1945 in the United States

1945 in the United States
Years 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947
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48 stars (1912–59)
Timeline of United States history
History of the United States (1945–64)

Events from the year 1945 in the United States. World War II ended during this year following the surrender of Germany in May and that of Japan in September.

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-New York) (until April 12), Harry S. Truman (D-Missouri) (starting April 12)
• Vice President:
  • until January 20: Henry A. Wallace (D-Iowa)
  • January 20–April 12: Harry S. Truman (D-Missouri)
  • starting April 12: vacant
• Chief Justice: Harlan F. Stone (New York)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Sam Rayburn (D-Texas)
• Senate Majority Leader: Alben W. Barkley (D-Kentucky)
• Congress: 78th (until January 3), 79th (starting January 3)

Events

January

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the President of the United States, began his fourth term on January 20

• January – American troops cross the Siegfried Line into Belgium.
• January 20 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated to an unprecedented 4th term as President of the United States. No president before, or since, has ever reached a third term in office.
• January 30 – Raid at Cabanatuan: 121 American soldiers and 800 Filipino guerrillas free 813 American POWs from the Japanese-held camp at Cabanatuan City, Philippines.
• January 31 – Eddie Slovik is executed by firing squad for desertion, the first American soldier since the American Civil War, and last to date to be executed for this offense.

February

February 4–11: Yalta Conference

• February 2 – WW II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill leave to meet with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference.
• February 3 – United States forces capture Manila, Philippines from the Japanese Imperial Army.
• February 4 – WW II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin begin the Yalta Conference (ends February 11).
• February 7 – WW II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.
• February 16
  • Combined American and Filipino forces recapture the Bataan Peninsula.
  • American and Filipino ground forces land on Corregidor Island in the Philippines.
• February 19 – WW II – Battle of Iwo Jima: About 30,000 United States Marines land on Iwo Jima.
• February 23
  • The American and Filipino troops enter Intramuros, Manila.
  • The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by combined American and Filipino ground troops.
  • Battle of Iwo Jima: A group of United States Marines reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (taken by Joe Rosenthal), later wins a Pulitzer Prize.

March

• March 1 – United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives what will be his last address to a joint session of Congress, reporting on the Yalta Conference.
• March 2 – Former U.S. Vice-President Henry Agard Wallace starts his term of office as U.S. Secretary of Commerce, serving under President Roosevelt.
• March 3 – WW II: United States and Filipino troops take Manila, Philippines.
• March 7 – WW II: American troops seize the bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany and begin to cross.
• March 15 – The 17th Academy Awards ceremony is held, broadcast via radio for the first time. Best Picture goes to Going My Way.
• March 19 – WW II: Off the coast of Japan, bombers hit the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing about 800 of her crewmen and crippling the ship.
• March 24 – The cartoon character Sylvester the cat debuts in Life with Feathers
• March 29 – The "Clash of Titans" in basketball: George Mikan and Bob Kurland duel at Madison Square Garden as OSU defeats DePaul 52–44.

April

April 12: Harry S. Truman becomes President upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt

• April 1 – WW II – Battle of Okinawa: United States troops land on Okinawa.
• April 4 – WW II: American troops liberate their first Nazi concentration camp, Ohrdruf death camp in Germany.
• April 7 – The only flight of the German ramming unit known as the Sonderkommando Elbe takes place, resulting in the loss of some 24 B-17s and B-24s of the United States Eighth Air Force.
• April 12 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies suddenly at Warm Springs, Georgia; Vice President Harry S. Truman becomes the 33rd President.
• April 18 – the American war correspondent Ernie Pyle is killed by Japanese machine gun fire on the island of Ie Shima off Okinawa.
• April 19 – Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, a musical play based on Ferenc Molnár's Liliom, opens on Broadway and becomes their second long-running stage classic.
• April 25
  • WW II – Elbe Day: United States and Soviet troops link up at the Elbe River, cutting Germany in two.
  • Founding negotiations for the United Nations begin in San Francisco.
• April 27 – U.S. Ordnance troops find the coffins of Frederick Wilhelm I, Frederick the Great, Paul Von Hindenburg, and his wife.

May

• May 3 – Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and 120 members of his team surrender to U.S. forces (later he became at the forefront and a pioneer of the U.S. space program).
• May 5
  • A Japanese balloon bomb kills five children and a grown woman, Elsie Mitchell, near Bly, Oregon, when it explodes as they drag it from the woods. They are the only people killed by an enemy attack on the American mainland during World War II.
  • The US 11th Armored Division liberates the prisoners of Mauthausen concentration camp, including Simon Wiesenthal.
  • Ezra Pound, the poet and author, is arrested by American soldiers in Italy for treason.
• May 8 – Victory in Europe Day: The Allies accept Germany's unconditional surrender.
• May 9 – Hermann Göring is captured by the United States Army; Norway arrests the traitor Vidkun Quisling.

July

• July 8 – WW II: President Harry S. Truman is informed that Japan will talk peace if it can retain the reign of the Emperor.^[1]
• July 16 – The Trinity test detonates the world's first atomic bomb.
• July 21 – WW II: President Harry S. Truman approves the order for atomic bombs to be used against Japan.^[1]
• July 28 – An U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building, killing 14 people, including all on board.
• July 30 – WW II: The heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis is hit and sunk by torpedoes from the I-58 in the Philippine Sea. Some 900 survivors jump into the sea and are adrift for up to four days. Nearly 600 die before help arrives. Captain Charles B. McVay III of the cruiser is later court-martialed and convicted.

August

August 6: Atomic bombing of Hiroshima

• August 6 – WW II: Atomic bombing of Hiroshima: The United States drops an atomic bomb (nicknamed "Little Boy") on Hiroshima, Japan, at 8:15 a.m. (local time). This sent shockwaves throughout the world as the first atomic bomb used on civilians.
• August 7 – President Harry Truman announces the successful bombing of Hiroshima with the atomic bomb, while returning from the Potsdam Conference aboard the U.S. Navy heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
• August 8 – The United Nations Charter is ratified by the United States Senate, and this nation becomes the third one to join the new international organization.
• August 9 – The United States drops an atomic bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" on Nagasaki, Japan, at 11:02 a.m. (local time).
• August 14 (August 15 in Japan) – Emperor Hirohito announces Japan's surrender on the radio. The United States calls this day V-J Day (Victory over Japan). This ends the period of Japanese expansionism and begins the period of Occupied Japan.
• August 17 – The United States and the U.S.S.R split up the Korean Peninsula making North Korea and South Korea

September

• September 2
  • World War II ends: The final official surrender of Japan is accepted by the Supreme Allied Commander, General Douglas MacArthur, and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz for the United States, and delegates from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, China, and others from a Japanese delegation led by Mamoru Shigemitsu, on board the American battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay (but in Japan August 14 is recognized as the day the Pacific War ended).
  • Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita surrenders to Filipino and American forces at Kiangan, Ifugao.
• September 5
  • The Russian code clerk Igor Gouzenko comes forward with numerous documents implicating the Soviet Union in numerous spy rings in North America: both in the United States and in Canada.
  • Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist "Tokyo Rose", is arrested in Yokohama.
• September 8 – American troops occupy southern Korea, while the Soviet Union occupies the north, with the dividing line being the 38th parallel of latitude. This arrangement proves to be the indirect beginning of a divided Korea.
• September 9 – The first actual case of a (computer) bug being found, is a moth lodged in a relay of a Harvard Mark II computer at the Naval Weapons Center in Dahlgren, Virginia.

October

• October 3–10 – The Detroit Tigers win the World Series against the Chicago Cubs.
• October 5 – A strike by the Set Decorator's Union in Hollywood results in a riot.
• October 23 – Jackie Robinson signs a contract with the Montreal Royals.
• October 29 – At Gimbel's Department Store in New York City, the first ballpoint pens go on sale at $12.50 each.

November

• November 15 – Harry S. Truman, Clement Attlee, and Mackenzie King call for a U.N. Atomic Energy Commission.^[1]
• November 16 – Cold War: The United States controversially imports 88 German scientists to help in the production of rocket technology.

December

• December 4 – By a vote of 65–7, the United States Senate approves the entry of the United States into the United Nations.^[2]
• December 21 – General George S. Patton dies from injuries sustained in a car accident on December 9.

Undated

• The U.S. House of Representatives calls for unrestricted Jewish immigration to Palestine in order to establish a Jewish commonwealth there.
• The Berklee College of Music is founded in Boston.
• Russian-American physicist Vladimir Kosma Zworykin coauthors Electron Optics and the Electron Microscope.

Ongoing

• World War II, U.S. involvement (1941–1945)
• Cold War (1945–1991)

Births

• January 4 – Richard R. Schrock, chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2005
• January 20 – Dave Boswell, baseball player (died 2012)
• January 22 – Jophery Brown, baseball player, actor and stuntman (died 2014)
• February 17 – Zina Bethune, actress, dancer and choreographer (died 2012)
• March 2 – Joy Garrett, actor and vocalist (died 1993)
• March 14
  • Michael Martin Murphey, singer-songwriter and guitarist
  • Walter Parazaider, saxophonist (Chicago)
• March 22 – Sheila Frahm, U.S. Senator from Kansas in 1996
• April 10 – Shirley Walker, composer and conductor for film and television (died 2006)
• April 24
  • Robert Knight, singer
  • Bob Lunn, golfer
• April 30 – Mike Smith, astronaut (killed on mission 1986)
• May 24 – Priscilla Wagner, actress, businesswoman and wife of singer Elvis Presley
• May 28
  • Patch Adams, physician, comedian, social activist, clown and author
  • Gary Stewart, singer (died 2003)
• July 1
  • Mike Burstyn, actor and singer
  • Debbie Harry, singer (Blondie)
• July 6 – Burt Ward, actor and activist
• July 9 – Dean Koontz, novelist
• July 20 – Larry Craig, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1991 to 2009
• July 28 – Jim Davis, cartoonist
• July 31 – William Weld, 68th Governor of Massachusetts and the Libertarian Party's nominee for Vice President of the United States in the 2016 election
• August 1 – Douglas Osheroff, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996
• August 15
  • Duffy Dyer, American baseball player and coach
  • Gene Upshaw, American football player (died 2008)
• October 30
  • Ron Slinker, wrestler (died 2008)
  • Henry Winkler, actor, director, producer and author
• November 25 – Gail Collins, journalist and author
• December 26 – John Walsh, television personality, criminal investigator, human and victim rights advocate
• full date unknown – David M. Alexander, science fiction and mystery author

Deaths

• January 3 – Edgar Cayce, mysticist (born 1877)
• January 7
  • Alexander Stirling Calder, sculptor (born 1870)
  • Thomas McGuire, fighter ace (born 1920; killed in action)
• January 13 – Margaret Deland, novelist (born 1857)
• January 22 – Blind Willie Johnson, African American gospel singer and guitarist (born 1897; pneumonia)
• January 23 – Newton E. Mason, U.S. Navy rear admiral (born 1850)
• January 30 – Herbert L. Clarke, cornet virtuoso (born 1867)
• January 31 – Eddie Slovik, soldier (born 1920; executed for desertion)
• February 2 – Joe Hunt, tennis player (born 1919; killed in naval aviation accident)
• February 5 – Volga Hayworth, showgirl (born c. 1898)
• February 11 – Al Dubin, songwriter (born 1891 in Switzerland)
• March 4
  • Lucille La Verne, actress (born 1872)
  • Mark Sandrich, film director (born 1900)
• March 30 – Maurice Rose, U.S. Army general (born 1899; killed in action)
• March 31 – Harriet Boyd Hawes, archaeologist (born 1871)
• April 10 – Gloria Dickson, actress (born 1917; killed in domestic fire)
• April 12 – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States from 1933 to 1945 (born 1882)
• April 17 – Ernie Pyle, journalist (born 1900)
• April 29 – Malcolm McGregor, silent film actor (born 1892)
• April 30 – William Orlando Darby, U.S. Army colonel, creator of the Rangers (born 1911; killed in action)
• May 17 – Bobby Hutchins, Our Gang films child actor (born 1925; killed in military aviation accident)
• May 18 – William Joseph Simmons, founder of the second Ku Klux Klan (born 1880)
• June 16 – Henry Bellamann, author (born 1882)
• June 18 – Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., U.S. Army general (born 1886; killed in action at Battle of Okinawa)
• 20 June – Bruno Frank, German author, poet, dramatist and humanist (born 1887)
• July 13 – Alla Nazimova, scriptwriter and actress (born 1879 in Crimea)
• July 16 – Addison Randall, Western film actor (born 1906)
• July 25 – Charles Gilman Norris, novelist (born 1881)
• August 9 – Harry Hillman, track athlete (born 1881)
• August 10 – Robert H. Goddard, rocket scientist (born 1882)
• August 25 – Willis Augustus Lee, U.S. Navy admiral and Olympic shooter (born 1888; heart attack on active service)
• September 1 – Frank Craven, actor (born 1881)
• September 6 – John S. McCain Sr., U.S. Navy admiral (born 1884; heart attack on active service)
• September 20 – Jack Thayer, survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic (born 1894)
• September 26 – A. Peter Dewey, soldier, first American casualty in Vietnam (born 1916)
• October 1 – Walter Bradford Cannon, physiologist (born 1871)
• October 13 – Milton S. Hershey, chocolate tycoon (born 1857)
• October 28 – Gilbert Emery, film actor and author (born 1875)
• November 7 – Gus Edwards, songwriter (born 1879 in Germany)
• November 11 – Jerome Kern, popular composer (born 1885)
• November 21
  • Robert Benchley, humorist, theater critic and actor (born 1889)
  • Ellen Glasgow, novelist (born 1873)
  • Alexander Patch, U.S. Army general (born 1889; pneumonia on active service)
• November 23 – Charles Armijo Woodruff, U.S. Navy officer and 11th Governor of American Samoa from 1914 to 1915 (born 1884; suicide)
• November 25 – Doris Keane, stage actress (born 1881)
• November 26 – Johnny Jenkins, auto racing driver (born 1875 in Wales)
• November 28 – Dwight F. Davis, tennis player (born 1879)
• December 4 – Thomas Hunt Morgan, biologist, geneticist and embryologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 (born 1866)
• December 21 – George S. Patton, U.S. Army general (born 1885; died as result of auto accident in Germany)
• December 28 – Theodore Dreiser, novelist (born 1871)

See also

• List of American films of 1945
• Timeline of World War II

References

External links

• Media related to 1945 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons