", Union Ship sunk in 1862 during US Civil War, restored at Cape Hatteras