Events, Verisoph

1 September 1939 Invasion of Poland 0 cit. Germany invades Poland; Britain and France declare war two days later. The Second World War begins in Europe. war ●●●●●

22 May 1939 Pact of Steel 0 cit. Full military and political alliance between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, committing each to join the other's wars. It bound Italy to Germany on the eve of the Second World War. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

28 September 1939 German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty 0 cit. Treaty dividing conquered Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union after their September invasions, with secret protocols adjusting spheres of influence and pledging suppression of Polish resistance. It supplemented the earlier Nazi-Soviet pact. diplomacy / politics / war ●●

1 April 1939 Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War 0 cit. Francisco Franco declares victory over the Spanish Republic after three years of civil war fought with German and Italian support. His authoritarian regime rules Spain until his death in 1975. politics / war ●●●●

1 September 1939 to 1945 The Second World War and the Empire 0 cit. The empire again mobilized on a vast scale, but the war drained Britain's wealth and strength. Victory came at the cost of the resources and prestige needed to hold the empire together. war ●●●●●

17 September 1939 Soviet Invasion of Poland 0 cit. Following the secret protocol, the Red Army invaded eastern Poland weeks after Germany attacked from the west. The Soviets annexed the territory, including western Ukrainian and Belarusian lands. politics / war ●●●

30 November 1939 to 1940 Winter War with Finland 0 cit. The Soviet Union attacked Finland after it refused territorial demands, meeting fierce resistance and heavy Soviet losses. Finland ceded land in the peace but kept its independence. war ●●●

1939 to 1945 Pius XII and the Church during the Second World War 0 cit. Pope Pius XII led the Church through the war and the Holocaust, avoiding open condemnation of Nazi genocide while the Vatican sheltered some refugees. His silence remains one of the most debated questions in modern Church history. politics / religion / war ●●●

c. 1939 German Rhodes Scholarships terminated 0 cit. The Rhodes Trust ended the German scholarships as the Second World War began, after the scheme had already been compromised by Nazi control over which German students were allowed to study abroad. The program was never revived after the war in its original form. Germany was only later reintegrated into the scholarship's list of eligible countries. diplomacy / war ●

1939 Duke of Kent becomes Grand Master, dies in wartime service 0 cit. Prince George, Duke of Kent, son of George V, became Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1939. He continued to hold the office through the early part of the Second World War until his death in an air crash in Scotland in August 1942 while on active RAF service. His death ended a continuous run of royal Grand Masters that had lasted, with brief gaps, since the 18th century. society / war ●●

31 August 1939 Gleiwitz Incident 0 cit. SS operatives dressed as Polish soldiers staged an attack on a German radio station at Gleiwitz, leaving behind a murdered concentration camp prisoner dressed in a Polish uniform as fabricated evidence. Hitler cited the fake attack, along with a wider set of staged border incidents under Operation Himmler, as justification for invading Poland the next morning. The operation was confirmed by postwar testimony from SS officer Alfred Naujocks, who led it. diplomacy / war ●●●

26 November 1939 Mainila Shelling Incident 0 cit. Soviet artillery shelled the Soviet village of Mainila and the government publicly blamed Finland for the attack, despite Finnish forces having withdrawn their artillery out of range beforehand. The Soviet Union used the incident to renounce its non-aggression pact with Finland and launch the Winter War four days later. Soviet officials and archival records later confirmed the shelling was carried out by the Red Army itself. diplomacy / war ●●

1939 Hewlett-Packard is founded in a Palo Alto garage 0 cit. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, students of Stanford's Frederick Terman, started HP in a garage that is now treated as the birthplace of Silicon Valley. Wartime and Cold War military contracts for electronics gave the young company its first steady business. economy / technology / war ●●

4 November 1939 Cash and carry replaces the arms embargo 0 cit. The United States revises its Neutrality Acts to let warring nations buy American arms, but only if they pay in cash and carry the goods away in their own ships. The rule keeps America formally neutral while opening its factories to buyers with hard currency. For Britain and France it means every rifle and aircraft must be paid for up front in dollars or gold. diplomacy / economy / war ●●●

10 May 1940 to 25 June 1940 Fall of France 0 cit. Germany conquers the Low Countries and France in six weeks; the British army escapes at Dunkirk without its equipment. war ●●●●

10 July 1940 to 31 October 1940 Battle of Britain 0 cit. The RAF denies the Luftwaffe air superiority; the planned invasion of Britain is shelved. war ●●●●

16 September 1940 First Peacetime Draft: The Selective Service System 0 cit. With war spreading in Europe and Asia, Congress passes the Selective Training and Service Act, the first peacetime conscription law in American history. The Selective Service System registers tens of millions of men through World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. society / war ●●

16 September 1940 First peacetime draft under the Selective Service Act 0 cit. Congress passed the first peacetime conscription law in US history as war spread in Europe and Asia. It built the mass army the country used in the Second World War. politics / war ●●

1940 to 1945 Krupp uses forced and slave labour in the Second World War 0 cit. During the Second World War Krupp used tens of thousands of prisoners of war, forced labourers and concentration camp inmates in its plants. Conditions were often brutal and many workers died. society / war ●●●●

2 September 1940 The destroyers-for-bases deal ties Britain to American support 0 cit. The United States gave Britain fifty aging destroyers in exchange for 99-year leases on bases in British Atlantic and Caribbean territories. The deal traded imperial real estate for American aid as Britain stood nearly alone against Germany. politics / war ●

7 September 1940 The Blitz bombing campaign against Britain 0 cit. The Luftwaffe shifted from targeting RAF airfields to sustained night bombing of London and other British cities, killing over 40,000 civilians before the campaign wound down in mid-1941. The bombing was intended to break British morale and force surrender, but it failed to do so and instead hardened public resolve. The Blitz became a defining example of strategic bombing aimed at civilian populations. war ●●

c. 20 January 1940 Bletchley Park breaks Enigma traffic 0 cit. Codebreakers at the Government Code and Cypher School's wartime station, Bletchley Park, achieved their first sustained breaks into German Enigma-encrypted traffic, building on earlier Polish cryptanalytic work. The resulting decrypted intelligence, codenamed Ultra, gave Allied commanders access to German military communications for the rest of the war. Historians credit Ultra with shortening the war, though its full extent stayed classified until the 1970s. technology / war ●●●

16 September 1940 National Guard federalized before World War II 0 cit. As war spread in Europe and Asia, Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act, and President Roosevelt ordered the entire National Guard, about 300,000 soldiers, into a year of federal active duty starting that month. Guard divisions such as the 34th 'Red Bull' Division later fought in North Africa and Italy, and other Guard units fought across the Pacific. The 1940 mobilization gave the Regular Army a badly needed trained cadre well before Pearl Harbor. war ●●●

1940 Sengier ships Congolese uranium to New York 0 cit. Edgar Sengier, a director of Union Miniere, foresaw war and had roughly 1,200 tons of high-grade Shinkolobwe uranium ore shipped to New York, where it sat in a warehouse on Staten Island. In 1942 he sold it to the United States Army for the secret atomic bomb program. The ore was far richer than American or Canadian sources, and its origin in a Belgian colony was kept quiet. economy / technology / war ●●●

August 1940 Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee in Marseille 0 cit. The Emergency Rescue Committee sends journalist Varian Fry to Vichy France, where he helps thousands of artists, writers and intellectuals escape the Nazis, among them Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall and Max Ernst. Fry worked with forged papers and secret mountain routes into Spain. The committee later merged with the International Relief Association. culture / politics / war ●●●

1940 Roosevelt's order builds a classification machine 0 cit. President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8381, the first presidential order to set rules for classifying government information. It gave the marking system a legal footing rooted in the president's own authority rather than an act of Congress. From here the American secrecy regime would grow through a chain of executive orders, each rewriting the last. politics / war ●●

14 May 1940 Britain forms the Local Defence Volunteers 0 cit. As German forces overran France and invasion loomed, War Secretary Anthony Eden called by radio for men not in the army to enrol as Local Defence Volunteers. Within weeks hundreds of thousands had signed up, many too old or too young for regular service. The force was meant to watch the coast and countryside and to slow any German landing until the army could respond. society / war ●●●

July 1940 The Local Defence Volunteers are renamed the Home Guard 0 cit. Churchill pressed for a stronger name, and the Local Defence Volunteers became the Home Guard. Membership passed a million men and later reached about 1.5 million. At first they were badly short of weapons, drilling with shotguns, pikes and improvised gear until arms arrived from Britain and the United States. society / war ●●

c. 1940 Kenyans Fight in the King's African Rifles 0 cit. Tens of thousands of Kenyan Africans served in the King's African Rifles during the Second World War, first in the East African campaign that drove the Italians from Somaliland and Ethiopia, then in the brutal jungle fighting against Japan in Burma. They fought alongside white soldiers, saw the wider world, and learned that colonial rule was neither universal nor invincible. The estimated hundred thousand or so Kenyans who served came home with new skills, expectations, and a sharpened sense of the injustice they had left behind. society / war ●●●

c. 1940 The 1940 age-set and wartime conscription 0 cit. The name Anake a 40, the Young Men of 40, points to the year 1940. Among the Kikuyu, men initiated in the same period shared an age-set identity, and many of this cohort were drafted into the British colonial forces from 1940 as the Second World War spread. The shared year of service and initiation gave the group its name and a strong sense of common generation. society / war ●●

January 1940 Mao Zedong publishes On New Democracy 0 cit. Mao set out a model of revolution led by a communist party but rooted in the peasantry and aimed first at foreign domination and landlordism. His stress on rural guerrilla struggle in a poor, mostly agrarian country spoke to conditions across the colonized world more directly than Soviet industrial doctrine. Historians credit the Maoist model with shaping liberation movements from Asia to Africa. politics / war ●●

25 July 1940 General Guisan's Rütli Report and the National Redoubt 0 cit. After the fall of France left Switzerland fully surrounded by the Axis, General Henri Guisan gathered his officers at the Rütli meadow, the Confederation's founding site, and set out a plan to withdraw the army into an Alpine fortress and fight on if invaded. The National Redoubt aimed to make conquering Switzerland more costly than it was worth. The stance is often cited as armed neutrality, though the country's survival also owed much to its economic usefulness to Germany. war ●●

c. 1940 Britain ships its gold across the Atlantic 0 cit. To meet the cash-and-carry rule, Britain sends gold and dollar securities across the Atlantic to pay for American supplies. Some shipments travel by warship under guard. The purchases keep the war going but steadily drain the reserves the country needs to buy anything from abroad. economy / war ●●●

December 1940 Britain's reserves near exhaustion 0 cit. By late 1940 Britain's gold and dollar reserves are close to running out. The Treasury warns that the country can no longer pay cash for the American arms it depends on. Churchill puts the problem directly to President Roosevelt, saying Britain will soon be unable to pay in full for shipping and supplies. diplomacy / economy / war ●●●

c. 1940 Britain liquidates its American investments 0 cit. Through 1940 and 1941 the British government requisitions and sells off British-owned direct investments in the United States to raise dollars. Company after company held by British owners is cashed in to pay for the war. The policy strips Britain of the overseas holdings that had underpinned its financial strength for decades. economy / war ●●●

c. 1940 More gold leaves the country 0 cit. Alongside the sale of companies, Britain keeps shipping gold abroad to settle its bills. Reserves that took generations to build are handed over in a matter of months. The critic Andrew Boyle and others later called this stretch the selling of the family silver, the disposal of the nation's accumulated wealth to stay in the fight. economy / war ●●

22 June 1941 Operation Barbarossa 0 cit. Germany invades the Soviet Union along a 2,900-kilometre front, the largest invasion in history. war ●●●●●

7 December 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor 0 cit. Japan strikes the US Pacific Fleet; the United States enters the war, and Germany declares war on America four days later. war ●●●●●

14 August 1941 Atlantic Charter 0 cit. Joint declaration by Roosevelt and Churchill setting out principles for the postwar world, including self-determination and freer trade. It became a founding reference for the United Nations. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

8 September 1941 to 1944 Siege of Leningrad 0 cit. German and Finnish forces encircled Leningrad for nearly 900 days, cutting off food and fuel. Hundreds of thousands of residents died, most from starvation, before the blockade was broken. society / war ●●●●

11 March 1941 The Lend-Lease Act makes Britain dependent on American supply 0 cit. Lend-Lease let the United States ship arms, food, and materiel to Britain and other allies without immediate payment, keeping them in the war. It deepened Britain's reliance on American industry and finance and hastened the shift in global leadership. economy / war ●●●

14 August 1941 The Atlantic Charter sets Anglo-American war aims 0 cit. Churchill and Roosevelt met at sea and issued a joint statement of principles for the postwar world, including self-determination and free trade. Its call for self-determination pointed toward the eventual dismantling of empires, including Britain's. politics / war ●●

c. August 1941 Parsons helps invent jet-assisted takeoff rockets 0 cit. Parsons developed solid propellants for JATO units that gave overloaded aircraft extra thrust on takeoff. The successful flight tests proved the military value of the Caltech group's work. science / war ●●●

July 1941 Hubbard is commissioned as a US Navy officer in World War II 0 cit. Hubbard served as a naval officer during the war, later greatly embellishing his wartime record. His actual service was modest and marked by disputed command incidents. war ●●

2 January 1941 XX Committee runs the Double-Cross System 0 cit. MI5 stood up the Twenty (XX) Committee to coordinate the Double-Cross System, under which nearly every German agent sent to Britain was identified, captured, and turned into a double agent feeding false information back to German intelligence. The system fed deception operations through the war, including the D-Day deception plan Fortitude. It is regarded as one of MI5's major wartime successes. politics / war ●●●

c. 1941 The Home Guard's real role behind the Dad's Army image 0 cit. Popular memory, fixed later by the television comedy Dad's Army, pictures the Home Guard as bumbling old men. The record is more serious: they guarded key sites, manned anti-aircraft and coastal batteries, and were meant to fight delaying actions against paratroops and invasion. Historians note the force freed regular troops for other duties and would have faced heavy losses had Germany landed. society / war ●●

1941 Britain conquers Italian Somaliland in the war 0 cit. During the East African campaign of the Second World War, British and Commonwealth forces drove the Italians out and took over both Italian Somaliland and the Ogaden under military administration. For a time Britain governed most Somali lands together, and some British officials floated uniting them. Cold War and colonial rivalries killed the idea, and Italy returned to administer the south under a UN trusteeship. politics / war ●

5 May 1941 Liberation and the restoration of Haile Selassie 0 cit. British, Commonwealth, and Ethiopian patriot forces drove the Italians out during the East African campaign of the Second World War. Haile Selassie re-entered Addis Ababa five years to the day after he had fled, restored to his throne. The Italian occupation had lasted only about five years and was never fully secured against the patriot resistance in the countryside. politics / war ●●

March 1941 Lend-Lease keeps Britain in the war at a price 0 cit. With British cash reserves nearly exhausted, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, letting the United States supply arms and goods without immediate payment. The aid kept Britain fighting, but Washington first pressed Britain to spend down its dollar reserves and sell overseas assets, and it used its leverage to push for opening the closed markets of the British Empire. diplomacy / economy / war ●●●

c. 1941 Britain liquidates its overseas assets to pay for war 0 cit. To buy American supplies before Lend-Lease, Britain sold off large parts of its foreign investment portfolio, including the forced sale of the American Viscose company at a low price. The dismantling of the overseas assets built up over a century stripped Britain of the invisible earnings that had long balanced its books. economy / war ●●

March 1941 The Treasury forces the sale of American Viscose 0 cit. Under pressure from both the American and British Treasuries, Courtaulds is required to sell American Viscose to raise dollars for the war. The sale is arranged in March 1941, weeks before Lend-Lease removes the cash requirement. Britain is made to give up one of its best foreign assets at the moment its bargaining position is weakest. diplomacy / economy / war ●●●

c. January 1941 The dollar assets run dry 0 cit. By early 1941 Britain has spent almost all of its usable overseas dollar assets. The reserves that had paid for two years of purchases are nearly gone. With no way left to pay cash, Britain can only keep buying American supplies if the United States changes the terms. economy / war ●●●

11 March 1941 The Lend-Lease Act ends the cash demand 0 cit. President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act, letting the United States supply arms and materials to Britain and its allies without immediate cash payment. It rescues Britain from the dollar crisis that had forced sales like American Viscose. It also ties Britain more closely to American supply and American terms for the rest of the war. diplomacy / economy / war ●●●●

23 August 1942 to 2 February 1943 Battle of Stalingrad 0 cit. The German Sixth Army is encircled and destroyed; the strategic initiative in the east passes to the Soviet Union for good. war ●●●●●

9 February 1942 First Meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 0 cit. The heads of the Army, Navy, and Army Air Forces meet as a body to coordinate American strategy with the British Combined Chiefs during World War II. The National Security Act of 1947 makes the Joint Chiefs a permanent statutory institution. war ●●●

13 June 1942 to 1945 Founding and Dissolution of the OSS 0 cit. Roosevelt creates the Office of Strategic Services under William Donovan to run wartime espionage, sabotage, and analysis. Truman dissolves it on October 1, 1945, but its veterans and methods seed the CIA two years later. war ●●●

13 August 1942 to 1947 Launch of the Manhattan Project 0 cit. The Army establishes the Manhattan Engineer District to build an atomic bomb, growing into a secret empire of sites at Oak Ridge, Hanford, and Los Alamos employing 130,000 people. It produces the weapons used against Japan and the template for big federal science. science / technology / war ●●●●

24 February 1942 Voice of America begins broadcasting 0 cit. The Voice of America made its first broadcast in February 1942 to counter Axis propaganda with U.S. news in foreign languages. It became the main external broadcasting arm of the United States. politics / war ●●●

13 June 1942 to 1945 U.S. Office of War Information created 0 cit. President Roosevelt established the Office of War Information on 13 June 1942 to coordinate government messaging during World War II. It shaped posters, films, and news to support the war effort at home and abroad. society / war ●●●

15 February 1942 The Fall of Singapore legendary 0 cit. Japanese forces captured the great British naval base and took tens of thousands of prisoners. The defeat shattered the myth of British invincibility in Asia. war ●●●●

3 October 1942 First V-2 rocket reaches space 0 cit. A German V-2 test flight became the first human-made object to reach the edge of space. The rocket, designed as a weapon, proved that large liquid-fueled machines could fly to the boundary of space. science / technology / war ●●●●

March 1942 Parsons co-founds the Aerojet Engineering Corporation 0 cit. Parsons, Malina, Forman, von Karman and others formed Aerojet to manufacture rocket engines for the military. The company grew into a major American propulsion firm. science / war ●●●

18 April 1942 Doolittle Raid on Japan 0 cit. Sixteen U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombers launched from the carrier USS Hornet struck Tokyo and other Japanese cities in a daring raid led by Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle. The mission caused limited physical damage but delivered a major psychological blow to Japan and boosted American morale after Pearl Harbor. Most crews had to crash-land or bail out over China after running low on fuel. war ●●

7 August 1942 Guadalcanal campaign begins 0 cit. The 1st Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal, opening the first major Allied offensive of the Pacific War and a grueling six-month campaign of jungle and naval fighting. It marked the start of the island-hopping strategy that the Marine Corps would use across the Pacific. Victory at Guadalcanal came at a heavy cost but proved Japan's advance could be stopped and reversed. war ●●

c. 1942 Congolese uranium fuels the first atomic bombs 0 cit. Union Minière director Edgar Sengier arranged for Congolese uranium, some already stockpiled in New York, to be sold to the United States for the Manhattan Project. Ore from Shinkolobwe supplied much of the uranium used in the first nuclear weapons, including the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The Congo thus played a hidden but central role in the birth of the nuclear age, with little benefit to the colony. science / war ●●●

March 1942 The Japanese occupation of the Indies legendary 0 cit. Japan overruns the Dutch East Indies in weeks, ending three centuries of Dutch power and interning tens of thousands of Dutch and Eurasian civilians. The occupation is brutal, but it also shatters the myth of European invincibility and lets nationalist leaders build support for independence. politics / war ●●●

19 August 1943 Quebec Agreement 0 cit. Secret agreement between Britain and the United States to pool atomic bomb research, never to use the weapon against each other, and not to use it against others without mutual consent. It governed the Manhattan Project partnership. diplomacy / science / technology / war ●●●

15 January 1943 Completion of the Pentagon 0 cit. Built in just sixteen months during World War II, the five-sided headquarters across the Potomac becomes the largest office building in the world. The Pentagon houses the War Department and then the Department of Defense, and its name becomes shorthand for the American military. war ●●●●

c. 1943 Wartime radio propaganda broadcasts 0 cit. During World War II both sides used shortwave radio to demoralize enemy troops, with figures such as the Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw-Haw announcers broadcasting to Allied forces. These programs showed radio's use as a weapon of psychological warfare. culture / war ●●

July 1943 Battle of Kursk 0 cit. The Soviets stopped a major German offensive in one of the largest tank battles in history. After Kursk the Red Army held the initiative and began pushing westward. war ●●●●

3 June 1943 Zoot Suit Riots 0 cit. For roughly a week, groups of white US servicemen stationed in Los Angeles attacked Mexican American youths, many wearing zoot suits, stripping and beating them in the streets while local police largely stood by or arrested the victims rather than the attackers. The violence spread to other cities including San Diego and Chicago before military commanders declared Los Angeles off-limits to servicemen. Local press had spent weeks portraying Mexican American youth as violent gang members, coverage historians point to as helping incite the attacks. politics / society / war ●●●

February 1943 The Gypsy family camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau 0 cit. From February 1943 deported Roma were held together in a special section of Auschwitz-Birkenau known as the Zigeunerlager, or Gypsy family camp. Conditions were deadly, and thousands died of starvation, disease, and medical experiments, including those carried out by Josef Mengele. Unlike most prisoners, Roma were kept in family groups, which is one reason survivors could later document what happened. society / war ●●●

1943 The Holocaust destroys Salonica's Jews 0 cit. Under German occupation the Jews of Salonica were deported to Auschwitz between March and August 1943, around fifty thousand people, and roughly nine in ten were murdered. Ladino-speaking communities across the Balkans were annihilated in the same years. One of the oldest and greatest Sephardic worlds was wiped out almost completely. religion / society / war ●●●

c. 1943 Compartments and code words wall off the secrets 0 cit. The Manhattan Project and Allied codebreaking under the ULTRA code word pioneered compartmentalization, the rule that people learn only what their own task requires and no more. This need-to-know approach later grew into Sensitive Compartmented Information, whole layers of secrecy hidden inside secrecy and reached only through special code-word clearances. It guards against leaks but also makes it hard for anyone to see the whole picture. technology / war ●●

6 June 1944 Normandy landings 0 cit. The largest seaborne invasion in history opens the western front; Paris is liberated within three months. war ●●●●●

9 October 1944 Percentages agreement 0 cit. Secret understanding between Churchill and Stalin sketching proportional spheres of influence in southeastern Europe, scribbled on a slip of paper. It foreshadowed the Cold War division of the Balkans. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

8 September 1944 First combat use of the V-2 rocket 0 cit. Germany fired the first V-2 ballistic missiles against London and Paris late in World War II. The weapon killed thousands and was built largely by concentration camp labor. technology / war ●●●

September 1944 Von Braun's V-2, the first ballistic missile 0 cit. Wernher von Braun's V-2 rocket strikes London and Antwerp, the first long-range ballistic missile and the ancestor of every space rocket. It was built at the Mittelwerk using concentration-camp slave labor, a fact often glossed over in the space story. technology / war ●●●●

1944 Operation Alsos seizes the German atomic program 0 cit. As the Allies advance, the secret Alsos Mission races to capture German nuclear scientists, documents, and uranium before the Soviets can. It set the pattern for the scramble to seize Nazi science that followed the war. science / war ●●●

15 October 1944 to 1945 Arrow Cross seizes power in Hungary 0 cit. With German backing, Ferenc Szalasi's fascist Arrow Cross Party takes over Hungary after the regent tries to leave the war. Its brief rule unleashes terror in Budapest, murdering thousands of Jews and deporting many more during the Holocaust's final stage. politics / war ●●

3 December 1944 The Home Guard stands down 0 cit. With the invasion threat gone after D-Day, the Home Guard was stood down at the end of 1944 and formally disbanded in 1945. A final parade and a message from the King marked the end of over four years of unpaid part-time service. The name later became shorthand across the world for a volunteer citizen force raised to defend home ground. society / war ●●

8 May 1945 Victory in Europe 0 cit. Germany surrenders unconditionally a week after Hitler kills himself in the ruins of Berlin. war ●●●●●

6 August 1945 to 9 August 1945 Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 0 cit. Two atomic bombs destroy two cities; the nuclear age begins. science / war ●●●●●

2 September 1945 Surrender of Japan 0 cit. Japan signs the instrument of surrender aboard USS Missouri. The Second World War is over; some sixty million people are dead. politics / war ●●●●●

11 February 1945 Yalta Far East Agreement 0 cit. Secret protocol of the Yalta Conference in which Roosevelt and Churchill promised Stalin territorial and railway concessions in East Asia in return for Soviet entry into the war against Japan. China was not consulted. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

26 June 1945 United Nations Charter 0 cit. Founding treaty of the United Nations, signed by fifty nations, establishing the Security Council, General Assembly, and a general ban on aggressive war. It is the cornerstone of the postwar international order. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●●●

17 August 1945 Independence of Indonesia 0 cit. no story Sukarno and Hatta proclaim Indonesian independence; the Netherlands recognized it in 1949 after a four-year armed struggle. politics / war ●●●●

2 September 1945 Independence of Vietnam 0 cit. no story Ho Chi Minh proclaims the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi; independence was secured through wars against France and later the United States. politics / war ●●●●

c. 1945 The United States builds a global network of bases 0 cit. After the Second World War the United States kept and expanded military bases around the world. The network gave it the ability to project force on every continent. politics / war ●●●

February 1945 Yalta Conference 0 cit. Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill met in Crimea to plan the final defeat of Germany and the shape of postwar Europe. The agreements left much of Eastern Europe within the Soviet sphere. politics / war ●●●●

9 May 1945 Victory in the Great Patriotic War 0 cit. The Soviet Union accepted Germany's surrender after the fall of Berlin, ending the war in Europe. Victory Day on May 9 became a central date in Soviet and later Russian national memory, marking losses of around 27 million Soviet citizens. society / war ●●●●●

24 October 1945 United Nations founded 0 cit. The United Nations came into existence when its Charter, signed in San Francisco in June, entered into force. It replaced the League of Nations as the principal global body for peace, security, and international cooperation. politics / war ●●●●●

1945 End of World War II and Japanese surrender 0 cit. Japan surrendered in 1945, ending eight years of war that devastated China. Fighting soon resumed between Nationalists and Communists. war ●●●●

8 May 1945 Setif and Guelma massacre 0 cit. French forces and settlers killed thousands of Algerians after nationalist protests turned violent on the day Europe celebrated victory in the war. The killings hardened Algerian demands for independence. politics / war ●●

1945 to 1949 Allied powers re-educate postwar Germany 0 cit. After 1945 the Allied occupiers ran denazification and rewrote German schooling to remove Nazi ideology and teach democratic values. It stands with occupied Japan as a major case of state-led re-education. politics / war ●●●

2 May 1945 Von Braun surrenders to American forces 0 cit. Wernher von Braun and his core rocket team gave themselves up to United States troops in the Alps. They chose the Americans over the advancing Soviet army. politics / technology / war ●●●

1945 Nuremberg establishes crimes against humanity 0 cit. The Nuremberg trials hold individuals accountable under a new body of international law for crimes against humanity and aggression. They asserted that a global legal order could stand above the sovereignty of states, the ambition of the state, law, and coercion pillar. pillar / politics / war ●●●

19 February 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima 0 cit. U.S. Marines landed on the fortified island of Iwo Jima in one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific War, needed to secure an airfield for emergency B-29 landings and fighter escorts. The flag-raising on Mount Suribachi, photographed by Joe Rosenthal, became one of the most iconic images of the war. Nearly 7,000 Marines were killed in over a month of fighting against a deeply entrenched Japanese garrison. war ●●●

13 February 1945 Bombing of Dresden 0 cit. British and American bombers firebombed the German city of Dresden over three days, creating a firestorm that killed an estimated 25,000 people, most of them civilians. The raid became one of the most controversial Allied actions of the war because Dresden had limited military-industrial significance and the city was crowded with refugees. It remains a central example cited in debates over the morality of area bombing. war ●●●

26 June 1945 United Nations Charter Restricts the Use of Force 0 cit. Founding members signed the United Nations Charter, which in Article 2(4) bars member states from the threat or use of force against another state's territorial integrity or political independence, except in self-defense or with Security Council authorization. The Charter extended the idea of legitimate versus illegitimate force from the domestic to the international level, attempting to make interstate war itself subject to collective legal limits. It remains the primary international legal framework governing when states may use armed force. diplomacy / war ●●●