Chronography of events from 1 January 1940 to 31 December 1949
Page last
modified 6/11/2021
(-9999 /
+9999) =
Days before / after end of World War Two in Europe (day zero = Tuesday). Easter Sundays derived from https://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/easter/easter_text2b.htm
For dates from 1/1/1950 click here
30/12/1949. Friday (+1,697) Vietnam
gained sovereignty from France.
28/12/1949,
Wednesday (+1,695)
Ahmed Sukarno, aged 48, leader of the Indonesian Nationalist Party, arrived in
Batavia (Djakarta) to take up residence on the former Dutch Governor�s Palace.
Since the end of the Japanese occupation of Indonesia in 1945, Sukarno had
fought hard for independence from the Netherlands.
27/12/1949.
Tuesday (+1,694) Holland recognised the
independence of Indonesia.
26/12/1949.
Monday (+1,693) Einstein's Theory of
Relativity was announced.
21/12/1949, Wednesday (+1,688)
19/12/1949,
Monday (+1,686) Britain passed the National
Parks Act.
18/12/1949, Sunday (+1,685)
Sotiris Kaiafas, Cypriot footballer, was born.
16/12/1949,
Friday (+1,683)
(South Africa) A quarter of a million
Afrikaners attended the unveiling of the Voortrekker Memorial to South Africa�s
Boer pioneers in Pretoria.
13/12/1949, Tuesday (+1,680)
Israel officially moved its capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
12/12/1949,
Monday (+1,679) Chris Baillieu, British rowing
champion, was born.
8/12/1949,
Thursday (+1,675) (China) Taipei, Taiwan, was formally chosen as
the capital of Nationalist China. Chiang Kai Shek�s Nationalist Government fled
to Taiwan from China to escape the advancing Communists.
5/12/1949,
Monday (+1,672)
(Jewish) David Ben Gurion, Israel�s first prime
minister, proclaimed Jerusalem as Israel�s capital.
1/12/1949,
Thursday (+1,668) (Atomic)
US Physicist Willard Libby invented carbon dating.
====================================================================================
29/11/1949,
Tuesday (+1,666) The Parliament Act was
passed in the UK, restricting the Lords delaying abilities. The House of Lords
had rejected this Bill but it still became law as MPs had voted for it three
times.
25/11/1949,
Friday (+1,662) Anthony Neary, rugby player,
was born.
23/11/1949,
Wednesday (+1,660) The Mashhad University Faculty
of Medicine was officially opened by Dr Zanganeh, the Iranian minister of
culture.
21/11/1949,
Monday (+1,658)
The United Nations declared that Tripolitania should form part of the
independent state of Libya.
19/11/1949.
Saturday (+1,656) Prince Ranier III was sworn in as the
30th ruling Prince of Monaco.
15/11/1949,
Tuesday (+1,652)
(India) In India, Nathuram Godse was
hanged for the murder of Ghandi.
8/11/1949,
Tuesday (+1,645) (South
America) Costa Rica abolished its army, under the rule of President
Figueres Ferrer, an associate of Fidel Castro. It also gave women and people of
African descent the vote.
7/11/1949,
Monday (+1,644)
The first meeting of the Council of Europe; Spaak was the Chairman.
3/11/1949, Thursday (+1,640)
The BBC bought the Rank Studios in Shepherds
Bush for programme making.
=====================================================================================
28/10/1949,
Friday (+1,634) Barbara Lawton, athletics
(high jump) champion, was born.
21/10/1949,
Friday (+1,627) Jacques Copeau, French actor,
died in Beaune.
20/10/1949,� Thursday (+1,626) Britain recognised the
People�s Republic of China, under Chairman Mao.
19/10/1949,
Wednesday (+1,625) Ian Thompson, marathon
runner, was born.
16/10/1949,
Sunday (+1,622) The
Greek civil war ended with the defeat of the rebels.
14/10/1949,
Friday (+1,620) Through train services from
Kowloon (Hong Kong) to Canton were withdrawn, but restored on 4.4.1979.
7/10/1949,
Friday (+1,613) The German Democratic Republic was set up in East Germany.
6/10/1949,
Thursday (+1,612) (1) The USA granted South Korea US$ 10.2 million
for military aid and US$ 110 million for economic aid for the year 1950.
(2) The Berlin
airlift ended.� It had carried on from
12/5/1949 despite the Soviet lifting of the land blockade.
(3)
Aneurin Bevan gave some figures for the demand on Britain�s new NHS since its
inception on 5/7/1948. 187,000,000 prescriptions had been dispensed at a cost
of 2s 9d (14p) each; 5,250,000 pairs of glasses had been given out, with
another 3,000,000 on order; 8,500,000 dental patients had been treated. The
Government Actuary, Sir George Epps, had estimated that the cost of the NHS in
its first year would be �170 million; the actual figure turned out to be �242
million. Annual costs were expected to fall as the population grew fitter; in
fact annual costs rose to �384 million in 1952/3.
5/10/1949,
Wednesday (+1,611) Major Greenwood (born 9/8/1880)
English epidemiologist and medical statistician, died.
1/10/1949.
Saturday (+1,607) The Chinese Communists set up a
government in Peking, The People�s Republic of China, under Mao. Taiwan
remained independent. Chinese Party Chairman Mao Tse Tung made no secret of the fact that
he considered Tibet part of China.
=====================================================================================
27/9/1949, Tuesday (+1,603) Geofftrey Peck, orienteering, was born.
26/9/1949, Monday (+1,602)
(UK Railways) Electrification began on
the railway from Liverpool Street, London, to Shenfield,
25/9/1949, Sunday (+1,601) Anson Williams, US �actor, was born in Los Angeles, California.
24/9/1949, Saturday (+1,600) Pierre Breville, composer, died aged 88.
23/9/1949, Friday (+1,599) Bruce Springsteen, US musician, was born.
22/9/1949, Thursday (+1,598) David Coverdale, English rock musician, was
born.
21/9/1949, Wednesday (+1,597) The first comprehensive school in
Britain opened, at Holyhead, Anglesey, formed by the merger of two local
schools.
20/9/1949, Tuesday (+1,596) The Dutch Guilder was devalued by 30.3%.
19/9/1949, Monday (+1,595) �Twiggy�, British model, actress, and
singer, was born in Neasden, London, as Lesley Hornby.
18/9/1949. Sunday (+1,594) The British Pound was devalued by 30%
by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Stafford Cripps. The exchange rate to the US$ fell from 4.03 to 2.80. This would
raise the cost of living by 5%. Britain faced a severe Dollar deficit, and in
the first quarter of 1949 alone had to sell US$ 160 million of gold. On the
same day the milk ration was reduced to 2 pints per person per week. The milk
ration had been reduced to 2 � pints a week on 11/9/1949.
17/9/1949, Saturday (+1,593) The first meeting of NATO was held.
16/9/1949, Friday (+1,592) Susan Ruttan, US actress, was born in Oregon
City, Oregon.
15/9/1949, Thursday (+1,591)
Konrad Adenauer was elected Chancellor of Germany.
11/9/1949,
Sunday (+1,587) Roger Uttley, rugby player, was born.
9/9/1949,
Friday (+1,585) John Curry, figure skater, was
born (died 15/4/1994).
8/9/1949,
Thursday (+1,584) Richard Strauss, composer,
died.
7/9/1949,
Wednesday (+1,583) Jose Clemente Orozco,
painter, died in Mexico City aged 65.
4/9/1949,
Sunday (+1,580) Britain�s largest ever aircraft, the
130-ton 8-engined Bristol Brabazon, made its first flight.
2/9/1949, Friday (+1,578)
The redistribution of land became an official part of Chinese Communist policy.
====================================================================================
29/8/1949,
Monday (+1,574)
The Soviet Union successfully tested its first nuclear device, in what is now
Kazakhstan.
25/8/1949.
Thursday (+1,570) The UK began
experiments with colour TV
transmission.
24/8/1949, Wednesday (+1,569) The
North Atlantic Treaty, NATO, came
into force.
21/8/1949,
Sunday (+1,566) Geoffrey Capes, athlete (shot put), was born.
14/8/1949, Sunday (+1,559) Morten Olsen, Danish footballer,
was born.
6/8/1949,
Saturday (+1,551) John Haugh, the �acid bath murderer�
was executed.
3/8/1949,
Wednesday (+1,548)
The Council of Europe came into being.
===================================================================================
30/7/1949,
Saturday (+1,544)
The HMS Amethyst successfully sailed 140 miles down the Yangtse River overnight
to escape Chinese Communist forces, see 20/4/1949.
29/7/1949,
Friday (+1,543) The BBC issued its first televised weather forecast.
27/7/1949,
Wednesday (+1,541) The world�s first
jet-propelled airliner built in the UK, the De Havilland DH 106 Comet, flew at
Hatfield.
22/7/1949,
Friday (+1,536)
The London docks strike ended.
20/7/1949,
Wednesday (+1,534)
Syria signed an armistice with Israel.
19/7/1949,
Tuesday (+1,533)
Laos became independent within the French Union.
15/7/1949,
Friday (+1,529)
12/7/1949,
Tuesday (+1,526)
Douglas Hyde, President of Ireland, died.
11/7/1949.
Monday (+1,525) (1)
The first film made specifically for television, �A Dinner date With Death�
was shot at Marylebone Studios between 11 and 14 July 1949.
(2)
(Science,
technology) In the USA, the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) began hearings regarding the possible introduction of a colour TV
service. There were three possible systems, the Field sequential Method of CBS,
the Dot Sequential approach of RCA, and the Line Sequential proposed by Color
Television Incorporated (CTI). The CBS Field System was te simplest, and
produced better quality images than the other two methods, so in 1950 the FCC
adopted the CBS method. However the CBS approach was incompatible with current
black and white TV sets, whereas the other two methods were not, see 28/5/1951.
10/7/1949,
Sunday (+1,524) The last tramcar ran in Dublin.
6/7/1949,
Wednesday (+1,520) Georgina Hathorn, champion
skier, was born.
1/7/1949. Friday (+1,515) The maximum wage for footballers in
the UK was set at �12 per week. A nurse was paid �350 a year. A pint of milk
cost 5d (2p), the same as a Mars bar, which went on sale in the UK for the
first time. 20 Woodbines cost 2s 9d (14p).
====================================================================================
29/6/1949, Wednesday
(+1,513) (1)
US troops completed their withdrawal from
South Korea, leaving behind just 500 men to serve as advisors to the
98,000-strong South Korean armed forces, a body barely large enough to maintain
internal order, let alone deal with any threat from North Korea.
(2) A docks strike began in London.
22/6/1949, Wednesday (+1,506) Meryl Streep, actress, was born.
20/6/1949, Monday (+1,504) The
USA, the USSR, France, and the UK signed a Four-Power agreement on Berlin,
including a clause ensuring the freedom of movement within the entire city.
7/6/1949, Tuesday (+1,491) In a statement to US Congress,
President Harry S Truman, talking about measures necessary to prevent Communist
domination of the Pacific, declared that Korea had become a testing ground in
the ideological conflict between Communism and democracy.
6/6/1949, Monday (+1,490) George Orwell�s book Nineteen Eighty Four was published.
Suffering from tuberculosis, Orwell completed the book between periods of
hospitalisation in a remote house in The Hebrides.
4/6/1949, Saturday (+1,488)
3/6/1949, Friday (+1,487)
Wesley Anthony Brown became the first African-American to graduate from the US
Naval Academy.
2/6/1949. Thursday (+1,486) Transjordan
was renamed Jordan.
==================================================================================
30/5/1949, Monday (+1,483) Robert Williams, cricketer, was born.
26/5/1949. Thursday (+1,479) Chinese Communists captured
Shanghai.
23/5/1949. Monday (+1,476) (1)
Chinese Communists drove the Nationalists off the mainland to Taiwan.
(2) The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was
formally established, with its capital at Bonn.
13/5/1949, Friday (+1,466)
Britain flew its first jet bomber, the Canberra, from Warton airfield,
Canberra.
12/5/1949. Thursday (+1,465) The
Soviet blockade of West Berlin was called off after 11 months, it began 28 June
1948. It had cost the Allies �200 million to fly in food and essential supplies,
with up to 200 flights a day.
11/5/1949. Wednesday (+1,464)
(1) Israel
was voted into the UN.
(2) Siam changed its name to Thailand.
9/5/1949. Monday (+1,462) (1) Prince Ranier III became Head
of State of Monaco, succeeding his grandfather Prince Louis II.
(2) Britain�s first launderette opened in Queensway,
London.
(3) Billy Joel, American singer and songwriter, was born
in the Bronx, New York.
6/5/1949, Friday (+1,459) Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian playwright,
died aged 86.
5/5/1949, Thursday (+1,458) The USSR announced it would lift the
blockade of Berlin on 12.5.1949.
4/5/1949, Wednesday (+1,457) John Force, racing driver, was born in
Bell Gardens, California
3/5/1949. Tuesday (+1,456) The Council of Europe was
established, after a ten-state conference in London.
2/5/1949, Monday (+1,455) Alan Titchmarsh, gardener and TV
personality, was born in Ilkley, England
1/5/1949. Sunday (+1,454) In the UK, the gas industry was nationalised.
=====================================================================================
30/4/1949, Saturday (+1,453) Karl Meiler, German tennis player was born (died
2014).
29/4/1949, Friday (+1,452) Mary McKenna, golfing champion, was born.
28/4/1949, Thursday (+1,451), The Allies set up the
International Authority for the Ruhr, or IAR.�
This was dissolved on 10/8/1952 when the European Coal and Steel
Community (ECSC) came into force.
27/4/1949, Wednesday (+1,450) The Commonwealth was founded in London.
24/4/1949. Sunday (+1,447) Sweets and chocolates came off rations
in Britain. Clothes rationing, which began on 2/6/1941, ceased on 15/3/1949.
All food rationing ended on 3/7/1954. Identity cards were abolished in Britain
on 21/2/1952.
20/4/1949, Wednesday (+1,443)
The HMS Amethyst was fired upon by
Chinese whilst sailing up the Yangtse River with supplies for the British
community in Nanking.� She was trapped
until the night of 30/7/1949 when she successfully sailed downriver 140 miles,
under fire from further Chinese forces.
18/4/1949. Monday (1,441) (1) The Boy Scouts began their first �bob-a-job�
(5p) week.
(2) Ireland was formally proclaimed a Republic (by the
Republic of Ireland Act), on an Easter Monday (Easter Rising), at the General
Post Office in Dublin, a place with many historical associations with the
Rising. See 17/11/1948. Ireland asserted its independence from Britain by
leaving the Commonwealth.
17/4/1949, Sunday (+1,440) Easter
Sunday.
9/4/1949, Saturday
(+1,432) (International) The
International Court of Justice of the UN handed down its first judgement. It
held Albania responsible for incidents in the Corfu Channel, 1946, and awarded
damages to the UK.
5/4/1949, Tuesday (+1,428) Mike
Tredgett, badminton champion, was born.
4/4/1949. Monday (+1,427) The North Atlantic
Treaty was signed in Washington. NATO was set up on 18/3/1949, by Britain and
seven other European countries. Denmark had agreed to join on 25/3/1949. Eleven
countries signed in total.
3/4/1949, Sunday (+1,426)
Jordan signed an armistice with Israel.
2/4/1949, Saturday (+1,425) (Football) Bernd Muller, German footballer,
was born.
1/4/1949, Friday (+1,424) (1) The National Parks Bill was approved by the UK
Parliament. 12 National Parks were created, covering 9% of the� area of England and Wales; none were created
in Scotland or Northern Ireland.
(2) The 6th Marquess of Bath took the
unprecedented step of opening his house to visits by paying tourists. 135,000
came in the first 12 months. As he later explained, aristocratic homes had to
be run as businesses, to gain the same tax regime as other businesses. The
assets of the wealthy had been shrunk by heavy taxation, including Death Duties
of 75% on estates of over �1million.
======================================================================================
31/3/1949. Thursday (+1,423) Newfoundland,
with its dependency Labrador, joined Canada as the 10th province of the
dominion.
30/3/1949, Wednesday (+1,422) (Chemistry) Friedirch Karl Rudolf Bergius,
German chemist, died in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
29/3/1949, Tuesday (+1,421)
24/3/1949, Thursday (+1,416)
Ruud Krol, Dutch footballer, was born.
23/3/1949, Wednesday (+1,415) Lebanon and Israel signed an
armistice.
20/3/1949, Sunday (+1,412)
18/3/1949, Friday (+1,410) Alex
Higgins, snooker champion, was born.
17/3/1949, Thursday (+1,409) The USSR agreed to provide
heavy military equipment to North Korea.
16/3/1949, Wednesday (+1,408) Leyland
Hodgson, British-born US actor, died aged 56.
15/3/1949,
Tuesday (+1,407) Clothes rationing
ended in Britain. See 24/4/1949.
12/3/1949,
Saturday (+1,404)
8/3/1949,
Tuesday (+1,400)
Vietnam became independent within the French Union.
7/3/1949,
Monday (+1,399)
Ghulam Nabi Azad, Indian politician, was born.
4/3/1949,
Friday (+1,396) George Larner, Olympic walker,
died.
2/3/1949.
Wednesday (+1,394) A crew of US Air
Force personnel completed the first non stop round the world flight, refuelling
four times mid-air, taking 94 hours. See 21/5/1927, first transatlantic flight.
The flight captain was James Gallagher, flying the US Air Force B50 �Lucky
Lady�.
1/3/1949,
Tuesday (+1,393) Joe Louis retired as world
heavyweight boxing champion.
====================================================================================
28/2/1949, Monday
(+1,392)
24/2/1949,
Thursday (+1,388) John Lever, cricketer, was
born.
23/2/1949, Wednesday (+1,387)
Jews in Berlin protested at the portrayal of Jewish character Fagin in Alec Guinness�s
film Oliver Twist.
16/2/1949,
Wednesday (+1,380) Chaim Weizmann was
sworn in as first President of Israel.
14/2/1949,
Monday (+1,378)
Egypt and Israel signed an armistice.
13/2/1949,
Sunday (+1,377) Thomas Palmer, boxer, died (born 19/1/1876).
12/2/1949,
Saturday (+1,376) Fergus Slattery, rugby player, was born.
11/2/1949,
Friday (+1,375)
9/2/1949,
Wednesday (+1,373)
US actor Robert Mitchum was jailed for 2 months for smoking marijuana.
8/2/1949,
Tuesday (+1,372)
The Irish Government refused to join NATO whilst Ireland remained divided
between South and North.
1/2/1949,
Tuesday (-1,365) the People�s Republic of H8ungary
was officially proclaimed.
===================================================================================
27/1/1949,
Thursday (+1,360) Graham Thorner, champion
jockey, was born.
26/1/1949,
Wednesday (+1,359)
The first test photograph was made at Mount Palomar observatory.
25/1/1949.
Tuesday (+1,358) (1) COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance) was founded in Moscow.
(2) Ben
Gurion's Mapai Party won the Israeli
elections.
24/1/1949,
Monday (+1,357)
22/1/1949
Saturday (+1,355)
The Chinese Communists under Mao Tse Tung captured Peking. The Nationalists
under Chaing Kai Shek were defeated at Huai Hai north of Beijing.
21/1/1949,
Friday (+1,354) Chiang Kai Shek resigned
20/1/1949,
Thursday (+1,353) Attlee set up a Royal
Commission on capital punishment.
19/1/1949.
Wednesday (+1,352) In the US, President
Truman was inaugurated.
15/1/1949.
Saturday (+1,348) (1) Konrad Adenauer became Chancellor of West
Germany (born 15/1/1876).
(2) Chinese
Communists captured Tientsin.
13/1/1949, Thursday (+1,346)
In Durban, South Africa, three days of rioting between Africans and Indians began
over� a rumour that an Indian had killed
an African. 105 people were killed.
12/1/1949.
Wednesday (+1,345) In Britain, Margaret
Allen was hanged, the first woman hanged for 12 years.
10/1/1949
Monday (+1,343) 33.3 and 45 rpm vinyl records
went on sale in the USA.
7/1/1949,
Friday (+1,340)
Marshall was succeeded by Acheson as US Secretary of State.
4/1/1949,
Tuesday (+1,337) Michael Mills, footballer,
was born.
3/1/1949,
Monday (+1,336) Robert Aitken, US sculptor
(born 8/5/1878) died.
2/1/1949,
Sunday (+1,335) The Battle of the Sinai in the Arab-Israeli
War ended when Israeli forces withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula.
1/1/1949.
Saturday (+1,334) India and Pakistan agreed a truce in
the war over Kashmir.
====================================================================================
31/12/1948,
Friday (+1,333) Donna Summer, US singer, was
born.
29/12/1948, Wednesday (+1,331)
27/12/1948, Monday (+1,329)
Gerard Depardieu, French actor, was born.
26/12/1948,
Sunday (+1,328) In Hungary, the Protestant and Jewish
communities accepted compensation payments for the government nationalisation
of their religious schools. However the Hungarian Catholic Church, under the
authority of Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, refused to accept this measure. On
this day Mindszenty was arrested, and on 8/2/1949 sentenced to life
imprisonment.
25/12/1948, Saturday (+1,327)
23/12/1948,
Thursday (+1,325) Hideki Tojo, Japanese
Prime Minister 1941-44, who attacked Pearl Harbour and so provoked the entry of
the USA into the War, was hanged as a war criminal.
22/12/1948,
Wednesday (+1,324) Chris Old, cricketer, was
born.
20/12/1948,
Monday (+1,322) Eustace Miles, rackets and
tennis player, died (born 22/9/1868).
15/12/1948.
Wednesday (+1,317) (1)
France�s first nuclear reactor began operating.
(2)
In Indonesia, Dutch troops seized Jakarta.
14/12/1948,
Tuesday (+1,316)
South Korea formed a Department of National Defence.
13/12/1948,
Monday (+1,315) Lilian Board, athletics champion,
was born (died 26/12/1970)
12/12/1948,
Sunday (+1,314) Colin Todd, footballer, was born.
11/12/1948,
Saturday (+1,313) At a ceremony in Ottawa, terms of union were
signed between Canada and the Dominion of Newfoundland by which Newfoundland
would become a province of Canada.
10/12/1948,
Friday (+1,312) The United Nations
issued the Declaration of Human Rights.
6/12/1948, Monday (+1,308)
3/12/1948, Friday (+1,305)
Colonel Mary Agnes Hallaren became the first female officer in the US Army.
2/12/1948, Thursday
(+1,304) Antonin Panenka, Czech footballer, was born.
1/12/1948.
Wednesday (+1,303) National Service in
Britain was increased from 12 to 18 months.
====================================================================================
28/11/1948.
Sunday (+1,300) The first Polaroid cameras went on
sale, in Boston, USA. The price was US$ 89.75 � the equivalent of US$ 900, or
UK�595 in 2015. All 37 had sold by the end of the day.
26/11/1948,
Friday (+1,298) Peter Wheeler, rugby player,
was born.
24/11/1948,
Wednesday (+1,296) Ian Hallam, cycling
champion, was born in Nottingham.
17/11/1948,
Wednesday (+1,289)
In Dublin, a� �Republic of Ireland� Bill
was introduced to the Parliament, severing all links with Britain; Ireland left
the Commonwealth.� See 18/4/1949.
16/11/1948,
Tuesday (+1,288)
US President Truman refused to participate in talks with the Soviets on the
future of Berlin until the blockade was lifted.
15/11/1948,
Monday (+1,287) (1)
(Aviation, Israel)
The Israeli airline El Al was founded.
(2) (Canada)
W L Mackenzie-King, Prime Minister of Canada, resigned and entered retirement.
He was succeeded by Louis St Laurent.
14/11/1948.
Sunday (+1,286) Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, was
born in Buckingham Palace, as Charles Philip Arthur George.
12/11/1948,
Friday (+1,284) The main War Crimes trials
ended in Japan. Hideki Tojo and 6 others were sentenced to death by hanging; 16
received life imprisonment, and 2 were given shorter prison terms. The hangings
were carried out on 23/12/1948.
4/11/1948,
Thursday (+1,276) The new Indian
Constitution was formally introduced to the Constituent Assembly.
2/11/1948.
Tuesday (+1,274) Harry S Truman was
re-elected as President of the USA.
====================================================================================
29/10/1948,
Friday (+1,270)
Chinese Communist forces captured the important city of Mukden, and its
arsenal, from Kuomintang forces.
24/10/1948,
Sunday (+1,265) Philip Bennett, rugby player, was born.
15/10/1948,
Friday (+1,256) US President Gerald Ford
married widow Elizabeth Bloomer Warren.
12/10/1948.
Tuesday (+1,253) First Morris Minor came off the production
line at Cowley, Oxfordshire.� The
car was designed by Alex Issigonis.
7/10/1948,
Thursday (+1,248) In Japan, Shigeru Yoshida
formed a Democratic-Liberal Government.
6/10/1948,
Wednesday (+1,247)
Gerry Adams, Irish Republican politician, was born.
2/10/1948,
Saturday (+1,243) Trevor Brooking, footballer, was born.
======================================================================================
30/9/1948,
Thursday (+1,241) Edward Bourne, fencer, was
born.
28/9/1948.
Tuesday (+1,239) First British Grand
Prix held at Silverstone.
22/9/1948,
Wednesday (+1,233) Captain Mark
Phillips, husband of Princess Anne, was born in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.
20/9/1948, Sunday (+1,231) In Israel, the Stern Gang was declared
illegal.
17/9/1948.
Friday (+1,228) Jewish terrorists
assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, Swedish UN mediator, in Jerusalem.
16/9/1948,
Thursday (+1,227) Julia Donaldson, English
children's writer, was born in London, England.
15/9/1948,
Wednesday (+1,226) (Aviation)
R Johnson, USA, set a new aviation speed record of 670.98 mph.
14/9/1948,
Tuesday (+1,225) Marc Reisner, US
environmental author, was born.
13/9/1948,
Monday (+1,224) Nehru sent Indian troops to
occupy the State of Hyderabad, whose ruler, the Nizam, had declined to join
India. An appeal by the Nizam to the United Nations was in vain. The Nizam was
allowed to keep his palaces and other private property.
12/9/1948,
Sunday (+1,223) Max Walker, Australian cricket player, was born.
11/9/1948,
Saturday (+1,222)
Death of Muhammed Ali Jinnah, first Governor-General of Pakistan.
10/9/1948,
Friday (+1,221) Margaret Trudeau, former
Canadian 1st lady, was born in Vancouver, British Columbia.
9/9/1948
Thursday (+1,220) (1)
Footwear rationing ended in the UK.
(2) Following
the withdrawal of Russian troops, North
Korea became independent as the People�s Democratic Republic of North
Korea.
7/9/1948,
Tuesday (+1,218)
6/9/1948,
Monday (+1,217) John Derry, piloting a
De Havilland DH 108, in a dive, became the first pilot to fly at supersonic speed
in Britain.
5/9/1948,
Sunday (+1,216) In France, Robert Schuman became President of
the Council while being Foreign Minister, As such, he was the negotiator of the
major treaties of the end of World War II.
4/9/1948.
Saturday (+1,215) Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands,
aged 68, Queen since 1890, abdicated. Juliana, her daughter,39, became Queen on
6/9/1948.
3/9/1948,
Friday (+1,214) Eduard Benes, Czech
President until the Communist take-over, died.�
See 6/6/1948.
2/9/1948,
Thursday (+1,213) Christa McAuliffe, US �teacher who died in the Challenger space
shuttle disaster in 1986, was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
1/9/1948.
Wednesday (+1,212) The North China
People�s Republic was formed by the Communists, under Chairman Mao.
=====================================================================================
23/8/1948,
Monday (+1,203)
The World Council of Churches was formed.
16/8/1948,
Monday (+1,196) George Herman Ruth, US
professional baseball player, died aged 53.
15/8/1948.
Sunday (+1,195) The Republic of Korea was proclaimed in
the south of the peninsula; Syngman Rhee was the first President. On 9/9/1948 a
Communist republic was set up in North Korea.
14/8/1948,
Saturday (+1,194) The London Olympics closed.
5/8/1948,
Thursday (+1,185) Ray Clemence, footballer,
was born.
2/8/1948,
Monday (+1,182)
Alger Hiss testified in the US McCarthy anti-Communist hearings, using the
phrase �Reds under the bed�.
====================================================================================
31/7/1948,
Saturday (+1,180) (Aviation) Idlewild
Airport, New York, opened (4,900 acres).
30/7/1948,
Friday (+1,179) The world�s first radar
station designed to assist shipping was opened at Liverpool, UK.
29/7/1948.
Thursday (+1,178) The first post-war Olympic Games, the 14th,
opened in London. Opened by King George V at Wembley Stadium, these were
the first Games since those in Berlin in 1936. The atmosphere was one of
post-war austerity and reconstruction, and Japan, the USSR, and Germany were
not present. The USA won 38 gold medals.�
The UK came 12th.
27/7/1948,
Tuesday (+1,176) Woolf Barnato, motor racing
champion, died.
25/7/1948.
Sunday (+1,174) Bread rationing ended in Britain.
18/7/1948,
Sunday (+1,167) James Watt, boxer, was born.
15/7/1948.
Thursday (+1,164) (1) The
UN ordered a ceasefire in Palestine.
(2)
Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in London, having been in existence in America
since 1935.
(3)
John Pershing, commander of the US Army in France in World War One, nicknamed
�Black Jack�, died in Washington DC.
13/7/1948,
Tuesday (+1,162) It was announced that
the UK coal industry lost �13 million in its first year of nationalisation.
10/7/1948,
Saturday (+1,159)
Full university status was granted to University College, Nottingham.
5/7/1948.
Monday (+1,154) The National Health Service was established in
the UK (see 6/11/1946). Introduced under a Labour government, it provided free
medical treatment, and free prescriptions for glasses, teeth, and wigs. In its
first year the NHS cared for 47.5 million patients, provided 5.25 million pairs
of glasses, 7,000 artificial eyes and 5,000 wigs. Doctors wrote 187 million NHS
prescriptions, and by 1950, 95% of UK citizens were using the NHS.
3/7/1948,
Saturday (+1,152) Painter Arshile Gorky committed suicide in
New York, aged 43.
1/7/1948.
Thursday (+1,150) (1)
The first Oxfam shop opened in the UK. See 1/7/1942.
(2)
A secondary school teacher with a degree earned �615 a year,
a baker was paid �5 5s(�5.25) a week. The air fare from London to New York was
�86 17s (�86.85p). The standard rail fare from Manchester to London return was
�1 17s (�1.85p). The return bus fare from Manchester to Wythenshawe, 8 miles,
was 1 shilling (5p).
====================================================================================
30/6/1948,
Wednesday (+1,149)
The last British troops left Palestine.
28/6/1948.
Monday (+1,147) (1) Yugoslavia ceased to be a Soviet satellite.
Yugoslavia strengthened its ties with the West, and with Turkey and Greece. On
14/11/1951 a US-Yugoslav military agreement was reached providing for supply of
tanks and heavy artillery to the Yugoslav Army. On 28/2/1953 a Turkish-Greek-Yugoslav
treaty of friendship and co-operation was signed in Ankara, and on 9/8/1954 the
three governments strengthened this treaty into a military and defensive
alliance.
(2)
The Anglo-US airlift to Berlin began; see 12/5/1949.
26/6/1948,
Saturday (+1,145) Columbia officially released its new 33.3
rpm long playing records.
24/6/1948.
Thursday (+1,143) The Russians began a blockade
of West Berlin.� The Berlin Airlift began on
28/6/1948 and delivered some 7,000 tons of food supplies to the city over a
period of three months by British and American aircraft, defying the Soviet
land blockade. The airlift continued until 30/9/1949, although the Soviet
blockade was lifted on 12/5/1949. See 30/3/1948.
22/6/1948. Tuesday (+1,141) Dr
Peter Goldmark of Columbia Records unveiled the first successfully produced
micro-groove, or long playing, record.
21/6/1948,
Monday (+1,140)
The first computer using stored programmes was built at Manchester University,
UK.
19/6/1948,
Saturday (+1,138)
18/6/1948, Friday (+1,137)
Germany replaced the old Reichsmark with the Deutschemark.
17/6/1948,
Thursday (+1,136) (Innovation)
The transistor was patented in New Jersey for Bell Telephones.
16/6/1948,
Wednesday (+1,135)
(1) (Aviation) The first airline hijack took
place.� A gang of Chinese bandits took
over a Cathay Pacific flying boat, Miss Macao, on a scheduled flight to
Hong Kong. The crew fought back and the aircraft crashed, killing everyone
except the hijack gang leader. Foul play was at first not suspected, until
salvagers recovered the bullet-ridden plane. Police then placed an informer
next to Wong yu Man�s hospital bed with a tape recorder and recorded
conversations between them.
(2)� Britain was reluctant to grant full
independence to Malaysia, due to the ongoing Cold War between Communism and the
West, with China so close by. The UK did, this day, grant �autonomy� of Malay
rule; this reaffirmation of Anglo-Malay relations angered China, who sponsored the
formation of the Malayan Races Liberation Army (MNLA), led by Chin Peng. The
MNLA began an armed insurrection against the British. There were some 500,000
MNLA sympathisers within Malaysia, and this conflict delayed further the
departure of the UK, who feared a Communist Chinese takeover of the region if
they did leave.
15/6/1948,
Tuesday (+1,134) (Israel) The Israeli Herut Party was
founded by Menachim Begin.
14/6/1948,
Monday (+1,133) In Hungary the Social
Democrats, under force-majeure, reluctantly agreed to merge with the Communists
to form the Hungarian Workers Party.
13/6/1948,
Sunday (+1,132) Sandy Barclay, jockey, was born.
10/6/1948,
Thursday (+1,129)
7/6/1948,
Monday (+1,126) Over half of UK doctors
agreed to join the NHS.
6/6/1948, Sunday (+1.125) �In Prague, President Benes resigned.� He had been attempted to maintain a neutral
government in Czechoslovakia but the Communist, Klement Gottwald succeeded in
introducing a Russian-oriented political system.� Benes died three months later (3/9/1948), a
broken man.
5/6/1948,
Saturday (-1,124) Claude Spanghero, French rugby player, was
born.
4/6/1948,
Friday (+1,123) Robert Champion, horse racing,
was born
3/6/1948,
Thursday (+1,122) (Space) The large telescope on Mount
Palomar, California, with its 5 metre aperture lens, came into service.
===================================================================================
31/5/1948,
Monday (+1,119) The South Korean National Assembly elected Syngman Rhee as Chairman.
27/5/1948, Thursday (+1,115) (Israel) The
Israeli Air Force, the Chel Ha�vir, was founded today. The newly formed State
of Israel was under attack from the Arabs, but both Israelis and Arabs were
very short of planes for aerial operations. The Arabs could muster only ten
Spitfires. The Israelis had a dozen Auster air-observation planes. Due to many international
arms dealers being unwilling to supply �military hardware to Israel, the Israelis had
to use considerable ingenuity in assembling an air force. However they were
aided not just by Jews and Zionists abroad but by foreign volunteers, mahals, who wanted a fair deal for the
race that Hitler attempted to exterminate. The Israelis had previously
registered planes (that could be used by their air force) as �sports planes�,
and they were very efficient at scouring scrap yards and air crash sites for
any spare parts, which could be assembled into a plane that could fly. Another
ruse was to form a film company, that was making war epic films, that needed
military aircraft for the filming.
26/5/1948.
Wednesday (+1,114) (1)
South Africa elected a Nationalist government with apartheid policies.
(2)
The Israeli Defence Force was set up on the orders of Defence Minister David
Ben Gurion, formed out of the paramilitary group Haganah.
25/5/1948, Tuesday (+1,113)
Moshe Dayan assisted Israeli General Yigael Yadin to mount a counter offensive
against Arab troops, checking their invasion.
24/5/1948, Monday(+1,112) The
Battle of Yad Mordechai ended in a successful Israeli delaying action.
23/5/1948. Sunday (+1,111)
The Empire Windrush sailed from Jamaica with
the first West Indian migrants, to alleviate Britain�s severe labour shortage.
It arrived in Britain on 22/6/1948.
22/5/1948, Saturday (+1,110) By a vote of 8-0, the United Nations
Security Council ordered a ceasefire in Palestine within 36 hours from
midnight, New York time.
21/5/1948, Friday (+1,109) Egyptian forces were reported to be
only 4 miles from Bethlehem.
20/5/1948, Thursday (+1,108) Egyptian forces captured Beersheba.
19/5/1948, Wednesday (+1,107) Maximilian Lenz, Austrian artist, died
aged 87.
18/5/1948, Tuesday (+1,106) Keith Jarrett, rugby player, was born.
17/5/1948, Monday (+1,105)
The USSR recognised the State of Israel.
16/5/1948. Sunday (+1,104) Chaim Weitzmann was named first
President of Israel.
15/5/1948, Saturday (+1,103), Egyptian forces invaded Israel.
14/5/1948. Friday (+1,102)
The State of
Israel was created (see 16/2/1949,
27/4/1950), after the British Mandate ended in Palestine, and the first
Arab-Israeli war began. Arab forces invaded from Jordan. See also 2/11/1917,
Balfour Declaration. Ben Gurion was the head of the provisional Israeli
Government. The nation�s 400,000 Jews at once opened the country to
unrestricted Jewish immigration, which had been banned since 1944. US President
Harry Truman immediately recognised the new State. On 15/5/1948 the British
left Palestine, and Egypt invaded, as did Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. The
30,000-strong Israeli defence force, the Haganah, assumed a war footing. However
the Arab attacks were uncoordinated and by the end of 1948 the Israeli Army, by
then 100,000 strong, had achieved conclusive victory.
11/5/1948, Thursday (+1,094) Luigi Einaudi was elected President of
Italy.
3/5/1948, Monday (+1,091) Peter Oosterhuis, golfer, was born.
====================================================================================
30/4/1948. Friday (+1,088) (1) First Land Rover exhibited at the Amsterdam
Motor Show.
(2) The Organisation of American States was set up. The agreement,
covering all 21 of the republics in the Americas, was signed at Bogota,
Colombia. The fourteenth state ratified the treaty on 13/12/1951, thereby
formally legally validating the treaty.
19/4/1948, Monday (+1,077)
The USA tested a plutonium bomb at Eniwetok Atoll.
18/4/1948, Sunday (+1,076) (1) The
Christian Democrats won an absolute majority in Italian elections, securing 305
out of 574 seats.
(2) All roads between Berlin
and West Germany were now blocked by the Soviets.
16/4/1948.
Friday (+1,074) The Organisation for European Economic
Co-operation (OEEC) was set up, see 14/12/1960.
13/4/1948,
Tuesday (+1,071) The Romanian Constitution was
redrafted, on Soviet lines.
12/4/1948.
Monday (+1,070) The Roosevelt Memorial
was unveiled in Grosvenor Square, London.
11/4/1948,
Sunday (+1,069) The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was
announced.
9/4/1948,
Friday (+1,067) (1) (Israel) The Irgun, under Begin,
massacred between 116 and 254 Palestinians in the village of Deir Yassin. Three
days later a retaliatory attack killed 77 Jews.
(2)
Major riots in Bogota, Colombia, following the assassination of the popular liberal-nationalist
politician, Jorge Eliecer Gaitan. Martial law was declared under
moderate-conservative Mariano Ospina Perez; the pro-Nazi Gomez became President
of Colombia in 1950.
7/4/1948.
Wednesday (+1,065) The World Health
Organisation was set up with its headquarters in Geneva. Its aim was to attain
the highest possible level of health for all peoples.
3/4/1948,
Saturday (+1,061) Mary Gordon-Watson, equestrian champion, was
born.
1/4/1948.
Thursday (+1,059) (1)
Britain nationalised the electricity industry. Average weekly earnings for
men aged over 21 were �6, 14 shillings �6.70). For women over 18 full time they
were �3, 12 shillings, 11d (�3.64.5p). Adult men worked an average 46.5 hours a
week; adult women worked 41.6 hours average. The food and drink industry paid
some of the lowest wages, at average weekly wage �6, 4 shillings, 1d (�6.20.5p)
for men and �3, 8 shillings, 7d (�3.43) for women.
(2)
The Soviets suspended all rail services between Berlin and West Germany.
(3)
The Big Bang Theory was first proposed as to how the Universe began.
=====================================================================================
31/3/1948.
Wednesday (+1,058) (1) US Congress passed the Marshall Aid Bill. On 3/4/1948 President Truman
signed the Economic Assistance Act, putting in effect Marshall aid for 16
countries in war-torn Europe. The first aid shipments to Europe left the USA on
5/4/1948.
(2)
Al Gore, US Vice President under Bill Clinton, noted for his strong
pro-environmental stance, was born.
30/3/1948,
Tuesday (+1,057)
The Russians imposed restrictions on Western traffic into West Berlin. See
26/4/1948. The West feared that the USSR was trying to absorb West Berlin;
Moscow said it was responding to the West creating West Germany out of the
three western occupation zones.
29/3/1948, Monday (+1,056)
Chiang Kai Shek was re-elected President of China by the Nanjing Assembly.
28/3/1948,
Sunday (+1,055) Easter Sunday.
25/3/1948, Thursday (+1,052)
23/3/1948,
Tuesday (+1,050) (Aviation) J
Cunningham, UK, set a new aviation altitude record of 59,445 feet.
22/3/1948,
Monday (+1,049)
Andrew Lloyd Webber, British composer, was born.
17/3/1948.
Wednesday (+1,044) (1) King
Farouk of Egypt laid the foundation stone of the Aswan Dam.
(2)
Britain, France, and the Benelux countries signed the Brussels Treaty, a pact of economic, military, political, and
cultural alliance. The Treaty came into effect on 25/7/1948.
15/3/1948.
Monday (+1,042) (1)
The UK Civil Service was closed to
Fascists and Communists regarding posts vital to State Security.
(2) US
coal miners went on strike for better pensions.
11/3/1948.
Thursday (+1,038) The offices of the
Jewish Agency in Jerusalem were blown up.
10/3/1948,
Wednesday (+1,037) Ian Masaryk, Czech
politician, died in Prague under suspicious circumstances after the Communists
gained control.
9/3/1948,
Tuesday (+1,036)
8/3/1948,
Monday (+1,035) Johnathan Sacks, British
Orthodox Jew, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the
Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013, was born.
7/3/1948.
Sunday (+1,034) Juan Peron won elections in Argentina.
4/3/1948,
Thursday (+1,031)
===================================================================================
29/2/1948,
Sunday (+1,027) Dermot Weld, champion jockey, was born.
28/2/1948.
Saturday (+1,026) Last British troops left India.
25/2/1948.
Wednesday (+1,023) Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia.� In Czech elections in May 1946 the
Communists, under Gottwald, secured 114 of the 300 seats and became leader of a
coalition government.� However by 1948
the Communists were losing popularity in Czechoslovakia, because Gottwald had
declined Marshall Aid and because he was appointing his own supporters to
senior positions in the police force.� A
new Czech election was due in May 1948; before this could take place Gottwald
organised what was effectively a Communist Revolution, backed by the workers
militia and the police; there were no Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia at this
time.� Gottwald died in March 1953 and
was succeeded as Communist dictator by Novotny, who ruled until early
1968.� See 5/1/1968.
20/2/1948,
Friday (+1,018)
The 863 kilometre railway from Salta, Argentina, to Antofagasta, Chile, was
completed.
18/2/1948.
Wednesday (+1,016) (1)
In a poll by the British Medical Association, 86% of doctors voted against
joining the NHS.
(2)
In Ireland, John Costello became Head of a new Coalition Government, see
4/2/1948. Fianna Fail, which had held power since 1932, lost votes to Clann na
Poblachta, a party headed by Sean McBride, former Chief of Staff of the IRA,
and offering a brand of radical republicanism similar to that of Fianna Fail in
1932. Fianna Fail remained the largest party, and Clann na Poblachta with 10
seats was now the junior partner in a coalition with Fine Gael and Labour.
16/2/1948,
Monday (+1,014) Britain warned off Argentina as the Argentines conducted
naval exercise near the Falkland
Islands.
12/2/1948,
Thursday (+1,010)
(India)
The ashes of Mahatma Gandhi were placed in the �holy waters� of the River
Ganges at Allahabad.
5/2/1948, Thursday
(+1,003) Sven Goran Eriksson, footballer, was born.
4/2/1948.
Wednesday (+1,002) (1) (Ireland)
De Valera lost his overall majority at the Irish elections, see 18/2/1948.
(2) (India)
Ceylon became a self-governing dominion; it had been a British colony since
1802. It achieved full independence on 22/5/1972.
3/2/1948,
Tuesday (+1,001) (Innovation,
Light) The instant Polaroid camera was patented by Edwin Herbert Land in
Massachusetts.
1/2/1948, Sunday (+999)
=====================================================================================
30/1/1948.
Friday (+997) (1) (India)
The Indian leader Mahatma (= �Great Soul) or Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was
assassinated by a Hindu fanatic. Ghandi had been at a prayer meeting when
he was shot by Nathuram Godse, a fanatic who totally rejected Ghandi's message
of goodwill, peace, and love.� Some
extremist Hindus saw that India could never become a Hindu-dominated state
whilst Ghandi was still alive; Ghandi
had preached tolerance between Hindus and Moslems. Nathuram Godse was
hanged on 15/11/1949. A previous attempt on Ghandi�s life had been made on
20/1/1948.
(2)
(Aviation)
The US aviator Orville Wright, younger of the two Wright brothers, died.
29/1/1948, Thursday (+996)
The first flying car, the Hall Flying Automobile, took off.
27/1/1948,
Tuesday (+994)
UK medical consultants threatened to boycott the new National Health Service.
13/1/1948,
Tuesday (+980),
Mahatma Ghandi began a six-day fast, in order to promote harmony between
Muslims and Hindus.
12/1/1948.
Monday (+979) (1) A law
school in Oklahoma was ordered to admit a Black student.
(2)
The Co-op opened the first supermarket in Britain, at Manor Park.
10/1/1948,
Saturday (+977)
8/1/1948,
Thursday (+975)
Kurt Schwitters, German artist, died.
7/1/1948, Wednesday (+974) Jane Bullen, equestrian events champion,
was born.
6/1/1948, Tuesday (+973) The Ministries Trial began in Nuremberg.
Twenty-one officials of various ministries of the Third Reich went on trial,
facing charges for their roles in atrocities committed by the Nazis.
5/1/1948, Monday (+972) In
Jerusalem, the Arab-owned Semiramis Hotel was destroyed by a bomb explosion; 20
people were killed.
4/1/1948. Sunday (+971) Burma
became independent from Britain, and joined the Commonwealth.� The new Republic was troubled by civil war;
general Ne Win was in charge of military action against the Karen and their
Communist guerrilla allies. U Nu (see 19/7/1947), a devout Buddhist, was
Burmese leader until 1962 when Ne Win took over in an army coup.
3/1/1948, Saturday (+970) Alice Lee, archery champion, was born.
2/1/1948, Friday (+969) Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru
threatened to invade Pakistan to stop Muslim attacks in Kashmir.
1/1/1948.
Thursday (+968) Britain�s railways were
nationalised.
===================================================================================
31/12/1947, Wednesday (+967) Burton Cummings, musician, was born.
30/12/1947.
Tuesday (+966) (1) The
Kashmir problem went before the UN.
(2)
King Michael of Romania
abdicated, and a Communist republic was set up.
29/12/1947, Monday (+965) Ted Danson, actor, was born in San Diego.
28/12/1947, Sunday (+964) Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy from
1900 until he abdicated in 1946, died.
27/12/1947, Saturday (+963) The
Greek Government banned the Communist Party.
20/12/1947,
Saturday (+956) Malcolm Cooper, Olympic shooter, was born.
17/12/1947.
Wednesday (+953) A blizzard dumped 27
inches of snow on New York.
14/12/1947,
Sunday (+950) Stanley Baldwin, British Conservative
politician, three times Prime Minister, who became Earl Baldwin of Bewdley,
died.
2/12/1947,
Tuesday (+938)
Anti-Jewish riots broke out in the British colony of Aden (90% Muslim, 5%
Jewish, 5% other). 82 Jews, 38 Arabs and 3 others were killed.
1/12/1947,
Monday (+937) Samuel Courtauld, silk
and nylon manufacturer, and patron of the arts, died in London.
======================================================================================
30/11/1947.
Sunday (+936) In London, steam trains from Liverpool
Street ceased to run on the Chigwell to Newbury Park loop.
29/11/1947,
Saturday (+935) The
United Nations voted to partition Palestine between Jewish and Arab areas.
27/11/1947.
Thursday (+933) Austrian banks were nationalised.
25/11/1947.
Tuesday (+931) The USSR demanded war
reparations from Germany.
20/11/1947.
Thursday (+926) Princess Elizabeth
married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, in Westminster Abbey.
Austerity and rationing were temporarily forgotten.
14/11/1947.
Friday (+920) The UN recognised the
independence of Korea.
13/11/1947.
Thursday (+919) Chancellor Hugh Dalton
resigned after admitting passing tax details to a reporter minutes before the
Budget speech.
10/11/1947,
Monday (+916)
Strachey admitted to the House of Commons that because of food shortages and
rationing, the average daily Calorie intake per head was down to 2,700, as
opposed to a British Medical Association recommendation of 3,386 made in July
1933.
7/11/1947,
Friday (+913) The first railway in Albania opened. It ran from Durres to Pekinj, 42km.
1/11/1947.
Saturday (+907) Sports Report, the BBC radio Saturday
afternoon programme, went on the air. The Benelux customs union, officially
created on 29/10/1947, became active.
===================================================================================
31/10/1947,
Friday (+906) Sidney Webb, British economist,
socialist and reformer, died aged 88.
26/10/1947.
Sunday (+901) Kashmir
joined India despite Pakistani protests.
23/10/1947, Thursday (+898) Kazimierz Deyna, Polish
footballer, was born.
16/10/1947,
Thursday (+891) Terence Griffiths, snooker
champion, was born.
14/10/1947.
Tuesday (+889) The first supersonic
flight was made, by Charles Yeager of California.� Major Charles Yeager was taken to 30,000 feet
from Edwards Air Base, Muroc, California, in a Bell X-1, underneath a B-29
Superfortress plane, and released. He flew at 670mph, (Mach 1.05), held for
several seconds, then landed at Edwards Air Base again.
11/10/1947,
Saturday (+886) Alan Pascoe, athletics (hurdles), was born.
9/10/1947.
Thursday (+884) The first
radio-telephone call was made, from a car to a plane, above Wimington,
Delaware, USA. However radio contact between a person in a car and a person on
the ground had been made in 1922. This was at Brooklands motor circuit where a
Morse message was transmitted from a racing car at 80mph. The aerial was on
large poles propped up on the car.
5/10/1947.
Sunday (+880) In the US, President Truman urged
Americans to give up meat on Tuesdays and poultry and eggs on Thursday to aid
Europe.
4/10/1947,
Saturday (+879) (1) The German physicist, Max Planck, died at his
home in Gottingen, aged 89. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1918 for his work
on quantum physics and black-body radiation.
(2)
Ann Widdecombe, British politician, was born.
2/10/1947,
Thursday (+877)
1/10/1947, Wednesday
(+876) The powers of the Governor-General of Canada were increased by
lettrers pa5tent signed by King George V of Britain, this role now having �full
royal powers�.
===================================================================================
30/9/1947,
Tuesday (+875)
(1) The UK Government asked women to wear
shorter skirts, to save cloth.
(2)
Pakistan and Yemen joined the UN.
29/9/1947,
Monday (+874)
Sir Stafford Cripps was appointed by PM Attlee, as Minister of Economic
Affairs. He went on to replace Hugh Dalton as Chancellor of the Exchequer
following Dalton�s resignation on 13/11/1947. Sir Cripps was a keen advocate of
austerity, as the UK made efforts to cut back on imports from outside the
Sterling Area.
28/9/1947,
Sunday (+873) Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh from
2009, was born in Tungipara, East Pakistan
27/9/1947,
Saturday (+872) Bernard Ford, ice skater, was born.
26/9/1947,
Friday (+871) In Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Don
Stephen Senanayake became Prime Minister.
25/9/1947,
Thursday (+870) Cheryl Tiegs, US fashion
designer, was born in Breckenridge, Minnesota.
24/9/1947.
Wednesday (+869) 1,200 Muslims fleeing
India for Pakistan on a train were massacred by Sikhs at Amritsar in the
Punjab.
21/9/1947,
Sunday (+866)
18/9/1947,
Thursday (+863) The Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) was founded, under the 1947 National Security Act. Created by
President Truman, it was a response to the Cold war with the Soviet Union.
17/9/1947,
Wednesday (+862)
Tessa Jowell, UK politician, was born.
16/9/1947.
Tuesday (+861) John Cobb broke the
world land speed record at 394 mph.
15/9/1947,
Monday (+860) The Free Territory of Trieste was
created as the Peace Treaty with Italy came into effect.
14/9/1947,
Sunday (+859)
Baldwin retired in May 1937 and was made Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. He died on 14
September 1947.
8/9/1947,
Monday (+853) Linda Ludgrove, swimming
champion, was born.
2/9/1947, Tuesday (+847) The Organisation of American States (OAS) was
set up.
1/9/1947, Monday (+846) 31 people were killed in the Dugald rail
accident in Dugald, Manitoba, Canada.
=====================================================================================
31/8/1947.
Sunday (+845) The Communists won Hungarian elections.
30/8/1947, Saturday (+844) About 90 people were killed and 60 injured in
a cinema fire in the Rueil district of Paris, France. Police said the blaze was
caused by a wire in the second balcony that short-circuited
29/8/1947, Friday (+843) James Hunt, British motor racing
champion, was born in Belmont, Surrey.
28/8/1947, Thursday (+842) Ecuador's new dictator Carlos Mancheno
abolished the country's 1944 constitution and proclaimed himself President.
27/8/1947.
Wednesday (+841) The UK Government
announced cuts to deal with an economic crisis.
26/8/1947, Tuesday (+840) Anne
Archer, actress, was born.
25/8/1947, Monday (+839) Franz Cumont, Belgian historian of religion
(born 3/1/1868) died in Brussels.
24/8/1947, Sunday (+838) The
Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama was launched. It was an
antidote to the prevailing austerity.
22/8/1947,
Friday (+836)
21/8/1947,
Thursday (+835) Ettore Bugatti, Italian-born
French car designer, died aged 65.
20/8/1947,
Wednesday (+834) (Aviation)
TF Caldwell, USA, set a new aviation speed record of 640.74 mph.
19/8/1947,
Tuesday (+833)
15/8/1947. Friday (+829) (1) India became independent; the Union
Jack was run down for the last time in New Delhi. Pandit Nehru was the first
Indian Prime Minister.� Ali Khan became
first PM of the newly created Pakistan.� See 4/6/1947 for more details.
(2) The UK�s first atomic reactor, at Harwell, began
operating.
14/8/1947,
Thursday (+828) Pakistan became
independent from Britain.
13/8/1947,
Wednesday (+827) (Electricity)
In Britain the Electricity Bill received Royal Assent. This provided for the
nationalisation of the electricity supply industry.
3/8/1947, Sunday (+817) Ceasefire in Indonesia between Dutch
troops and Indonesian nationalists took effect.
1/8/1947.
Friday (+815) The UN Security Council
asked for a ceasefire in Indonesia.
====================================================================================
30/7/1947,
Wednesday (+813)
Arnold Schwarzenegger, star of the Terminator
films and Governor of California 2003-11, was born.
28/7/1947,
Monday (+811) In Romania the National Peasant
Party, the most popular Party, was dissolved.
21/7/1947,
Monday (+804) Gareth Edwards, rugby player,
was born in Swansea.
20/7/1947.
Sunday (+803) Dutch troops attacked Indonesian forces
in Java.
19/7/1947,
Saturday (+802) The
Burmese leader Aung San was assassinated by gunmen in the pay of a political
rival, shortly before Burma was to gain independence from Britain, see
4/1/1948.� U Nu became leader of Burma.
6/7/1947.
Sunday (+789) Spain voted to have a King when Franco
died.
3/7/1947.
Thursday (+786) The Benelux Union Bill
was ratified, creating an economic union of 18 million people.
2/1/1947,
Wednesday (+785) Larry David, comedy writer,
actor and TV producer, was born in Brooklyn, New York
1//7/1947.
Tuesday (+784) A Police Constable was
paid �273 a year. �A pint of beer rose
from 1s 1d (5.5p) to 1s 4d (7p). A �New Length Cardigan� from Debenham and
Freebody cost �(�4.16p) plus 6 coupons. A man�s watch cost �6.40. The average
UK wage was �351 a year. The average UK house cost �1,577. �A 6-bed house in Wimbledon cost �7,250 (4.60 x
average).� Road tax for a car cost ��1. 2
weeks in Lucerne cost �57.
500g of streaky bacon cost 8p.� 500g of beef cost 7p.� 250g of cheddar cheese cost 2p.� 250g of butter cost 4p.� 500g of margarine cost 4p.� 1 kg old potatoes cost 1p.� 125g of loose tea cost 4p.�� 6 eggs cost 4p.� 1 kg granulated sugar cost 3p.� 800g sliced white bread cost 2p.� 1 pint of pasteurised milk cost 2p. The
Observer newspaper cost 1p.
===================================================================================
30/6/1947.
Monday (+783) In the UK, food rations
were cut further in the midst of an economic crisis.
29/6/1947,
Sunday (+782) William Surtees, rackets champion, was born.
28/6/1947,
Saturday (+781) The statue of Eros returned to
Piccadilly Circus.
26/6/1946, Thursday (+779)
24/6/1947,
Tuesday (+777) US pilot Kenneth Arnold,
flying over Mount Ranier, Washington State, filed the first report of flying
saucers; he reported seeing nine flying disc-shaped objects.
23/6/1946, Monday
(+776) In the USA, the closed shop, compulsory trades union membership, was
banned.
22/6/1947,
Sunday (+775) Jerry
Rawlings, President of Ghana, was born.
19/6/1947,
Thursday (+772) Salman Rushdie was
born.
6/6/1947,
Friday (+759) Marion Mould, equestrian
champion, was born.
5/6/1947.
Thursday (+758) US Secretary of State George
Marshall announced the Marshall Plan to help Europe recover from near � bankruptcy following
the War.� See 16/4/1947.
4/6/1947. Wednesday (+757) (India) The last British viceroy to India, Lord Mountbatten,
announced that plans for Indian independence from Britain would be speeded up
and completed in just 70 days, not the 12 months previously envisaged (see
20/2/1947). Britain was deep in economic crisis and wanted to shed
Empire as fast as possible. As a result of this haste, the subcontinent was
hacked crudely into three states, and following this a million people were
massacred and one of the greatest forced migrations in history began as Muslims
fled India and Hindus fled East and West. Pakistan. This was the start of the Kashmir problem. The Maharajah of Kashmir
was faced with a choice of joining Pakistan, effectively ending his own rule,
or of joining India with his mainly Muslim population. On Independence Day,
15/8/1947, Kashmir had still not decided who to join. In October 1947
Afghan tribesmen, backed by Pakistan, began invading Kashmir from Pakistan and
in response India sent tens of thousands of troops to repel them, one day after
the Maharajah had decided to join India. Had Britain not pulled out of India in
such haste, more orderly arrangements for Kashmir could have been set up whilst
Britain was still in a position to enforce them.
2/6/1947,
Monday (+755) (Food,
Kitchens) Tupperware sealable plastic containers were patented by Earl
Elias Tupper in Massachusetts.
===================================================================================
29/5/1947.
Thursday (+751) (India) The Indian Parliament banned
'untouchables'.
25/5/1947,
Sunday (+747) (Aviation) Pacific
Overseas Airlines (Siam) was founded,
23/5/1947,
Friday (+745)
(India) Britain agreed to the partition
of India.� Muslims wanted a separate
state (Pakistan), fearing they would be subsumed in a Hindi India.
16/5/1947,
Friday (+738) (Biology)
Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, English biochemist, died in Cambridge.
15/5/1947,
Thursday (+737) The United Nations set up a
special committee to decide the future of Palestine.
8/5/1947.
Thursday (+730)
Death of the American department store founder, Henry Gordon Selfridge.
5/5/1947,
Monday (+727) (London Underground) In London, Central Line
trains began running to Leytonstone.
3/5/1947,
Saturday (+725) (Japan) A new
Constitution was approved in Japan by means of a referendum. Women voted in
Japan for the first time. The Emperor�s powers were limited, and the country
renounced the use of war.
=================================================================================
27/4/1947,
Sunday (+719) Thor Heyerdahl set sail on a balsa wood
raft from Callao in Peru to Raroia in Polynesia in order to prove that
Peruvians could have settled in Polynesia.
26/4/1947.
Saturday (+718) The English FA Cup Final, between
Charlton Athletic and Burnley, was televised in its entirety for the first
time.
25/4/1947, Friday
(+717) Johann Cruyff, Dutch footballer, was born.
24/4/1947,
Thursday (+716) In Palestine
the Zionist Stern Gang attacked a police barracks at Sarona, near Tel Aviv; 4
were killed.
22/4/1947, Tuesday (+714)
21/4/1947,
Monday (+713) (Aviation)
The world�s first duty-free airport shop opened, at Shannon Airport, Ireland.
20/4/1947,
Sunday (+712) Christian X, King of Denmark, died aged
76. He was succeeded by his son Frederick IX, aged 48.
19/4/1947,
Saturday (+711) The Flick Trial began in Nuremberg. Friedrich
Flick and five other leading Nazi industrialists were put on trial for using
slave labour, among other crimes.
18/4/1947,
Friday (+710)
Tiso was executed, see 22/5/1945.
17/4/1947,
Thursday (+709) In Rome, a mob of about a
thousand unemployed workers staged a noisy protest outside the Parliament
building, stopping private cars and sometimes beating the occupants. One of
those assaulted was Italian Foreign Minister Carlo Sforza, who was struck by
several fists as he stepped out of his car to go to his office. The Foreign
Ministry said that Sforza had been shaken but not seriously hurt.
16/4/1947,
Wednesday (+708)
(1) The phrase �Cold War� was first used, in
a speech by Bernard Baruch in Columbia, South Carolina, when the US Congress
was discussing the �Truman Doctrine�.�
This was a doctrine of checking further Communist expansion into Europe
by giving economic and military aid to governments threatened by communist
subversion.� This was followed within 2
months by the Marshall Plan (5/6/1947).
(2)
Ammonium nitrate stored aboard the freighter Grandcamp exploded in Texas City
Port, killing 752.
14/4/1947,
Monday (+706) In France, De Gaulle organised
the RPF (Rassemblement du Peuple Francais) Party, also known as �Gaullists�, to
unite and reform anti-Communists.
9/4/1947,
Wednesday (+701)
The first food packages from the USA for Britain arrived at Liverpool. They
were sent by the charity organisation CARE (Co-operative for Remittance to
Europe) and intended for unemployed widows who had children to look after.
8/4/1947,
Tuesday (+700) Following a series of killings
due to labour strife, the Cuban Interior Ministry banned all political meetings
that might provoke disorder.
7/4/1947.
Monday (+699) Henry Ford, American motor car manufacturer who pioneered
techniques of mass-production, died aged 83.
6/4/1947,
Sunday (+698) Easter Sunday.
5/4/1947,
Saturday (+697)
3/4/1947.
Thursday (+695) In the UK, the private
medical company BUPA was founded.
2/4/1947.
Wednesday (+694) Britain passed the
Palestine problem to the UN.
1/4/1947.
Tuesday (+693) King George II of Greece
died aged 56, and was succeeded by his brother, 45, as King Paul I.
======================================================================================
29/3/1947.
Saturday (+690) Nationalist uprising in Madagascar
against the French.
27/3/1947,
Thursday (+688)
To stem the rising tide of divorce, the British Government pledged more funding
for the Marriage Guidance Council.
25/3/1947.
Tuesday (+686) Elton John, British
musician, was born in Pinner, London, as Reginald Kenneth Dwight.
23/3/1947,
Sunday (+684) Lord Wavell resigned as Viceroy of India. He was
succeeded by Lord Mountbatten, who announced, after consultation with local
leaders, that the Muslim-dominated areas must become a separate State.
15/3/1947.
Saturday (+676) Almost 600,000 acres of farmland were
flooded in The Fens as the River Ouse overflowed, following a thaw of deep
snow, drowning 2 million sheep. See 6/3/1947.
12/3/1947,
Wednesday (+673) US President
Truman spoke of a Cold War (see 5/3/1946) against Communism. He instituted the
�Truman Doctrine�, whereby the US
would give military and economic access to any countries deemed to be under
Soviet threat, such as Greece or Turkey.
9/3/1947,
Sunday (+670) Stanley Jackson, cricketer, died (born
21/11/1870).
6/3/1947, Thursday (+667) Deep snow cut off 13 towns in
Britain. See 15/3/1947.
3/3/1947, Monday (+664) Japan adopted a new Constitution, renouncing
war.
1/3/1947. Saturday (+662) The
International Monetary Fund
began operating.
=================================================================================
28/2/1947, Friday (+661)
Wlodzimierz Lubanski, Polish footballer, was born.
27/2/1947, Thursday (+660) (USA) In the
USA, Donald Acheson outlined, in the State Department, what was to become known
as the Truman Doctrine, aimed at containing Soviet expansion.
26/2/1947, Wednesday (+659) The UK Government considered
rationing coal as a cold snap entered its fifth week. The winter was the
coldest since 1880/81. Coal was piling up at the pit heads, unable to move as
railways were blocked by snow. Buxton and Bridlington were cut off by
snowdrifts as high as 20 feet. Blizzards at sea kept fishing fleets in port,
worsening food shortages.
25/2/1947, Tuesday (+658) (Science) Louis Carl Heinrich Paschen, German
physicist, died in Potsdam, East Germany.
24/2/1947, Monday (+657)
21/2/1947. Friday (+654) The world�s first soap opera, �A woman
to remember�, began on USA television.
20/2/1947, Thursday (+653) (1) (Weather) In Britain, very cold weather along with
fuel shortages threatened to damage the economy.
(2) Lord
Louis Mountbatten was appointed the last Viceroy of India, the same day the British government announced that the British would
leave India by June 1948. See 4/6/1947. Mountbatten was to supervise the
peaceful transition to independence of India, despite major difference between
Hindus and Muslims. Winston Churchill opposed Indian independence.
17/2/1947, Monday (+650) The USA began broadcasting �Voice of America�
in Russian.
14/2/1947, Friday (+647) John Page, figure skating champion, died.
10/2/1947. Monday (+643) (1) A Peace Treaty concluded in Paris between Italy, Romania,
and Bulgaria made the following provisions. a) Most of the Italian province of
Venezia Giulia, with its predominantly Slovene and Croat population, as well as
the enclave of Zadar (Zara) and all the Adriatic Islands were ceded to
Yugoslavia. b) A Free Territory of Trieste, demilitarised and neutral, was to be
formed. However this was impractical and on 5/10/1954 the British, US, Italian,
and Yugoslav governments agreed to divide the territory between Italy and
Yugoslavia. c) Romania ceded Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia to the USSR. The
Russian occupation of these areas had been by aggression on 27/6/1940; the
population of Bessarabia was however mainly Romanian.
(2) The USSR concluded a peace treaty with Finland.
7/2/1947. Friday (+640) (1) (Britain) The Minister of Fuel and Power, Emanuel
Shinwell, startled the House of Commons by announcing that Britain�s power
stations were running out of coal, as very cold snowy weather paralysed the
rail system. Four weeks of intermittent power cuts followed, with two million
workers suspended. Greyhound racing, TV and magazine production were halted.
(2) Britain
proposed dividing Palestine into Jewish and Arab zones but both sides rejected
the plan.
6/2/1947, Thursday (+639) Hans
Fallada, German novelist, died in Berlin (born 21/7/1893 in Greifswald,
Germany).
5/2/1947, Wednesday (+638)
4/2/1947, Tuesday (+637) (USA) US politician Dan Quayle was born.
3/2/1947, Monday (+636) Hristo
Bonev, Bulgarian footballer, was born.
2/2/1947. Sunday (+635) The
RAF began evacuating Britons from Palestine.
1/2/1947, Saturday (+634) In Italy,
Alcide de Gasperi formed a government of Christian Democrats, Communists and
Left-Socialists.
===================================================================================
29/1/1947, Wednesday (+631)
In the UK, record low temperatures caused power cuts.
26/1/1947, Sunday (+628) Prince Gustav of Sweden was
killed in an air crash near Copenhagen.
25/1/1947, Saturday (+627) Al
Capone, American gangster and leader of organised crime in Chicago during the
Prohibition era, died aged 48 due to a major brain haemorrhage, virtually
penniless. In 1931 he was jailed for 11 years income tax evasion; he was
released from Alcatraz in 1939, suffering from syphilis and prematurely aged.
24/1/1947, Friday (+626)
23/1/1947, Thursday (+625) Snow
began falling in south east England. It was the start of a protracted period of
extremely cold weather.
22/1/1947. Wednesday (+624) The
meat ration in Britain was reduced, again, to 1 shilling (5p) worth weekly.
21/1/1947, Tuesday (+623) South
African President J C Smuts refused to place South West Africa under UN
Trusteeship.
16/1/1947 Thursday (+618) In France, Vincent Auriol was elected
President.
14/1/1947, Tuesday (+616) The newly-renovated Covent
Garden Opera House in London opened, with a performance of Bizet�s Carmen.
13/1/1947, Monday (+615) In Britain, top radio shows
included Woman�s Hour, Dick Barton, and Radio Forfeits.
12/1/1947, Sunday (+614) Joe
Frazier, heavyweight boxing champion in the 1970s, was born.
10/1/1947, Friday (+612)
8/1/1947. Wednesday (+610) (1) In Britain, a shortage of coal caused closures
of steel works. There were also food shortages because of the hauliers� strike.
Troops were called in to move supplies.
(2) David Bowie, British musician and rock star, was born
in London as David Jones.
7/1/1947, Tuesday (+609) George Marshall was appointed US
Secretary of State.
4/1/1947, Saturday (+606)
3/1/1947, Friday (+605) Fran
Cotton, rugby player, was born.
2/1/1947, Thursday (+604) Lanny
Bassham, US sports shooter, was born
1/1/1947. Wednesday (+603) (1) Britain�s coal industry was nationalised under
the Coal industry Nationalisation Act, 1946. The National Coal Board (NCB) was
set up, to control 1,647 mines, 100,000 miners homes and over a million acres
of land. The NCB was chaired by Lord Hyndley. Cable and Wireless was also
nationalised this day.
(2) All British �silver coins�, except Maundy Money, now
made from cupro-nickel, 75% copper and 25% nickel.
(3) The USA and British zones in West Germany were
merged.� Russia objected, and so did
France, who wanted a divided Germany, and had annexed the Saar from
French-occupied Germany.
=====================================================================================
31/12/1946, Tuesday (+602) In
Britain, people were eating horsemeat as the food, fuel and transport crisis
continued.
30/12/1946, |Monday (+601) Hans
Hubert Vogts, West German footballer, was born.
27/12/1946, Friday (+598) In
Britain, 12 cotton mills closed today and much industry in the Midlands went on
a 4-day week as a fuel shortage deepened. Meanwhile a world food shortage,
compounded by a global shipping shortage, and, for the UK, a lack of foreign
exchange, caused UK rations to be cut. In February 1946 butter, margarine and cooking
fat rations were reduced from 8 to 7 ounces per person per week. In May 1946
bread, previously un-rationed, came on-ration.
25/12/1946, Wednesday (+596) William Claude Dukenfield (WC Fields),
actor, died (born 29/1/1880).
20/12/1946. Friday (+591) Uri
Geller was born in Tel Aviv.
19/12/1946, Thursday (+590) An uneasy post-War period of
tactical co-operation between the French and the Vietcong Communist forces
ended. The French had wanted to regain their colony of Vietnam; the Vietcong
also wanted Nationalist factions in the country eliminated. But on this day the
Vietcong attacked French troops at Hanoi, starting the First Indo-China War.
The Vietcong began a campaign of guerrilla warfare.
18/12/1946. Wednesday (+589) Labour MPs triumphantly sang The Red Flag
as the House of Commons voted to nationalise the railways, road haulage, and
ports. This was under Clement
Attlee�s Labour Government. The Bank of England had already been
nationalised and, despite the UK�s economic problems, civil aviation, broadcasting,
road transport and steel would soon follow. Attlee also proposed independence for Burma and India.
16/12/1946, Monday (+587) In
France, Leon Blum formed a Socialist government.
11/12/1946, Wednesday (+582) The UN International Children�s
Emergency Fund was set up to provide aid to children in war-torn countries.
10/12/1946, Tuesday (+581) Heavy
smog in London caused bus conductors to have to walk in front of their buses,
carrying lighted newspapers.
9/12/1946, Monday (+580) In
India the Constituent Assembly met to discuss independence; but it was
boycotted by the Muslim League.
7/12/1946, Saturday (+578)
5/12/1946. Thursday (+576) New
York was chosen as the permanent site of the UN.
4/12/1946, Wednesday (+575) In London, Central Line trains began
running to Stratford.
===================================================================================
30/11/1946, Saturday (+571)
28/11/1946,
Thursday (+569)
In Britain the House of Lords was told of a �tidal wave of divorce sweeping
Britain�.
27/11/1946,
Wednesday (+568) New Zealand elections gave 42
seats to Labour, which retained power, against 38 seats for the National Party.
25/11/1946,
Monday (+566\)
24/11/1946,
Sunday (+565) Vivien Saunders, champion golfer, was born.
23/11/1946,
Saturday (+564) French troops bombarded Haiphong in NE
Vietnam. This was the start of the French Indo-China War, which lasted until
1954.
22/11/1946. Friday (+563) The first ball point pen went on sale,
invented by the Hungarian Laslo Biro. The pen, which would write 200,000 words
without refilling, went on sale for �2.75.
21/11/1946, Thursday (+562) 1) The
first commercial aerosol sprays were marketed in the US by Airosol Inc of
Kansas. The US army had discovered the usefulness of aerosol insect sprays
whilst fighting the Japanese in the rainforests of south east Asia.
2) Bulgarian Communist Georgi Dimitrov returned from
Moscow to become President of Bulgaria.
19/11/1946, Tuesday (+560) The first General Conference of UNESCO
was held at Paris.
15/11/1946, Friday (+556) Alec Jackson, footballer, died.
11/11/1946.
Monday (+552) Stevenage, Hertfordshire, became the first �New Town� to be designated in
Britain.
10/11/1946,
Sunday (+551) In France, elections to the National Assembly
produced 166 seats for the Communists, 158 for the Popular Republican Movement,
90 for the Socialists, 55 for the Radical Socialists, 70 for the Conservatives
and 5 for the Gaullists. There was political deadlock.
8/11/1946,
Friday (+549)
6/11/1946.
Wednesday (+547) In the UK, the National Health Act came into force,
see 5/7/1948.
5/11/1946,
Tuesday (+546)
In the US, Republicans gained control of Congress.
4/11/1946.
Monday (+545) (1) US
and China signed a friendship pact.
(2)
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation,
was established, with headquarters in Paris.
====================================================================================
30/10/1946,
Wednesday (+540) John Atkinson, British rugby
league player, was born.
26/10/1946, Saturday (+536) Otto Thierack, German Reich
minister of Justice 1942-45, hanged himself in Neumunster internment camp to
avoid being brought to trial.
23/10/1946,
Wednesday (+533) The first New York
meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations Organisation took place.
20/10/1946.
Sunday (+530) Muffin the Mule, a wooden puppet, first
appeared on BBC TV.
16/10/1946. Wednesday (+526) (1) The liner Queen Elizabeth made her first
commercial voyage, after serving as a troopship during the War.
(2) After 216 meetings of the
Nuremberg Tribunal, from 20/11/1945, the verdicts on 24 top Nazis charged with
war crimes were delivered on 30/9/1946. 3 Nazis were acquitted; Hjalmar
Schacht, Franz von Papen and Hans Fritzsche. A fourth defendant, Robert Ley,
had committed suicide in prison before the trials were completed. The
industrialist Gustav Krupp was judged to be unfit to stand trial through senile
dementia. The remaining 19 defendants were found guilty. Four of them, Karl
Donitz, Baldur von Shirach, Albert Speer and Konstantin von Neurath, received
sentences of between 10 and 20 years. Three defendants, Rudolf Hess, Walther
Funk and Erich Raeder, received life sentences. Rudolf Hess was detained at
Spandau Prison, Berlin, until his death in 1987. The remaining 12 defendants
were sentenced to death. Martin Bormann was not executed as he had been tried
in absentia having escaped the Allied authorities. Hermann Goering committed
suicide by self-poisoning in prison a few hours before he was due to be hanged.
The remaining ten, Hans Frank, Willhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Alfred
Rosenberg, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred
Jodl, Wilhelm Keitel and Arthur Seiss-Inquart, were hanged on 16/10/1946.
As regards lesser Nazis, the problem facing
the Allies was that millions of Germans had joined the Nazi Party, some merely
for reasons of self-preservation, so it was impractical to prosecute all those
who had served Hitler. Ultimately, out of a population of 44.5 million Germans
in West Germany,� 209,000 were
prosecuted. In East Germany the Soviets prosecuted a much smaller number, just
over 17,000. This was because many Nazis were executed by the Soviets without a
formal legal process.
13/10/1946, Sunday (+523) Thailand
accepted a UN ruling that it return the provinces of Indo-China that it had
acquired in 1941 as an ally of Japan.
10/10/1946, Thursday
(+520) In China the Kuomintang re-elected Chiang Kai Shek as President.
8/10/1946, Tuesday
(+518)
6/10/1946, Sunday (+516)
Anthony Grieg, cricketer, was born.
5/10/1946, Saturday (+515)
Brian Jacks, judo champion, was born.
4/10/1946, Friday (+514) From Our Own Correspondent was first
broadcast on UK radio.
2/10/1946, Wednesday (+512)
==================================================================================
29/9/1946, Sunday (+509) BBC
Radio�s Third Programme, later to become Radio Three, began broadcasting.
28/9/1946, Saturday (+508) (Greece)
King George II returned to Greece. A referendum had shown a majority in favour
of restoring the monarchy.
21/9/1946, Saturday (+501)
20/9/1946. Friday (+500) The first Cannes Film Festival opened.
19/9/1946. Thursday (+499) Winston Churchill, in Zurich, urged
Franco-German reconciliation and a �kind of United States of Europe�.
18/9/1946, Wednesday (+498) Otis Sistrunk, US footballer, was born in
Columbus, Georgia.
17/9/1946, Tuesday (+497) (Astronomy) Sir James Hopwood Jeans,
English astronomer, died in Dorking, Surrey.
16/9/1946, Monday (+496)
King Simeon and the Queen Mother left Bulgaria
15/9/1946, Sunday (+495) (1) The Bulgarian People�s Republic was proclaimed.
(2) Alitalia (Aerolinee Italiane Internaziolali) was
formed.
14/9/1946, Saturday (+494) The U.S. Census Bureau forecast that the
United States population in 1990 would peak at 165,000,000 and that it would
decline to 168,177,000 by 2000. The actual figures for the two censuses were
248,709,873 in 1990 and 281,421,906 in 2000.
13/9/1946, Friday (+493) Captain Amon Goth, 37, Nazi SS officer who had
carried out the mass executions of more than 13,000 Jews in Krakow and Tarnow,
and the Szebnia concentration camp, was hanged, along with Dr. Leon Gross, a
Jew who had collaborated with him at the Plaszow concentration camp.
12/9/1946, Thursday (+492) Albert le Tyrant, French archery
champion, was born.
11/9/1946, Wednesday (+491) Mike Bull, athletics (pole vault), was born
in Belfast.
10/9/1946, Tuesday (+490) A referendum in Bulgaria gave a 92%
vote in favour of a Republic.
9/9/1946, Monday (+489) �Trans
Australia Airlines made its first flight, from Melbourne to Sydney. The
government-owned carrier changed its name to Australian Airlines in 1986, and
then was merged with Qantas in 1993.
8/9/1946. Sunday (+488) Communists
took control in Bulgaria.�
7/9/1946, Saturday (+487) (Aviation) EM
Donaldson, UK, set a new aviation speed record of 615.78 mph.
4/9/1946, Wednesday (+484)
1/9/1946. Sunday (+481) (1) The
jet aircraft Meteor EE549 reached the record speed of 616 mph
(2) A Greek
plebiscite favoured return the of the monarchy.
===================================================================================
31/8/1946, Saturday (+480) Harley
Granville-Barker, English playwright, died aged 69.
28/8/1946, Wednesday (+477)
25/8/1946, Sunday (+474) In Britain, a flourishing black
market existed in nylons, chocolate and perfumes.
24/8/1946, Saturday (+473) Elijah
Muhammad was released from prison in Milan, Michigan after four years, and
became the Nation of Islam's undisputed leader.
23/8/1946, Friday (+472) In North Korea, the Workers
Party was established. By December 1946 its membership reached 600,000 (total
population of North Korea was then 9 million).
22/8/1946, Thursday (+470)
20/8/1946, Tuesday (+469) The
German Army was officially dissolved by the Allied Control Commission.
19/8/1946, Monday (+468) (1)
Violence in Calcutta between Hindus and Moslems, thousands were killed.
(2) Bill Clinton, US President, was born.
16/8/1946, Friday (+465) Major riots against the British salt
tax began in Calcutta, inspired by Ghandi�s campaign of disobedience.� The riots lasted till 20/8/1946.
13/8/1946. Tuesday (+462) (1) The
United Nations refused to admit Ireland because of opposition from the Soviet
Union. The War years, known in Ireland as �The Emergency�, resulted in
agricultural and economic crisis, strikes, unemployment and rising emigration.
Ireland now had a small and ageing population, and widespread dissatisfaction
with the ruling Fianna Fail Party. Small parties such as Clann na Talmhan, the
Farmers Party, proliferated.
(2) Author H G Wells;
born on 21/9/1866, died in London, aged 76.
12/8/1946, Monday (+461) (Chemistry) Alfred Stock, German chemist, died
in Karlsruhe.
9/8/1946, Friday (+458) The
Arts Council of Great Britain was incorporated.
6/8/1946, Tuesday (+455) Blanche Bingley, tennis player, died (born
3/11/1863).
1/8/1946, Thursday (+450) British European Airways, BEA, was
formed.
=====================================================================================
29/7/1946, Monday (+447) (1) The Paris Peace Conference began.
(2) Air India was formed by a reorganisation of Tata Air
Lines.
28/7/1946, Sunday (+448) Howard C.
Petersen, US Assistant Secretary of War, announced that, in addition to deaths
in combat, 131,028 American and Filipino citizens, mostly civilians, had died
"as a result of war crimes" from December 7, 1941 until the end of
World War II.
27/7/1946, Saturday (+445) The US
writer Gertrude Stein (born 3/2/1874 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania), died in
Paris, France.
25/7/1936, Thursday (+443)
24/7/1946, Wednesday (+442) Aircraft fitter Benny Lynch
tested the first British ejector seat. Bailing out 8,000 feet above Chalgrove,
Oxfordshire, he landed safely in the back yard of pub, and was recovered later
from the bar.
23/7/1946, Tuesday (+441) The
last German prisoners of war in the United States were released, as 1,385 POWs
were placed on the ship General Yates, following detention at Camp Shanks in
New York. In all, there had been 375,000 German prisoners kept in the US at the
end of World War II.
22/7/1946. Monday (+440) The
King David Hotel, Jerusalem, HQ of the British Palestine Army, was destroyed by
a Zionist bomb planted by Irgun, killing 91 and injuring 45. Many Jews wanted
Britain to withdraw so a Jewish State could be established.
21/7/1946. Sunday (+439) Bread
rationing began in Britain because of a world shortage of wheat, caused by a
poor harvest and shortages of transport and fertilisers.
18/7/1946, Thursday (+436)
14/7/1946, Sunday (+432) Jews who
had survived World War Two were massacred in a pogrom at Kielce, Poland.
13/7/1946, Saturday (+431) The
US House of Representatives approved a loan to Europe.
10/7/1946, Thursday (+429)
8/7/1946. Monday (+426) Margaret
Roberts, later Margaret Thatcher,
was elected president of the Oxford University Conservatives.
7/7/1946, Sunday (+425) M|iguel
Aleman, a civilian, was elected as President of Mexico. This led to closer ties
between the US and Mexico.
6/7/1946, Saturday (+424)
The Young Conservatives political organisation was founded in Britain.
5/7/1946. Friday (+423) The
bikini was officially invented by French engineer Louis Reard. �It is a
two-piece bathing suit that reveals everything about a girl except her mother�s
maiden name�,� said the Americans about
the bikini. Two months earlier the French designer Jacques Heim had created the
Atome, another two-piece bathing suit, so Louis Reard was inspired to create an
even smaller bathing suit. Reard knew he had created an explosive item, so he
called it the bikini, as the US military exploded an atom bomb on the south
Pacific island of Bikini atoll. No Parisian model would wear the bikini at the
time as it was considered indecent, but Reard hired a nude dancer, Micheline
Bernardini, to wear it at his presentation. The bikini was banned in several
Catholic countries such as Spain and Italy, but Reard kept promoting the
garment, insisting it was not a real bikini unless �it could be pulled through
a wedding ring�. In the 1950s Brigitte Bardot helped promote the bikini and by
the 1970s it was more or less accepted in most countries.
4/7/1946. Thursday (+422) (Philippines)
The Philippines was granted
independence from the USA.� Manual
Roxas was elected as the first President.
1/7/1946. Monday (+419) (1) The first US atom bomb test at
Eniwetok atoll. A second test with an underwater bomb was on 25/7/1946.
(2) Bananas, available for the first time since the war,
cost 1s 1d (5.5p) per pound. A pound of pork sausages cost 14s 5d (72.5p). A
whole haddock cost 9d (4p). The average weekly wage for a farm labourer was 72s
2d (�3.61p), and a weaver in the textiles industry got 84s 7d (�4.23p) a week.
(3) London�s Aldwych to Holborn spur line re-opened.� It had been closed during the War and used as
an air raid shelter.
(4) British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) began
transatlantic flights between London and New York, in 19 � hours.
===================================================================================
28/6/1946, Friday (+416) Enrico de Nicola became first President of
Italy.
27/6/1946, Thursday (+415) Italy
ceded the Dodecanese islands to Greece.
23/6/1946, Sunday (+411) Julian
Hipwood, polo champion, was born.
17/6/1946, Monday (+405) (1) The
Allied decided not to try Hirohito as a war criminal.
(2) Barry Manilow, American singer and songwriter, was
born in New York City.
14/6/1946. Friday (+402) (1) Demis
Roussos, Greek operatic singer, was born; see 25/1/2015.
(2) Death of John Logie Baird, at Bexhill on Sea, Sussex, aged 58. He was born on
13/8/1888 at Helensburgh, Scotland. In
1926 he demonstrated the first true television before the Royal
Institution of Great Britain, following developments on the first prototype in
his laboratory in Hastings in 1924. In 1939 Baird demonstrated colour television, and had reportedly
developed stereoscopic television by April 1946.
13/6/1946, Thursday (+401)
Pro-monarchist riots in Rome over the departure of King Umberto II.
12/6/1946, Wednesday (+400)
11/6/1946, Tuesday (+399) Italy was officially declared a
Republic.
10/6/1946, Monday (+398) Jack Johnson,
US boxer, died aged 68.
9/6/1946, Sunday (+397) King Rama
VIII was assassinated, aged 21, after an 11-year reign. His brother Phumiphon
Aduldet now reigned as Rama IX, after 5/5/1950 when he left school in
Switzerland.
8/6/1946, Saturday (+396) Gerhart
Hauptmann, German novelist, died aged 83.
7/6/1946, Friday (+395) In
Britain the BBC resumed TV broadcasts this day; the initial audience was fewer
than 12,000 people.
6/6/1946, Thursday (+394)
5/6/1946, Wednesday (+393)
King George V took the salute at the Victory
Parade in The Mall, London.
4/6/1946. Tuesday (+392) General
Juan Peron became President of Argentina.
3/6/1946, Monday (+391) King Umberto II left Italy, to
join his family in Lisbon.
2/6/1946, Sunday (+390) A referendum in Italy produced
12.7 million votes for a Republic and 10.7 million votes for continuing the
monarchy.
1/6/1946. Saturday (+389) (1) The first TV licences issued in Britain, at a
cost of �2. TV broadcasting resumed in Britain.
(2) (Romania) Antonescu was shot as a war criminal,
see 23/8/1944.
====================================================================================
31/5/1946, Friday (+388) Heathrow was officially opened
as London Airport.
30/5/1946. Thursday (+387) The
Labour Minister of Food, John Strachey, announced that bread would be rationed.
The greatest allowance would go to manual workers in heavy industry.
28/5/1946, Tuesday (+385)
27/5/1946, Monday (+384) The Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, an organisation first proposed at the Bretton Woods Conference and
constituted in 1945, began operations.
26/5/1946. Sunday (+383) The
Communists gained power in Czechoslovakia.
25/5/1946. Saturday (+382) Transjordan
(Jordan) proclaimed its independence, with Emir Abdullah ibn Husayn as King.
Husayn (born 1882) was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1951.
22/5/1946, Wednesday (+379) Karl Hermann Frank, the Nazi ruler
in Czechoslovakia who ordered the massacre at Lidice, was hanged in Prague.
20/5/1946, Monday (+377) The
British Government announced plans for student grants.
17/5/1946. Friday (+374) France nationalised its coal mines.
14/5/1946, Tuesday (+371) Robert Davies, horse racing, was born.
9/5/1946. Thursday
(+366) King Victor Emmanuel III, monarch
of Italy since 1900, abdicated.
He was succeeded by Umberto II. A referendum voted narrowly for a republic on 2/6/1946. Enrico de Nicola
became the first President of Italy on 28/6/1946, and Umberto II left Italy on
3/6/1946.
7/5/1946, Tuesday (+364) Anton Mussert, founder of the Dutch National
socialist Movement and a staunch supporter of Nazi rule in Holland, was hanged.
4/5/1946, Saturday (+361) John
Watson, motor racing champion, was born.
3/5/1946, Friday (+360) Arabs
rioted in Jerusalem over British plans to partition Jerusalem.
===================================================================================
25/4/1946, Thursday (+352) The USSR agreed to withdraw its troops from
Iran.
22/4/1946, Monday (+349) Samuel
John :Latta, Canadian politician, died.
21/4/1946, Sunday (+348) Easter Sunday. The economist Lord Keynes died
of a heart attack. He believed that unemployment could only be eased by
public spending.
20/4/1946, Saturday (+347)
19/4/1946, Friday (+346) The
USSR recognised the Republic of Yugoslavia.
18/4/1946. Thursday (+345) The
League of Nations was formally dissolved, after the United Nations had been set
up on 24/10/1945. See 26/6/1945.
17/4/1946, Wednesday (+344)
George Kohler, German biologist, was born (died 1995).
14/4/1946, Sunday (+341) Caroline Bradley, equestrian showjumping, was
born (died 1/6/1983).
7/4/1946, Sunday (+334)
3/4/1946, Wednesday (+330) Alf
Common, footballer, died (born 25/5/1880).
2/4/1946. Tuesday (+329) The
Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst was founded.� The Woolwich Academy was merged with
Sandhurst.
1/4/1946, Monday (+328) Major
earthquake in the Aleutian Islands.
===================================================================================
31/3/1946, Sunday (+327) General
Gort, British commander of the British Expeditionary Force� that entered France in 1939 and retreated
again in 1940, died.
28/3/1946, Thursday (+324)
The British Government announced plans for free school dinners and free milk at
school.
26/3/1946, Tuesday (+322) Allied Control Commission set limits on the
level of German industrial production.
24/3/1946, Sunday (+320) BBC radio began broadcasting Letter from
America, a weekly talk by Alistair Cook, on topical matters in the USA.
21/3/1946. Thursday (+317) (1)
Aneurin Bevan announced Labour Government plans for a National Health Service
to become operational in 1948. The cost per year was expected to be around �152
million (�5,000 million in 2015 prices; actual 2015 NHS spending is more like
�115,000 million).
(2) Goering denied he knew anything of the �final
solution�.
15/3/1946. Friday (+311) The
USSR began its 4th 5-Year Plan.
14/3/1946, Thursday (+310)
Alison Dawes, show jumper, was born.
12/3/1946, Tuesday (+308) Liza Minelli, US actress, was born.
10/3/1946. Sunday (+306) Britain
and France began to withdraw from Lebanon.
9/3/1946, Saturday (+305) 33 football fans were crushed to
death at Bolton Wanderer�s Football Ground when a barrier collapsed.
8/3/1946, Friday (+304) In Covent Garden, London,
bananas went on sale for the first time since the War.
6/3/1946, Wednesday (+302)
5/3/1946. Tuesday (+301) (UK, USA) Winston Churchill referred to an �Iron Curtain�
descending across Europe, in a speech at Fulton, USA. The first public
acknowledgement that the Cold War had begun. See 12/3/1947.
4/3/1946, Monday (+300) The USA, Britain and France appealed to the
Spanish to depose General Franco.
3/3/1946, Sunday (+299) John Virgo, English snooker player, was born.
2/3/1946. Saturday (+298) In North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh was elected President.
1/3/1946, Friday (+297) The
Bank of England was nationalised by Act of Parliament.
====================================================================================
28/2/1946, Thursday (+296)
Robin Cook, British politician, was born.
27/2/1946, Wednesday (+295) Thomas Hauser, author, was born.
26/2/1946, Tuesday (+294) Colin Bell, footballer, was born.
25/2/1946, Monday (+923) Franz Kroetz, German author, was born.
24/2/1946. Sunday (+292) Juan Peron was elected President of
Argentina.
23/2/1946, Saturday (+291) Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, who led the
Japanese conquest of Singapore and the Philippines, was executed by hanging in
Manila for war crimes, followed by Lt. Col. Seichi Ohta, who headed security
for Japan's �thought police� (kempei tai), also interpreter Takuma Higashigi.
22/2/1946, Friday (+290) Dr
Selman Abrahams announced the discovery of streptomycin, an antibiotic for
treating tuberculosis.
21/2/1946, Thursday (+289)
Indian naval mutiny at Bombay.
19/2/1946, Tuesday (+287)
16/2/1946, Saturday (+284) Edgar
Syers, ice skater, died (born 18/3/1863).
15/2/1946, Friday (+283) (Computing) ENIAC (Electronic Numerical
Integrator And Calculator) was put into operation at the University of
Pennsylvania; the first completely electronic (valve-driven) computer. It
weighed 31 tons. It was primarily used to calculate the yields for the thermonuclear
bombs being developed.
10/2/1946, Sunday (+278) The
first �GI brides� arrived in the USA to live with their new partners. When US
servicemen were stationed in the UK, British males complained they were
�overpaid, oversexed, and over here�. Many British women became engaged or
married to them. Now the GI brides assembled at camps in Hampshire, to be
shipped over to the USA aboard the Queen
Mary.
7/2/1946. Thursday (+275) (1) In response to world food shortages, UK food
rations were reduced.
(2) Hess was on
trial at Nuremberg for war crimes.
3/2/1946, Sunday (+271) The Hosiery
Designers of America chose actress Jane Russell�s legs as the �perfect pair�.
2/2/1946, Saturday (+270) Farrah
Fawcett, US actress, was born.
1/2/1946. Friday (+269) Hungary
declared itself a republic.
====================================================================================
31/1/1946, Thursday (+268)
Yugoslavia introduced a new Constitution, creating six constituent Republics;
Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Macedonia.
However these were subordinated to the centre, on the model of the USSR.
30/1/1946. Wednesday (+267) UN
General Assembly met for the first time, in London.
29/1/1946, Tuesday (+266) Harry
L Hopkins, US government social administrator, died aged 56.
27/1/1946, Sunday (+264) In
the Far East, more than 2,000 airmen went on strike at the slow pace of
demobilisation.
22/1/1946, Tuesday (+259) UK pit owners protested at plans to
nationalise the coal industry.
20/1/1946. Sunday (+257) De Gaulle resigned.� Goiun became President of France.
19/1/1946, Saturday (+256) Dolly
Parton, American Country and Western singer, was born in Sevierville,
Tennessee.
18/1/1946, Friday (+255) Poland appropriated all farms of
over 100 hectares (50 hectares for arable land) and redistributed the land to
farm labourers. 6 million hectares of land were reassigned, resulting in the
disappearance of the landowning gentry class.
15/1/1946, Tuesday (+252)
11/1/1946. Friday (+248) General
Enver Hoxha�s Democratic Front won 95% of the vote in Albania and proclaimed a
People's Republic. King Zog of Albania had been deposed on 2/1/1946. See
7/4/1939.
10/1/1946, Thursday (+247) The
League of Nations was officially dissolved, after 26 years, and replaced by the
United Nations.
9/1/1946, Wednesday (+246)
8/1/1946. Tuesday (+245) The
trial of Goering and Von Ribbentrop began.
7/1/1946. Monday (+244) Austria
was established as a de facto independent state, divided into four zones of
military occupation, as was Germany. See 15/5/1955. Vienna was also divided
into four zones, apart from the Innere Stadt district which was occupied
jointly by all four powers (Britain, France, the USA, and the USSR).
4/1/1946, Friday (+241)
3/1/1946. Thursday (+240) Nazi
propagandist William Joyce, the notorious Lord Haw Haw, was hanged in London
for treason. He was known as Lord Haw Haw for the falsely posh nasal tones of
his radio broadcasts telling of German military �successes� (often false). He
had been convicted on 19/9/1945.
2/1/1946. Wednesday (+239) King Zog of Albania was deposed in his
absence. He was born Ahmed Bey Zogu, a member of the Zogolli family. The
Zogolli led a powerful Moslem faction in the mountains of Albania, so when in
1912 Zog joined the powerful anti-Turkish movement, pressing for Albanian
independence, Muslims abandoned traditional religious ties in a push for
national freedom. Under King William, Zog achieved high office and in 1922
became Prime Minister. He was forced to flee abroad in 1924 but returned to
Albania in 1925 to become President of Albania. He played off various opposing
factions within the religiously divided state and gathered enough personal
power to have himself declared King in 1928. However he was unable to withstand
Mussolini in Italy and had to allow the Italians to invade in 1939 to prepare
to invade Greece. His credibility ruined, Zog was easily ousted by the
Communists in 1946.
1/1/1946, Tuesday (+238) Test flights began at an
airfield west of London, called Heathrow, to be developed as a major civilian
airport.
==================================================================================
31/12/1945, Monday (+237) Most
Berliners were subsisting on just 800 calories a day; in 1946 in the British
sector rations dropped on occasion to a slow as 400 calories a day, less than
was received by the inmates at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Not only was
food desperately short but numbers to be fed were swollen by huge numbers of
German refugees from eastern Europe. Medical supplies were also virtually
non-existent, and 43 of Berlin�s 44 hospitals had been destroyed or badly
damaged. Typhoid spread due to broken water mains and damaged sewers. Then
mosquitoes and other insects feeding on corpses spread disease, and dysentery
killed 6 out of 10 babies born in Berlin in July 1945. Another lethal hazard
was unexploded ordnance, shells, mines and grenades. In 1945 Berlin women
outnumbered men by 3 to 1.
30/12/1945, Sunday (+236) (Britain, Food) The SS
Tilapia docked in Bristol with the first cargo of bananas to enter the UK since
the War, since 11/1940, when the UK Government banned all fruit imports except
oranges.
29/12/1945, Saturday
(+235)
28/12/1945, Friday (+234)
Theodore Dreiser, US author (born 27/8/1871 in Terre Haute, Indiana), died in
Hollywood, California.
27/12/1945. Thursday (+233) The
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, commonly known as the �World Bank�, was established. The Bank
began operations, officially, in June 1946 at its headquarters at Washington,
DC. The IMF was also established this day.
21/12/1945, Friday (+227) (1) France
appointed Jean Monnet as head of a commission to repair and develop French
industry.� He evolved the Monnet Plan
which with 5 years enabled French industry to surpass its per-war output level.
(2) US General Patton was killed in a road accident
whilst commanding the 5th US Army in West Germany.
15/12/1945. Saturday (+221) Iranian Azerbaijan declared itself an
independent republic, following a Communist-led revolt there against Tehran in
November 1945. On 11/12/1946 Iranian troops re-conquered the province.
12/12/1945, Wednesday (+218)
Frederick Fox, champion jockey, died (born 2/1888).
11/12/1945.
Tuesday (+217) The new Waterloo Bridge,
London, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, fully opened.� Half its width had been in use since 1942.
10/12/1945,
Monday (+216)
8/12/1945, Saturday (+214)At
the Nuremberg Trials it emerged that Hitler had expected the Spanish General
Franco to seize Gibraltar from Britain.
7/12/1945. Friday (+213) The Japanese General Yamashita was
sentenced to death as a war criminal � on the anniversary of Pearl Harbour �
and was hanged the following month.
6/12/1945, Thursday (+212) U.S. General George C. Marshall testified at
the Pearl Harbour inquiry that he did not anticipate the attack but that an
"alert" defence would have prevented all but "limited harm�.
5/12/1945. Wednesday (+211) Five US Navy bombers on a training
flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, disappeared over the area later known as
the Bermuda Triangle, with 27 crew. When radio contact with the 5 planes was
lost, a 6th plane was sent to search for them; it too disappeared
without trace.
4/12/1945, Tuesday (+210) T H Morgan, US biologist, died aged 79.
3/12/1945, Monday (+209) The Arab League voted in Cairo to boycott all
goods from Jewish Palestine.
2/12/1945, Sunday (+208) (US, Islam, Jewish) The Arab world began a general boycott of
Israel, to geographically isolate the country. The boycott was to cover not
just companies trading with Israel or with Israeli companies but also companies
doing business with these companies. In 1977 the US, under President Carter, declared
it illegal for US companies to participate in this boycott. In the 1990s Israel
insisted upon the dismantling of the boycott, which was estimated to have cost
the country some US$ 40 billion, as part of the Peace Process. In 2001,
however, the Arab League�s Boycott Office resumed activities as part of its
support for the Palestinians during the Intifada.
1/12/1945, Saturday (+207) Soviet and US troops, which had jointly
occupied Czechoslovakia since the War, now pulled out. However the USSR kept
divisions close to its border with Czechoslovakia.
=====================================================================================
30/11/1945, Friday (+206) Roger Glove, Welsh bass player songwriter, was
born.
29/11/1945. Thursday (+205) King Peter of Yugoslavia was ousted
from power and a Communist Republic declared.
28/11/1945, Wednesday (+204)
Dwight F Davis, founder of the Davis Cup tennis tournament, died.
20/11/1945. Tuesday (+196) The Nuremberg Trials began. Setting up a war crimes tribunal was unprecedented and
an act of doubtful legality, but the world had a keen desire to see revenge for
the atrocities the Nazis had committees, especially in their concentration
camps. 24 Nazi leaders were on trial. Defendants included Goering, Hess, and
Ribbentrop. On 16/10/1946 the executions of the guilty began. These included
Von Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, and Streicher.
18/11/1945, Sunday (+194) Dr W N Leek, in Cheshire, claimed that the
falling UK birth-rate was due to people wearing pyjamas in bed instead of nightshirts.
15/11/1945, Thursday (+191) Thomas Stack, champion jockey, was born.
14/11/1945, Wednesday (+190) Riots broke out in Tel Aviv over the
U.S.-British statement on Palestine, killing two and wounding 57.
13/11/1945. Tuesday (+189) (1) De Gaulle was elected President of
France by the unanimous vote of all 555 deputies.� However he resigned within ten weeks when the
Fourth Republic disagreed with his idea for a strong US-style Presidency.� See 21/12/1958.
(2) Britain and the USA announced the creation of a joint
committee to decide the future of Palestine.
12/11/1945. Monday (+188) Marshall Tito�s National Front Party
secured an overwhelming majority in general elections.
11/11/1945, Sunday (+187)
Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua, was born.
10/11/1945, Saturday (+186) (1) The Communist Enver Hoxha established a
Republican government in Albania, recognised by the UK, USA, and the USSR.
(2) In Poland a Central Planning Office was established;
renamed as the State Planning Commission in 1949.
9/11/1945, Friday (+185) Martial law ended in Bulgaria and
demobilization began.
8/11/1845, Thursday (+184) British commander E.C. Mansergh ordered all
Indonesians to surrender their arms by 6 a.m. Saturday or face �all the naval,
army and air forces under my command�. That night President Sukarno of the
unrecognized Indonesian Republic appealed to President Truman and Prime
Minister Attlee to intervene in the conflict to prevent bloodshed.
7/11/1945, Wednesday (+183)
The jet aircraft Meteor EE454 reached the record speed of 606 mph.
6/11/1945. Tuesday (+182) The USSR said it would build its own
atom bomb.
5/11/1945, Monday (+181) In
Britain, a seven-week dock strike ended.
4/11/1945. Sunday (+180) General election in Hungary. Communists won just
17% of the vote, with the Smallholders Party winning with 60% of the vote.
Zoltan Tildy of the Smallholders Party formed a coalition government.
3/11/1945. Saturday (+179) Gerd Muller, German footballer, was born in
Nordlingen.
1/11/1945, Thursday (+177) (Innovation) The
Slinky coil was patented by Richard James in Pennsylvania.
===================================================================================
29/10/1945. Monday (+174) (1) Biro pens went on sale in New York for the
first time. Priced at US$1.25 at Gimbels store, some 10,000 were sold in one
day.
(2) The Harwell
Atomic Energy Research Establishment was set up.
25/10/1945, Thursday (+170)
(China)
Taiwan was formally ceded by Japan to China.
24/10/1945. Wednesday (+169) (1) The
United Nations Charter came into force, see 18/4/1946.
(2) Vidkun
Quisling was hanged as a war criminal, at Askerhus Fortress, Oslo. He had
joined the Norwegian Fascist Party (Nasjonal Samlung) in 1933, and had
encouraged Hitler to invade Norway. He was also held responsible for sending
nearly 1,000 Norwegian Jews to Nazi concentration camps. See 10/9/1945.
(3) In Hungary, key industries and the banking sector
were nationalised, as part of the Kosice Programme.
23/10/1945, Tuesday (+168)
Kim
Larsen, rock musician, was born in Copenhagen, Denmark.
22/10/1945, Monday (+167) Sheila
Sherwood, athlete (long jump), was born.
21/10/1945, Sunday (+166) Elections
in France provided gains for the Left. The Communists won 148 seats, the
Socialists 134, Radical Socialists 35 (the Popular Republican Movement won 141
seats), Conservatives 62 seats, others 2 seats.
18/10/1945, Thursday (+163)
16/10/1945, Tuesday (+161) The Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) was established.� Its
aim was to raise levels of nutrition and standards of living.
15/10/1945, Monday (+160)
Pierre Laval, leader of the French Vichy government, was executed for treason
for collaboration with the Nazis.
14/10/1945, Sunday (+159) Kim Il Sung returned to North
Korea (in the uniform of a Soviet Red Army Major) to receive a hero�s welcome.
Soviet policy in North Korea was to install North Korean Communists in key
positions swiftly after the War ended to reinforce Communist rule in the
northern half of the country.
12/10/1945, Friday (+157)
11/10/1945. Thursday (+156) Fighting
broke out in China between the Nationalists under Chiang Kai Shek and the
Communists under Mao Tse Tung.
10/10/1945, Wednesday (+155) The
Communist Party of Korea was founded. North Korea observes Party Foundation Day
every October 10 as a national holiday.
9/10/1945. Tuesday (+154) Pierre
Laval, Prime Minister of Vichy France, was sentenced to death.
8/10/1945, Monday (+153) Percy Spencer, a radar expert, patented the first microwave oven.
His employer gave him a bonus of 2 US$. US engineers working on the magnetron,
a crucial component of radar systems in World war Two, had noticed how food
items in the lab would warm up when near this apparatus; in fact engineers used
to test if the magnetron was working by putting their finger near it to see if
it warmed up
1/10/1945, Monday (+146)
=================================================================================
26/9/1945.
Wednesday (+141) Bela Bartok, composer,
died.
20/9/1945,
Thursday (+135) Alexander Purves, rugby
player, was born.
19/9/1945.
Wednesday (+134) Clement Attlee, UK Prime
Minister, promised India will have independence.
15/9/1945, Saturday (+130)
Japan was occupied by Allied forces under General MacArthur.� See 28/4/1952, and 14/8/1945.
13/9/1945, Thursday (+128) Lieutenant General Hatazo Adachi of Japan
surrendered. Just 13,000 of his orig8inal 65,000 men were left alive. He was
sentenced to life imprisonment as a war criminal, and committed suicide in
1947.
12/9/1945, Wednesday (+127)
An estimate of War casualties reckoned that Britain had lost 420,000 members of
the armed forces; the US had lost 292,000, and the USSR, 13 million. German
loss of military men was put at 3.9 million, Japan�s at 2.6 million. British
civilian casualties from air raids were set at 60,000, with 860,000 severely
injured.
11/9/1945, Tuesday (+126) Japanese General Hideki Tojo attempted
suicide when American troops arrived at his home to arrest him as a war
criminal. Tojo shot himself below the heart with a revolver, but survived.
10/9/1945. Monday (+125) Vidkun Quisling was sentenced to death
at Oslo for collaborating with the Nazis. He had been puppet Prime Minister
during the Nazi occupation of Norway. He was executed on 24/10/1945, by firing
squad, at Akershus Fortress, Oslo.
9/9/1945, Sunday (+124)
Japanese forces in China formally surrendered to Chiank Kai Shek in Nanking.
8/9/1945. Saturday (+123) The USA and USSR agreed to divide the
Korean Peninsula.
7/9/1945, Friday (+122)
Berlin
Victory Parade of 1945: The Allies held a victory parade in Berlin. The Soviet
JS-3 heavy tank was displayed in public for the first time.
6/9/1945, Thursday
(+121) A leftist committee led by Woon Hyung Lyuh proclaimed
itself the official Government of an independent South Korea. However the US
under Lieutenant John R Hodge, Commanding General of US forces in Korea,
refused to recognise this Government. The US wanted to establish a trusteeship
to supersede both the US military administration in the South and the
Soviet-backed administration in the North. The Korean Government in exile
declared itself as a political party, not the government.
5/9/1945. Wednesday (+120) Singapore re-occupied by the
British. See 15/2/1942.
4/9/1945, Tuesday (+119)
The Japanese garrison on Wake Island formally surrendered to the USA, see
23/12/1941..
3/9/1945, Monday (+118) General Tomoyuki Yamashita formally surrendered the
remaining Japanese troops in the Philippines to United States Army General
Jonathan M. Wainwright, the same commander who was compelled to surrender to
Yamashita at Corregidor in 1942.
2/9/1945, Sunday (+117) Formal
surrender of Japan, see 14/8/1945. The Japanese Chief of Staff, General
Yoshijiro Umezo, signed the surrender document on board the USS Missouri, in
front of General McArthur.
1/9/1945.
Saturday (+116) British troops took control of Hong
Kong.
==================================================================================
31/8/1945, Friday (+115) Douglas MacArthur established the Supreme
Allied Command in Tokyo.
30/8/1945, Thursday (+114)
The British Royal Navy returned to Hong Kong.
29/8/1945, Wednesday (+113) The Xinghua Campaign began in China.
28/8/1945.
Tuesday (+112) US troops landed in
Japan.
25/8/1945,
Saturday (+109)
20/8/1945, Monday (+104) The US terminated the Lend Lease Act,
as hostilities had ceased� Passed by US
Congress in 1941, it offered help to the UK, under attack from the Nazis.� However US aid to Europe continued under the
Marshall Plan.
19/8/1945.
Sunday (+103) Soviet troops occupied Harbin and Mukden
in Manchuria; 100,000 Japanese there surrendered.
18/8/1945 Saturday (+102) The Soviet invasion of the Kuril Islands
began, opening with the Battle of Shumshu.
17/8/1945, Friday (+101) Indonesia was proclaimed an independent
republic, under Dr Sukarno, after its liberation from Japanese forces.� The PNI (Indonesian Nationalist Party)
proclaimed a Republic in the city they called Jakarta, and the Dutch called
Batavia.� The Dutch and the PNI began
fighting.
16/8/1945, Thursday (+100) Emperor Hirohito issued a decree at 4:00
p.m. local time ordering all Japanese forces to cease fire. The Japanese
cabinet resigned.
15/8/1945, Wednesday (+99) Marshal Petain was convicted of treason (see
23/7/1945) and sentenced to death. Like all death sentences on minors and
women, this was commuted by President De Gaulle to life and the 90-year-old
Marshal was confined to the Ile de Yeu off the Vendee coast. In June 1951
Petain, feeble and devoid of mental faculties, was released; he died less than
a month later. Overall in France the purge of collaborators, known as
l�epuration (the purification) lasted from September 1944 to the end of 1949.
Just over 2,000 death sentences were handed down, of which 768 were carried
out. Even the entertainer Maurice Chevalier, who had merely entertained French
PoWs in Germany, narrowly escaped a firing squad. Some 12x this number of those
officially executed were summarily shot by firing squad immediately after
liberation.
14/8/1945. Tuesday (+98) (1) Japan surrendered unconditionally. This
marked the end of World War II. VJ day was officially celebrated on the
following day, the 15th August. The Japanese surrender was
officially accepted by General Douglas MacArthur on the US aircraft carrier Missouri on 2/9/1945. Between November
1944 and August 1945 nearly 70 Japanese cities were pulverised, with around
300,000, mostly civilians, killed.
(2) J M Keynes warned that Britain was facing a
�financial Dunkirk� as Lend Lease was ended (see 20/8/1945). Britain�s overseas
debts had risen from UK� 496 million in 1939 to UK� 3,500 million in 1945.
Pre-War gold and Dollar reserves had been used up, along with UK�1,118 million
of overseas investments. The UK only avoided bankruptcy with a US$ 4,000
million loan from the USA, granted on strict terms including abandoning the
trade preferences granted to Commonwealth countries and making Sterling fully
convertible. When these terms were implemented in 1947, Sterling crashed.
(3) (China, Russia) The Soviet
Union concluded a Treaty of Friendship with Nationalist China. This included
handing over Manchuria, which the Soviets had conquered from Japanese forces,
to China. However before the Soviets moved out, they stripped the region of all
the military and industrial equipment they could move, and took this, along
with many Japanese PoWs, back to Russia to support their own industrial
reconstruction.
13/8/1945, Monday (+97) The World Zionist Congress demanded the
admission of 1 million Jews to Palestine.
12/8/1945, Sunday (+96) Soviet forces occupied North Korea, Sakhalin and
the Kurile islands.
11/8/1945, Saturday (+95) The US drafted General Order
No.1, providing for Japanese forces in Korea north of the 38th
parallel to surrender to the Soviets; those south of the 38th
parallel to surrender to the Americans. The Soviets began to seal off the North
at the 38th parallel, whilst the US was keen to halt any further
southwards penetration by Russian soldiers.
10/8/1945, Friday (+94)
Emperor Hirohito of Japan announced he was prepared to surrender unconditionally.
The US cancelled plans to drop two further atoms bombs, scheduled for 13 and 16
August.
9/8/1945. Thursday (+93) The second atomic bomb was dropped, on
Nagasaki. 40,000 were killed here.� The
intended target, Kokura, was obscured by cloud.
8/8/1945. Wednesday (+92) The USSR, under Stalin, declared war
on Japan. The USSR invaded Japanese-held Manchuria, and northern Korea.
7/8/1945, Tuesday (+91) Radio Tokyo reported unspecifically about an
attack on Hiroshima. The Americans were unable to immediately assess the
results for themselves because of impenetrable cloud over the detonation site.
Late in the day, Imperial Japanese headquarters referred to a "new type of
bomb" used on Hiroshima, admitting that "only a small number of the
new bombs were released, yet they did substantial damage.
6/8/1945. Monday (+90) The
first atomic bomb was dropped, on Hiroshima, Japan, from the B29 bomber
Enola Gay. At 8.15 in the morning a nuclear chain reaction in the bomb built up
a temperature of several million degrees centigrade. In 0.1 milliseconds a
fireball at 300,000 degrees centigrade was created, and this expanded to 250
yards in diameter one second after detonation. The mushroom cloud reached
23,000 feet into the sky. 78,000 of the city�s population of 300,000 was
killed, some instantaneously, by the blast, some later by the firestorm that
the bomb created, and another 90,000 injured, many seriously.
5/8/1945, Sunday (+89) The U.S. Twentieth Air Force flew over twelve
Japanese cities and dropped 720,000 pamphlets warning their populations to
surrender or face devastation.
4/8/1945, Saturday (+88) The
US dropped leaflets over Hiroshima, warning that their city was to be
obliterated.
3/8/1945, Friday (+87) The American government announced that every
Japanese and Korean harbour of consequence had been mined, leaving Japan
totally blockaded.
2/8/1945, Thursday (+86) The Potsdam Conference (began
16/7/1945) ended without agreement on the future of Europe. The Soviets would
not agree to free elections in Eastern Europe.
1/8/1945. Wednesday
(+85) Family Favourites record request
programme began on the BBC.
=====================================================================================
31/7/1945, Tuesday (+84)
On
Tinian, the assembly of the Little Boy atomic bomb was completed.
30/7/1945, Monday
(+83) The Japanese submarine I-58 sank the USS Indianapolis,
killing 833 seamen.
29/7/1945, Sunday (+82) (1) The BBC Light Programme began broadcasting.
(2) Japan rejected a US ultimatum to surrender. The US
estimated that 1 million Allied casualties would ensue from a land invasion of
Japan.
28/7/1945, Saturday (+81) A
B-25 bomber crashed into the 78th floor of the Empire State
Building, killing the 3 crew and 11 passengers.
27/7/1945, Friday (+80)
On
the Philippine island of Tinian, the Little Boy atomic bomb began being
prepared for use.
26/7/1945. Thursday (+79) (1) Clement Attlee�s Labour
Government came to power with a huge majority of 173 seats. The result was
Labour, 412 seats, Conservative 213 seats, and Liberals 12 seats. Clement
Attlee was born in Putney, London, on 3/1/1883. The former government of
Winston Churchill was defeated. Churchill�s warning that �no Socialist system
can be established without some form of political police or Gestapo� did the
Conservatives more harm than Labour, as voters thought it ridiculous to compare
politicians like Attlee and Bevan to Hitler. However the new Labour Government
now faced severe economic problems. �4 billion of British foreign investments
had gone, exports were half the 1938 level, industry was damaged and run-down,
and 700,000 houses in London alone were bomb damaged. Then there were the
Labour commitments to a Welfare State, free healthcare, and the nationalisation
of major industries. Politically the USA and USSR emerged as superpowers, but
Britain had lost its premier standing in the world forever.
(2) In the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany, the banks
were closed and citizens ordered to hand over all their gold, silver, foreign
currency and other valuables to the Russians, who were also dismantling
factories and taking them to Russia as reparations.
(3) In the war against Japan, the Allies issued their
final terms for peace; the Potsdam Declaration. This failed to guarantee the
post-surrender retention of the Japanese Emperor, Hirohito; which was the only
guarantee the Japanese were seeking for surrender. Therefore the war continued,
culminating in the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In fact
the Emperor was allowed to remain, post-surrender.
25/7/1945, Wednesday (+78)
The British 14th Army captured the railhead of Taunggyi in Shan
State, north eastern Burma.
24/7/1945, Tuesday (+77) (Japan) US
President Harry Truman told Joseph Stalin that a new and powerful weapon was
ready to be deployed against Japan, but did not provide any specific
information. Truman was relieved that Stalin did not ask for further details;
in fact the Russians already knew from their spies. The atom bomb was used
against Japan, but it was also intended to deter Russia from attempting to
occupy Japan.
23/7/1945, Monday (+76) Marshal
Petain was charged with treason, see 15/8/1945.
22/7/1945, Sunday (+75) Art treasures worth an estimated $500 million
U.S. that had been looted by the Germans during the war were returned to Florence,
Italy.
21/7/1945, Saturday (+74) John Lowe, darts champion, was born.
20/7/1945, Friday (+73) Paul Valery, French poet, died aged 74.
19/7/1945, Thursday (+72) Heinrich Wolfflin, Swiss art historian, died
aged 81.
18/7/1945, Wednesday (+71) The Belgian senate voted to forbid
the return of Leopold III.
17/7/1945, Tuesday (+70) The Potsdam Conference began, attended
by Allied leaders Truman, Stalin, and Churchill (later replaced by Attlee).
16/7/1945. Monday (+69) The atom bomb, produced at Los Alamos, was tested at Alamogordo airbase in the
desert of New Mexico. See 8/3/1950.
12/7/1945, Thursday (+65) John Taylor, rugby player, was born.
10/7/1945, Tuesday (+63) Virginia Wade, tennis champion, was born.
7/7/1945, Saturday (+60) Trains carried a record 102,889 holidaymakers
to Blackpool. UK beaches had been off limits to civilians since the War began
in 1939. In 1948 the Holidays With Pay Act increased the holiday trade even more.
5/7/1945, Thursday (+58) UK
General Election. The results were delayed three weeks to allow for postal
votes cast overseas by members of the armed forces.
1/7/1945. Sunday (+54) The average wage of a bricklayer on London
was 2s (10p) an hour; in Glasgow it was 2s 2d (11p) an hour. A 4lb (1.75 kg)
loaf of bread cost 8d (3.3p) A gallon of petrol cost 1s 11d (9 �p). A week at
the Victoria Hotel, Buttermere, Lake District, with full board, cost �5 5s
(�5.25). Quite expensive for the London bricklayer.
====================================================================================
28/6/1945, Thursday (+51)
Kenneth Buchanan, boxer, was born in Edinburgh.
27/6/1945, Wednesday (+50) William
Sturgess, champion walker, died (born 2/4/1871).
26/6/1945, Tuesday (+49) The Charter for the United
Nations was signed by the US.
25/6/1945. Monday (+48) The
Charter for the United Nations was drawn up in San Francisco, and signed by 50
countries. This was the successor to the League of Nations. See 18/4/1946.
24/6/1945, Sunday (+47) In Thailand,
British bombers destroyed the two railway bridges over the notorious River
Kwai, built with slave labour
22/6/1945. Friday (+45) US troops captured Okinawa.
18/6/1945, Monday (+41) (1) The first
demobilisations began in Britain (see 22/9/1944).
(2) In Hungary, as part of the Kosice Programme, the
expulsion of all Germans and Magyars who had not been anti-Fascists was
ordered. They had mostly left by the end of 1946. Large Hungarian estates were
expropriated and converted into State farms.
16/6/1945, Saturday (+39) Sean Kelly was elected President
of Ireland.
15/6/1945. Friday (+38) Family
Allowance payments were introduced in Britain. The rates were 5 shillings (25
pence) for the second child and subsequent ones, but nothing for the first
child.
14/6/1945, Thursday (+37)
13/6/1945, Wednesday (+36)
Australian forces captured Brunei City.
12/6/1945, Tuesday (+35) Patrick
Jennings, footballer, was born.
8/6/1945, Friday (+31) Derek Underwood, cricketer, was born.
5/6/1945. Tuesday (+28) Allied
commanders signed a pact for the occupation of Germany; it was t be divided
into 4 zones, British, French, USA, and USSR.
4/6/1945, Monday (+27) US
forces landed on the Oruku peninsula, Okinawa, in an attempt to outflank Japanese
defensive positions.
3/6/1945, Sunday (+26) Brian W
Barnes, golfer, was born.
2/6/1945, Saturday (+25) Jon
Peters, film producer, was born in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California.
1/6/1945, Friday (+24) Heavy
air raid on Osaka, Japan; 20 square km of the city was totally destroyed.
=====================================================================================
31/5/1945, Thursday (+23) The Norwegian Government returned
to govern in Oslo, having been in exile in London.� King Haakon returned from London a week
later.
30/5/1945, Wednesday (+24)
Several thousand ethnic Germans were expelled from the Czech city of Brno. Many
did not make it as far as the Austrian border but died en route; the Brno Death
March.
29/5/1945, Tuesday (+21) Martin
Pipe, champion jockey, was born.
28/5/1945, Monday (+20) Lord Haw Haw, William Joyce, was
arrested, see 3/1/1946.
26/5/1945, Saturday (+18)
24/5/1945, Thursday (+16) The
University of Lodz, Poland, was founded.
23/5/1945. Wednesday (+15)
Heinrich Himmler, former
Nazi Chief of Police, killed himself whilst in British custody. He had joined
the waves of German civilian refugees unnoticed after VE Day and wandered
aimlessly until he encountered a British checkpoint at Bremervorde, where his
true identity was uncovered. As he was being searched he bit into a cyanide
capsule and died.
22/5/1945, Tuesday (+14) Tiso, President of �Slovakia�,
was arrested whilst in hiding in Austria.�
He was tried for wartime collaboration in a Czechoslovak court and
sentenced to death in April 1947.� Some
Czechoslovaks pressed for a reprieve but the national government wanted the
death sentence and he was executed, see 26/10/1939 and 18/4/1947.
21/5/1945, Monday (+13) Herbert
Adams, US sculptor (born 28/1/1858) died.
18/5/1945, Friday (+10)
15/5/1945, Tuesday (+7) The
last Nazi fighters in Yugoslavia ceased resistance.
14/5/1945, Monday (+6) The last of Germany�s U-Boats in the Atlantic
surrendered at Londonderry.
13/5/1945, Sunday (+5) Rioting outside a Catholic church in Santiago,
Chile which was holding a mass in memory of Benito Mussolini. Several people
were injured and four arrests were made.
12/5/1945, Saturday (+4) Alan Ball, footballer, was born.
11/5/1945. Friday (+3) Prague,
the last European capital under Nazi occupation, was liberated.
10/5/1945, Thursday (+2) Vidkun Quisling was captured by Resistance
fighters in Norway.
9/5/1945, Wednesday (+1) The German occupation of the Channel Islands
ended. The German commander of the Channel Islands, Vice-Admiral Huffmeier, had
threatened to fight on but his 10,000 men ignored him and surrendered without a
shot being fired. The ordinary people had come close to starvation, subsisting
on stewed rabbits and cabbage. As late as 7/5/1945 the German occupiers had
been issuing orders to improve coastal fortifications.
8/5/1945. Tuesday (0) (1) VE Day. The Second World War officially ended in
Europe, at one minute past midnight. Field Marshall Keitel signed the final capitulation. The Channel
Islands remained under Nazi occupation till the following day, 9/5/1945. Street
parties were held all over Britain.
UK Bomber Command has calculated the following
statistics relating to the Second World War. 55,573 aircrew were killed, of
whom 47,130 died on operations, 138 died as PoWs, and 8,090 were killed in
�mon-operational incidents� (mostly flying accidents). Of those killed, 38,462
were British, 9,980 were Canadian, 4,050 were Australian and 1,703 were New
Zealanders. 530 RAF groundcrew were killed, and 759 injured, in incidents such
as bombs detonating when being loaded onto aircraft or being jammed in the bomb
bay. Total bombs dropped on Axis countries amounted to 955,044 tons, of which
657,674 tons was dropped on Germany itself. 336,037 bombing raids were carried
out by the RAF. 8,655 aircraft were reported as missing (failed to return). By
the end of 1944 Allied raids had reduced German oil production by 40%, so that
many German tanks and aircraft became unusable due to lack of fuel, even if
they were serviceable.
German civilian casualties have been estimated at
between 350,000 and 600,000.
Some 3.4 million German houses and flats had been
destroyed out of a total of 17.1 million; a further 30% of homes had been
severely damaged by bombing. The desperate housing shortage was exacerbated by
an influx of some 10 million refugees from eastern Europe. Many Germans lived 5
or 6 to a room, or existed in makeshift shelters. Some, as at
Dachau near Munich, lived in former concentration camps.
In Greater Manchester 684 people died in the bombing,
and an additional 2,364 were injured.
See also Hungary for other War damage tolls.
(2) During French VE celebrations in
Setif, Algerian nationalists again agitated for independence. An Algerian
carried the forbidden Algerian green and white flag; he was shot dead by French
police. The French
aftermath was heavy handed, with mass arrests, and the deaths of several tens
of thousands of Algerians; 103 Europeans also died.
7/5/1945. Monday (-1) German Chief of Staff Jodl unconditionally
surrendered to Allied forces at Reims, ending the fighting in Europe. The
surrender was at 2.40 am in a small schoolhouse that served as General
Eisenhower�s headquarters. The last ship sunk by German forces, the Avondale Park, was lost. See 4/9/1939. Soviet
forces took Wroclaw, south-west Poland.
6/5/1945, Sunday (-2) German
forces in Norway surrendered.
5/5/1945. Saturday (-3) (1) Denmark liberated from Nazi occupation
� see 9/4/1940.� German troops in Holland under General
Johannes von Blaskowitz also surrendered to the Canadian Commander Charles
Foulkes.
(2) Elsie Mitchell and the five children she was looking
after were killed in Oregon by a Japanese balloon bomb.� They ware the only people killed in enemy
action on the US mainland during World War Two.
4/5/1945, Friday (-4) German
troops in The Netherlands, Denmark, north-west Germany surrendered.�
3/5/1945, Thursday (-5) (1) Hamburg captured� by the British.
(2) Rijeka
(Fiume) was captured by the Yugoslavs; the Germans left, but blew up the port
installations first.
(3) British forces took Rangoon, Burma.
2/5/1945. Wednesday (-6) The one million German soldiers in Austria surrendered. Berlin
finally surrendered to the Russians at 3 pm. British and Russian troops linked
up at Wismar on the Baltic. Trieste captured by New Zealand forces.
1/5/1945, Tuesday (-7) (France-Germany)
(1) Joseph
Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide, having killed their six
children with poison. US troops entered
Bavaria. Berlin was totally in Russian hands.
(2) During May Day celebrations in Algiers, Algerian
nationalist demonstrators staged an unauthorised march, with banners demanding
independence from France. French attempts to halt the march led to the deaths of
10 Algerians and one Frenchman.
===================================================================================
30/4/1945. Monday (-8) (1) Adolf
Hitler poisoned his wife Eva Braun with cyanide, then shot himself, in his
Berlin bunker. They had married two days earlier. Hitler ordered that his
body be burned; he was determined to avoid its being displayed as Mussolini�s
had (28/4/1945). He feared even more being captured alive and taken to Moscow. German
radio announced that Grand Admiral
Doenitz was now leader of the Reich. Doenitz stated that the main aim was
�to defend Germany from Bolshevism�; Doenitz and his supporters wanted to fight
on, whilst another faction led by Heinrich Himmler wanted to surrender to both
the Western Allies and Russia. As Hitler
died, Soviet tanks were entering the ruins of central Berlin. There was
panic on the Berlin streets as SS men shot deserting Nazi soldiers, whilst
low-flying Soviet biplanes machine-gunned bread queues. Bodies littered once
elegant streets, looted of all valuables.
(2) Turin entered by US forces.
(3) The face of Big Ben, London, was lit once more for
the first time in 5 years 123 days, an important sign that the War was nearly
over.
29/4/1945. Sunday (-9) (1) The
Allies took Venice. German troops in
Italy unconditionally surrendered at 12 noon on 29/4/1945. Munich
entered by US forces. British troops crossed the Elbe near Hamburg. At 1am on
30/4/1945 Hitler was informed that all Nazi forces he had been hoping would
relieve Berlin were now encircled or on the defensive.
(2) Allied planes began Operation Manna, a 10-day long
food drop for the starving Dutch. During the �Hongerwinter� of 1944/5 severe
cold weather had combined with a Nazi ban on food imports to The Netherlands
and the scorched earth policy of the retreating Nazis to create a famine that killed
20,000 Dutch civilians, who had been reduced to eating tulip bulbs and stinging
nettles. The RAF dropped 7,030 tons of food, and the US Air Force dropped a
further 4,150 tons under Operation Chowhound; 3.5 million Dutch were saved from
starvation before the German surrender of 8/5/1945. German forces still
occupying Holland did not fire upon the food relief planes, flying at just 100
metres above ground.
28/4/1945, Saturday (-10) (1) Hitler married his
mistress, Eva Braun, in his Berlin bunker, in the early hours of the
morning. The act was a symbolic abandonment
of Hitler�s plans for �national socialism��
- he had insisted that, as Fuhrer, he would have no ties to another
human being. Meanwhile the Wehrmacht withdrew from the town of Demmin, north-eastern
Germany, blowing up bridges as they retreated and abandoning the town�s
civilians to the oncoming Red Army.
(2) Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were caught
and shot in Azzano, near Milan, by Italian partisans, as they tried to flee
Italy. Born in 1883, Mussolini allied with Nazi Germany in WW2. However as the
allies invaded Italy the Italian Communist partisans decided to execute him. He
tried to cross the frontier disguised as a German soldier retreating towards
Innsbruck, Austria, but was recognised. Democracy was restored to Italy after
20 years and a neo � Fascist party supporting Mussolini�s ideals won only 2% of
the vote in the Italian elections of 1948. The body of Mussolini, his mistress,
and other government officials, were hung upside down in Milan.
(3) US General George Patton ordered that German
civilians be taken to see the Dachau concentration camp.
27/4/1945, Friday (-11) Genoa
captured by US forces. Berlin was now totally surrounded by Soviet forces, and
Hitler received reports that Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, had offered to
surrender to the western Allies.
26/4/1945, Thursday (-12)
Bremen captured by Allied forces.
25/4/1945, Wednesday (-13) (1) US and
Soviet forces met on the Elbe near Torgau. The Allies captured Verona. Italian partisans liberated
Milan. Marshal Petain was arrested. Zhukov�s and Koniev�s armies met west of
Berlin, surrounding it.
(2) An international conference to establish a world
security organisation, the �United Nations�, opened in San Francisco.
24/4/1945, Tuesday (-14) Himmler offered to surrender the German
Reich to the governments of Great Britain and the USA.
23/4/1945, Monday (-15) River Po reached by the Allies. Blackout restrictions removed in Britain.
22/4/1945, Sunday (-16) Stuttgart
taken by French forces. Hitler was told that forces under SS General Felix
Steiner were unable to rescue Berlin from Soviet occupation.
21/4/1945, Saturday (-17) (1) (Germany)
Soviet forces under Zhukov (1st
Belorussian Front) entered the suburbs of Berlin. Dessau entered by US
forces.
(2) Bologna,
Italy, was liberated by the Allies, cutting links between the German 10th
and 14th Armies. It had been under German occupation from September
1943, when Italy switched sides in the War.
20/4/1945, Friday (-18) (1) Britain estimated its
civilian casualties from the war at 146,760. Civilian casualties in London
amounted to 80,307.
(2) Nuremberg,
once the scene of huge Nazi rallies, fell to the Allies, on Hitler�s 56th
birthday. There was also the last air raid on Berlin. Soviet forces were
to enter Berlin tomorrow. Since the first raid on 29/8/1940, some 76,652 tons
of explosives and incendiary bombs had been dropped on the German capital.
50,692 tons were British, and 25,962 American. Soviet artillery also rained
down some 40,000 tons of shells during the final stages of the war.
19/4/1945, Thursday (-19) US
forces took Leipzig; the city was later handed to the Soviet sector, East
Germany.
18/4/1945, Wednesday (-20) (1) Russians fighting on the Seelow Heights broke
through westwards towards Berlin.�
The US took Magdeburg (later handed to the Soviet Zone).�
(2) US troops under General Patton entered
Czechoslovakia.
(3) Dachau concentration camp was liberated by the Allies.
17/4/1945, Tuesday (-21) The
Battle of the Hongorai River began in New Guinea.
16/4/1945, Monday (-22) The Russians began a major assault on the Seelow Heights,
crossing the Oder River.
15/4/1945. Sunday (-23) The Allies captured the Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp.� Eva Braun descended
to Hitler�s bunker; she had previously resided in a private apartment in the
Chancellery, since March 1945.
14/4/1945, Saturday (-24) Canadian
forces in Holland reached the North Sea and captured Leeuwarden. French and US
forces attacked Germans in the Bordeaux area. The Americans crossed the Elbe
south of Dessau.
13/4/1945. Friday (-25) Vienna
was captured� by Soviet troops from the
Germans.
12/4/1945. Thursday
(-26) (1) The Scottish Nationalists won their first by-election, gaining a seat
from Labour at Motherwell. However Labour regained
the seat at the General Election a few months later.
(2) Franklin
D Roosevelt, 32nd
President from 1933, Democrat, died,
aged 63, having suffered a massive stroke that day at Warm Springs, Georgia..
He was succeeded by Vice President Harry
S Truman, as 33rd President of the USA.
11/4/1945, Wednesday (-27) Buchenwald concentration camp, near
Weimar, was liberated by US forces. On the Western Front, the Allies reached
the Elbe, 60 miles from Berlin.
10/4/1945,
Tuesday (-28) Hanover taken by US
forces. The Nordhausen underground V2 assembly plant was overrun by US forces.
9/4/1945,
Monday (-29) (1)
Konigsberg, capital of east Prussia, taken by the Russians.
(2)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian involved with anti-Hitler conspirators,
was hanged in Flossenburg concentration camp.
8/4/1945, Sunday (-30) Cebu
City fell to the Allies.
7/4/1945, Saturday (-31) Germany sent out 120 student pilots to face
1,000 American bomber planes with the objective of ramming their planes into
the U.S. aircraft and then parachuting to safety. Only a few of the pilots
managed to hit the bombers and three-quarters of the Luftwaffe pilots were shot
down.
6/4/1945, Friday (-32) Allied forces began Operation Grapeshot, a
renewed Spring offensive in Italy.
5/4/1945,
Thursday (-33) British forces reached
Minden.
4/4/1945,
Wednesday (-34) Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, captured by Soviet forces. The last
Wermacht forces evacuated Hungary. French forces entered Karlsruhe.
3/4/1945,
Tuesday (-35) Hamm and Cassel captured
by US forces.
2/4/1945, Monday (-36) The Soviet Army began an offensive to take
Vienna.
1/4/1945,
Sunday (-37)
Easter Sunday (1)
German forces in the Ruhr area trapped, and 21 German divisions destroyed.
(2)
The Battle of Okinawa began as US troops landed on the island. US victory came
83 days later.
===================================================================================
31/3/1945, Saturday (-38) In the last days of war, Berlin maintained a
surreal normality. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra continued recitals until
now. Telephones functioned, the underground railway ran, and post continued to
be delivered right up to the last few days of the war. Berlin workers still
picked their way through rubble filled streets to work, often in offices whose
windows had all been blown out.
30/3/1945.
Friday (-39) The Russians took Danzig (Gdansk), Poland, also the town of Ratibor in Silesia.� The Poles renamed the city Gdansk,� from Danzig, expelled the Germans, and linked
the city administratively with the neighbouring port of Gdynia, built on Polish
territory in the 1920s.
29/3/1945,
Thursday (-40) (1)
Mannheim captured by US forces.
(2)
Soviet troops entered Austria.
28/3/1945,
Wednesday (-41) Gdynia captured by the Russians. Last air raid warning siren sounded in London.
27/3/1945.
Tuesday (-42) The last German V-2 rocket fell on Britain, at
Orpington. (see 8/9/1944).� The Allies then overran the last V-2
launching site. In all, 1,050 rockets fell on England, each carrying a ton
of explosive with a range of 200 miles. 518 of these V2s hit London, killing
2,754 people and seriously injuring a further 6,523. The V-2s were designed by Werner von Braun, who surrendered to the Americans in 1945.� Von Braun was given US citizenship and helped
design the rockets for the US space programme, including the Saturn rockets and
the Apollo missions.
26/3/1945.
Monday (-43) David Lloyd George,
British Liberal Prime Minister from 1916 to 1922, died in Llanystundwy, near
Criccieth, north Wales, aged 82.
25/3/1945, Sunday (-44) The
US Army broke out of the bridgehead at Remagen and advanced 6 miles east (see
7/3/1945). After their failure to destroy the bridge, Germany sent the
Luftwaffe to bomb it; 5 out of 20 Luftwaffe aircraft were lost, the bridge was
successfully destroyed, but the Americans, holding both river banks, had laid
temporary bridges alongside.
24/3/1945,
Saturday (-45) Darmstadt
captured by US forces.
23/3/1945.
Friday (-46) The US 2nd Army crossed the Rhine at Oppenheim. By 20/4/1945
British troops had advanced 200 miles into Germany.
22/3/1945, Thursday (-47) (1)
Soviet forces broke the Danzig / Gdynia
defence perimeter.
(2)
The Arab League was formed.� The treaty
was signed in Cairo this day, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq,
Jordan and Yemen as members.� The League
was intended to promote inter-Arab cultural, technical, and economic links, and
to minimise conflict between Arab states, but it remained a loose association
with no central authority. In 1979 the headquarters of the Arab league was
moved from Cairo to Tunis, after Egypt was suspended for signing a peace treaty
with Israel. It returned to Cairo in 1992.
21/3/1945,
Wednesday (-48) Ludwigshaven entered by
US forces.
20/3/1945.
Tuesday (-49) Mandalay was recaptured from the Japanese.
19/3/1945,
Monday (-50) Worms and Saarbrucken
captured by US forces. Hitler issued an order to destroy all German industrial
infrastructure, so the invading Allies would find nothing of value, but this
order was ignored.
18/3/1945,
Sunday (-51) Major air raid on Berlin.
17/3/1945. Saturday (-52) Coblenz captured by the Americans, and Brandenburg, East Prussia, captured by
the Russians.
16/3/1945, Friday (-53) Iwo
Jima was totally occupied by US forces; 4,590 US soldiers were killed,
out of a force of 30,000 attacking 23,000 Japanese who were heavily dug in with
underground bunkers. See 19/2/1945. Iwo Jima, just 750 miles from Tokyo, could
now be used as a base to bomb some 66 Japanese cities in an attempt to force a
Japanese surrender.
15/3/1945, Thursday (-54) The Soviet Army launched the Upper Silesian
offensive.
14/3/1945,
Wednesday (-55) First use of ten-ton
bombs by the RAF. The �Grand Slam�, 22,000 lbs, was dropped on Bielefeld
railway viaduct.
13/3/1945, Tuesday (-56) The Battle of Kiauneliskis, Lithuania.
12/3/1945. Monday (-57) The young Jewish diarist Anne Frank died
in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
11/3/1945.
Sunday (-58) (1) The
huge Krupps factory in Germany was destroyed when 1,000 allied bombers took part
in the biggest ever daylight raid.
(2)
Cambodia declared its independence.
(3) Essen
taken by US forces.
10/3/1945. Saturday (-59) Tran Kim declared Vietnam independent.
9/3/1945, Friday (-60) A
night of major firebombing of Tokyo began. Around 100,000 died, mostly the
elderly, women and children; men were away fighting a war that Japan was by
then losing badly.
8/3/1945, Thursday (-61) Canadian forces took Xanten, Germany.
7/3/1945. Wednesday (-62) Cologne fell to the
Allies. Allied troops crossed the Rhine by the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen.
The Germans had intended to destroy this bridge like all others on the Rhine,
as German resistance west of the Rhine had been crushed; however the explosive
charges failed to detonate and US forces found the bridge intact and defended
only by a few engineers and teenagers from the Volkssturm Stalin became alarmed
that the western Allies crossing of the Rhine so quickly meant the Americans
would take Berlin, not the Russians. Stalin
wanted the Nazi stores of uranium and above all their A-bomb expertise, located
in a research facility in the south western Berlin suburb of Dahlem.
However the US was concentrating on southern Germany.
6/3/1945, Tuesday (-63) German forces launched Operation Spring
Awakening, their last offensive of the war. This was in Hungary, near Lake
Balaton, and was aimed at securing some of the last oil supplies still
available to the Germans, the Nagyakanisza oilfield. Troops from the failed
Ardennes offensive were utilised. However by mid-March the operation had failed
and the Germans were being pushed back by overwhelming Soviet strength. Also on
this day the Soviets began arresting and executing any members of the Polish
Home Army of Polish Government in Exile they could find.
5/3/1945. Monday (-64) The British captured the Japanese base
of Meiktilla in Burma, cutting Japanese-occupied Burma in two.
4/3/1945, Sunday (-65) (Germany) Finland declared war on Nazi Germany.
3/3/1945, Saturday (-66) (Germany) Germany deployed 30 of its latest jet
fighters against the Allies. The jets were individually superior to the Allied
planes, but were too few in number, with too short an operational time, to
significantly hamper allied operations.
2/3/1945, Friday (-67) (1) Trier
and Krefeld captured by US forces.
(2) The British 14th army entered Mandalay,
Burma.
(3) At Soviet insistence, Petru Groza was appointed Prime
Minister of Romania and formed a pro-Soviet government.
===================================================================================
27/2/1945, Tuesday (-70)
25/2/1945, Sunday (-72) (Japan) Tokyo�
was devastated by a firestorm in a raid by 172 B-29 bombers.
24/2/1945, Saturday (-73)
Egypt declared war on Germany, largely to secure a place in the post-War United
Nations. The announcement of war was made to the Egyptian Parliament by Ahmed
Maher; as Maher left the Parliament he was assassinated, probably by the Muslim
Brotherhood.
23/2/1945, Friday (-74) Turkey,
reluctantly, declared war on Germany � only because the Allies had announced
that only those nations who did so would be invited to take part in the United
Nations Conference at San Francisco.
22/2/1945, Thursday
(-75) (Germany) Poznan, on the Berlin to Warsaw road, fell to
the 1st Belorussian Front after a pocket of German soldiers there
had been surrounded but held out.
21/2/1945, Wednesday
(-76) (Japan) Japanese kamikaze
airstrikes sank the US aircraft carrier Bismarck
Sea and damaged the Saratoga.
20/2/1945, Tuesday
(-77) (Japan) US marines captured the first
airfield on Mindanao.
19/2/1945, Monday (-78) US forces began the invasion of Iwo Jima,
see 16/3/1945.
18/2/1945, Sunday (-79) Judy Rankin, US golfer, was born.
17/2/1945, Saturday (-80) (Japan) Indian forces broke out of the
bridgehead of Nyaungu against Japanese forces towards Mektila.
16/2/1945, Friday (-81) (1) US Air Force began heavy raids on Tokyo.
(2) The US took Bataan, Philippines.
15/2/1945, Thursday (-82) British troops reached the Rhine.
14/2/1945, Wednesday (-83) U.S. Army Air Forces bombed Prague. 701
people were killed and about 100 houses and historical sites were destroyed in
what was attributed to a navigation mistake.
13/2/1945, Tuesday (-84) (1) Allied bombers devastated the German city of Dresden. Many
civilians had moved to the cultural city of Dresden, and its population in 1945
was over 1,000,000. There were up to 400,000 casualties, including 130,000
civilian deaths. Dresden was famous for its 17th and 18th
century architecture, but was also an industrial centre and was a key
communications centre for the German armies on the Eastern Front. 1,400 RAF
fighters and 450 US planes bombed Dresden over a 14 hour period.
(2) Soviet forces took Budapest.
(3) Soviet forces took Sommerfeld, just 80 miles from
Berlin.
12/2/1945, Monday (-85) The Treaty of Varkiza was signed. The Greek
resistance agreed to disarm and relinquish control of all the territory it
occupied in exchange for legal recognition, free elections, and the removal of
Nazi collaborators from the armed forces and police.
11/2/1945, Sunday (-86) The Yalta Conference ended. See 4/2/1945.
10/2/1945, Saturday (-87) Juan de Hernandez, composer, died aged 63.
9/2/1945, Friday (-88) (Germany) 2,000 US Air Force bombers, escorted
by 900 fighter aircraft, hit oil targets across Germany. By now the entire
Western Luftwaffe�s fighter strength was only around 900 aircraft; this US
offensive cost the Luftwaffe a further 80 aircraft.
8/2/1945, Thursday (-89)
British and Canadian troops broke through the northern, weaker, section of the
Seigfried Line near Millingen.
7/2/1945, Wednesday (-90) (Germany)
All gains made by Germany in the Ardennes Offensive have now been erased, with
the loss of 82,000 German soldiers and 77,000 US casualties.
6/2/1945, Tuesday (-91) (Germany) The US 8th Air Force bombed
Magdeburg and Chemnitz.
5/2/1945, Monday (-92) (Germany) Soviet forces crossed the River Oder,
and pushed deeper into Germany.
4/2/1945. Sunday (-93)
(1) The Yalta Conference between the Allied leaders Roosevelt, Stalin, and
Churchill opened in the Crimea. This conference concluded on 11/2/1945.
Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin all had very different aims. Roosevelt wanted
to disengage US troops from Europe to defeat Japan. Stalin wanted to extend
Soviet influence as far west into Europe as possible. Stalin got to occupy
eastern Poland, as agreed in Tehran on 28/11/1943. Churchill wanted to build a
democracy from the ruins of Germany. The ailing Roosevelt trusted Stalin�s
assurance that he would work to build a �peaceful and democratic world�. The
West insisted that Greece be given a western-style democracy, but otherwise all
of eastern Europe fell under the Soviet sphere. Stalin also gained Sakhalin and
the Kurile Islands in return for a war effort against Japan that was never
made. Yalta set the world order for the
next 45 years.
(2) Belgium liberated of German forces.
3/2/1945. Saturday (-94) The
US recaptured Manila, which had fallen to the Japanese on 2/1/1942.
Manila was not totally cleared of Japanese soldiers till 24/2/1945.
2/2/1945, Friday (-95) (1) (See
28/10/1944) Under Soviet occupation, the Bulgarian authorities began to try and
execute various �war criminals� including Prince Cyril, former government
ministers, and businessmen.� Further
trials and executions continued till June 1945, when the legal process was
declared complete.
(2) The French took Colmar.
1/2/1945, Thursday (-96) US
forces reached the Seigfried Line, see 8/2/1945.
===================================================================================
31/1/1945. Wednesday (-97) Soviet troops crossed the River Oder
into the province of Brandenburg, north of Frankfurt, 40 miles from Berlin.
30/1/1945, Tuesday (-98) Adolf Hitler made his very last radio
broadcast to Germany, marking 12 years of Nazi rule.
29/1/1945, Monday (-99) The Soviet 3rd Belorussian Front advanced
into the city of Konigsberg.
28/1/1945, Sunday (-100) Soviet forces invaded Pomerania.
27/1/1945. Saturday (-101)
(1) The Red Army captured Auschwitz.
They found 8,000 prisoners remaining there; a further 80,000 had been forced to
leave on a death march. However, of the 1.3 million who had entered Auschwitz
during World war Two, 1.1 million died there; 6,000 a day were murdered there. The Red Army now captured Silesia, and the
loss of the mines and factories there was a severe blow to Nazi war production.
(2) Russian forces captured Memel, liberating all of
Lithuania.
26/1/1945, Friday (-102) German troops from the Battle of the
Bulge now forced back to the German frontier.
25/1/1945, Thursday (-103)
The
Battle of the Bulge ended in Allied victory.
24/1/1945, Wednesday (-104) Gleiwicz in Silesia taken by the
Russians, as was the key fortress of Lotzen in East Prussia. The Russians were
now close to Konigsberg, capital of East Prussia.
23/1/1945, Tuesday (-105) Bromberg taken by the Russians.
22/1/1945, Monday (-106) Allenstein taken by the Russians.
21/1/1945, Sunday (-107) Russia and Hungary signed an armistice.
Hungarian borders were returned to their position at 31/12/1937, renouncing the
Vienna Awards.
20/1/1945, Saturday (-108)
The
German evacuation of East Prussia began. The 4th Ukrainian Front advancing
through Slovakia took Presov.
19/1/1945, Friday (-109) Russian troops took Tilsit. They were
now on the pre-War frontier of Germany.
18/1/1945, Thursday (-110) Soviet troops took Lodz.
17/1/1945, Wednesday (-111) Soviet and Polish troops captured
Warsaw. Only 162,000 citizens remained, compared to a pre-war population of
1,310,000.� See 14/9/1945.
16/1/1945, Tuesday (-112) Hitler left his office in the Reich Chancellery, Berlin, for the last
time, and descended to his bunker, 15 metres underground. By now most of
Berlin�s buildings had been destroyed by Allied bombing.
15/1/1945, Monday (-113)
Soviet forces captured Cracow from Germany.
14/1/1945, Sunday (-114) Radom in central Poland taken by the
Russians.
13/1/1945. Saturday (-115) Budapest
was completely in Soviet hands. Hungary, Nazi Germany�s last ally in the Balkans,
was now siding openly with Russia.
12/1/1945, Friday (-116) 5.am, Moscow time, Konev�s 1st
Ukrainian Front began an offensive against Nazi forces from the Sandomierz
bridgehead, north east of Cracow.
11/1/1945, Thursday (-117) The British escort carrier HMS Thane was torpedoed in the Irish Sea
and declared a total loss.
10/1/1945, Wednesday (-118) Rod Stewart, British rock singer,
was born in London.
9/1/1945. Tuesday (-119) Luzon in the Philippines was taken by the US from the Japanese.
General Guderian warned Hitler that the eastern front was like a house of
cards, ready to collapse at any time; Hitler dismissed reports of superior
Russian military strength as �the greatest bluff since Genghis Khan�. In fact,
the Soviets possessed a 5:1 advantage in manpower, a 7:1 advantage in
artillery, and a 17:1 advantage in aircraft.
8/1/1945, Monday (-120) A general election in Egypt, boycotted by the
Wafd Nationalists, was won by Ahmed Pasha.
7/1/1945, Sunday (-121) Raila Odinga, Prime Minister of Kenya (2008-2013),was
born in Maseno, Kenya
6/1/1945, Saturday (-122) The Battle of the Bulge ended as German forces under Gerd von Rundstedt
and Hasso von Manteuffel in the Ardennes were forced back by Allied forces
under US General George Patton. See 16/12/1944. Hitler, to the despair of
his Generals, started fantasising of a great offensive in the Alsace-Lorraine
area, seemingly oblivious of the Russians advancing to the east.
5/1/1945, Friday (-123) Roger Spottiswoode, film director, was born in
Ottawa, Canada
4/1/1945, Thursday (-124)
Severe Kamikaze attacks on US ships.
3/1/1945, Wednesday (-125)
The Dies Committee (see 26/5/1938), formed to monitor activities by Nazis and
Communists within the USA, was given permanent status as the House Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC)
2/1/1945, Tuesday (-126) Allied air raid on Nuremberg.
1/1/1945, Monday (-127) Mindoro Island, Philippines, taken by US
forces.
===================================================================================
31/12/1944, Sunday (-128) Rochefort retaken by the Allies.
30/12/1944, Saturday (-129)
28/12/1944, Thursday (-131)
Hungary renounced all treaties with the Third Reich and declared war on
Germany.
27/12/1944, Wednesday (-132)
The Soviet Army began to besiege Nazi forces in Budapest.� See 13/1/1945.
26/12/1944, Tuesday (-133) The US Army completed operations, begun
17/12/1944, to move 2.8 million gallons of motor fuel away from the Ardennes,
so that German troops in this offensive would not capture the fuel supplies
they needed to continue the Battle of the Bulge successfully and reach Antwerp.
The German military was desperately short of fuel and needed to capture more in
order to continue their initiative,
25/12/1944, Monday, (-134) (Germany) The Germans reached their furthest
point of advance in the Ardennes Offensive. They had reached Dinant, 97 km from
the start point. This day alone the Germans lost over 3,500 men and 400
vehicles, including 81 tanks.
24/12/1944, Sunday (-133) (Germany) In reprisal for an attack by the
French Resistance, German SS units massacred all adult males in the village of
Bande.
23/12/1944, Saturday (-136) (Germany) The heavy overcast weather in the
Ardennes area cleared, allowing Allied aircraft to attack the Germans.
22/12/1944, Friday (-137) An
American unit was surrounded at Bastogne by the German advance in the Battle of
the Bulge.� The unit held out until
relieved on 26/12/1944. Inside Bastogne, General Anthony C McAuliffe received a
message from the besieging Germans inviting him to surrender; his reply,
scrawled on the surrender invite, was one word�
-�NUTS�.
21/12/1944, Thursday (-138)
The Soviet Army, having entered Hungarian�
territory in early September 1944, set up a provisional government in
Debrecen.
20/12/1944, Wednesday (-139) (Greece) British
troops rescued 350 military personnel from Greek ELAS Communist fighters at
Kifissia, near Athens. Since Greece was liberated from the Nazis, there had
been a vicious power struggle between Communist and Nationalist factions.
19/12/1944, Tuesday (-140) The French newspaper Le Monde began publication in Paris.
18/12/1944, Monday (-141)
(Greece) British troops in Greece began an
offensive against ELAS rebels
17/12/1944, Sunday (-142) (Germany)
Soldiers of the 6th SS Panzer Army massacred 87 US PoWs at Malmedy,
under the orders of Colonel Joachim Pieper. This had the effect of stiffening
Allied resolve against the Ardennes Offensive.
16/12/1944. Saturday (-143)
Germany began the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes. 15 German divisions, 250,000
men and 950 tanks, under General von Rundstedt confronted 83,000 Americans with
420 tanks, and �advanced 60 miles before
they were halted. The German Army was
desperately short of fuel, and were hoping to capture the fuel they needed from
Allied dumps as they advanced. This was their last offensive of the war. Germany
had conjured up a large fighting force from sources such as back administration
offices and prisons. See 6/1/1945. The
sleet and low cloud that protected them from Allied air attacks soon cleared.
15/12/1944, Friday (-144) (Japan) A US
task force landed on Mindoro, a small island off south Luzon. By end-January
1945 the island was cleared of Japanese forces, providing useful airfields for
the US campaign in the Philippines.
13/12/1944, Wednesday (-146)
For London, a series of concentric ring roads and green belts were proposed.
Two of these correspond to the North Circular and M.25.
10/12/1944, Sunday (-149) De Gaulle and Stalin signed a treaty of
alliance.
9/12/1944, Saturday (-150) The Danube north of Budapest was
reached by the Russians.
8/12/1944, Friday (-151) (Japan) The US began a massive bombardment of
Iwo Jima, which lasted 72 days, in preparation for an amphibious invasion.
7/12/1944, Thursday (-152) (Romania) General
Radescu formed a Romanian government.
6/12/1944, Wednesday (-153) 20 million Germans were homeless after Allied bombing.
5/12/1944, Tuesday (-154) The 3rd Ukrainian Front of the Soviet Army
captured Szigetv�r and Vukovar.
4/12/1944, Monday (-155) German bridgehead west of the Maas
taken by the British.
3/12/1944, Sunday (-156) The
Home Guard was formally disbanded in London as King George VI witnessed its
final parade. Britons were jubilant that this symbolised imminent victory in
the War. The Black-Out was replaced by the Dim-Out as the Luftwaffe was no
longer a credible threat. However British strikes rose, particularly in the
coal mines. Coal miners pay was relatively low compared to other occupations,
and conditions were poor.
2/12/1944, Saturday (-157)
Ibrahim Rugova, president of Kosovo, was born.
1/12/1944, Friday (-158)
The
U.S. Ninth Army captured Linnich.
===================================================================================
30/11/1944, Thursday (-159) HMS Vanguard, Britain�s
largest and last battleship, was launched at Clydebank � see 20/10/1941.
29/11/1944. Wednesday (-160) Russian troops crossed the Danube, in Hungary.
28/11/1944, Tuesday (-161) Antwerp reopened to port traffic.
27/11/1944, Monday (-162) (1) Between
3,500 and 4,000 tons of high explosives went off in a cavern beneath
Staffordshire, killing 68 people. The explosion was heard as far away as
Geneva. The former gypsum mine at Hanbury was used by the RAF to defuse bombs
that had failed to drop from planes raiding Germany. Against strict rules, an
operative used a steel screwdriver, causing a spark.
(2) The crematoria at Auschwitz were blown up.
26/11/1944, Sunday (-163) Heinrich Himmler ordered the destruction of the
crematoria at Auschwitz concentration camp to eliminate evidence of the mass
killings there.
25/11/1944, Saturday (-164) The
first Kamikaze (divine wind) suicidal attacks were made by Japanese pilots on
US ships.
24/11/1944, Friday (-165) (1) US
planes bombed Tokyo, for the first time since 18/4/1942.
(2) Strasbourg taken by Allied forces.
23/11/1944, Thursday (-166) U.S. troops liberated the Natzweiler-Struthof
concentration camp in France.
22/11/1944, Wednesday (-167) Mulhouse and Metz
retaken by Allied forces.
21/11/1944, Tuesday (-168) The Moscow Conference ended.
20/11/1944, Monday (-169) (1)
Belfort taken by the French.
(2) After five years of black-out, the lights were
switched on again in Piccadilly, Strand, and Fleet Street.
19/11/1944, Sunday (-170) The Shinano, the largest Japanese aircraft
carrier ever built, was formally commissioned. Thought capable of withstanding
any bomb, she was sunk ten days later by the US submarine Archerfish, with four
torpedo hits, with the loss of 1,435 lives. A further 1,000 sailors were
rescued.
18/11/1944, Saturday (-171) The Popular Socialist Youth organization was
founded in Cuba.
17/11/1944, Friday (-172) Tirana,
capital of Albania, was recovered from German occupation.
15/11/1944, Wednesday (-174)
13/11/1944. Monday (-176) (Britain) Croydon
aerodrome, London, resumed civilian flights. The first flight was to Belfast
via Liverpool.
12/11/1944. Sunday (-177) The last big German battleship, the
Tirpitz, was sunk by the Lancaster bombers from the RAF, in Tromso Fjord, Norway.
She had been lurking in Norwegian waters for several years, diverting Allied
resources to protect Atlantic convoys. Three 5,500 kg bombs dropped on her
decks resulted in the battleship turning turtle and sinking, trapping some
1,000 crewmen. A squadron of German fighter planes assigned to protect the
Tirpitz did not even take off.
11/11/1944, Saturday (-178) Iwo Jima was bombarded by the U.S. Navy.
10/11/1944, Friday (-179)
Allied troops took Forli, Italy.
9/11/1944, Thursday (-180) The Moscow Conference began.
8/11/1944, Wednesday (-181) Joseph
Goebbels announced the V-2 rocket campaign for the first time. Winston
Churchill followed suit and finally announced that England had been under
rocket attack, providing the people of London with an explanation for all the
mysterious explosions of recent weeks.
7/11/1944, Tuesday (-182) (1) Middleburg, Holland, captured by the Allies.
(2) President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term in the USA.
6/11/1944, Monday (-183) Monastir liberated by Yugoslav forces.
5/11/1944. Sunday (-184) The
Japanese cruiser Nachi was sunk in Manila Bay by U.S. aircraft.
4/11/1944, Saturday (-185) RAF Bomber Command sent 749
aircraft to conduct the last major raid on Bochum. Over 4,000 buildings were
destroyed and nearly 1,000 people were killed.
3/11/1944, Friday (-186) Flushing captured by the British.
Canadian troops captured two bridges from South Beveland onto Walcheren.
2/11/1944, Thursday (-187) Belgium was clear of German troops.
The Germans re-entered Belgium on 16/12/1944, and were finally expelled on
4/2/1945.
1/11/1944, Wednesday (-188) British troops landed on Walcheren
Island. Walcheren commended the approaches to Antwerp, which had been captured
by the Allies on 1/9/1944; however until Walcheren was cleared of German
forces, Antwerp Harbour was unusable. It took five weeks to capture the
Walcheren fortifications, at a cost of 12,873 Allied lives. Before Walcheren
fell, opening up Antwerp, Allied forces in Belgium had to be supplied from the
Normandy beaches, because every Channel port from Cherbourg to Ostend had been
wrecked by Allied bombing or by German demolition squads.
=====================================================================================
31/10/1944, Tuesday (-189) British forces reached the River Maas.
30/10/1944, Monday (-190) Soviet
forces attacked Budapest, but the Germans held it until February 1945.
29/10/1944, Sunday (-191) (Judaism) The first
Jewish religious service was broadcast from Allied-occupied Aachen, Germany.
28/10/1944. Saturday (-192) General De Gaulle ordered the French
Resistance to disarm.
27/10/1944, Friday (-193)
The Japanese fleet suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of Leyte Gulf,
effectively ending its role as a fighting force.� This was the world�s largest naval battle,
which began on 22/10/1944, involving a total of 231 ships and 1996 aircraft.
26/10/1944, Thursday (-194) British troops crossed the River
Scheldt and occupied the Beveland peninsula.
25/10/1944, Wednesday (-195) US escort carrier St Lo became the first
ship sunk by a Japanese kamikaze attack.
24/10/1944, Tuesday (-196) The Riga Offensive ended in Soviet
victory.
23/10/1944, Monday (-197) De
Gaulle was officially recognised by the Allies as French leader.� However De Gaulle was offended by the Allies
refusal to treat France as a Great Power, or to invite him to the Yalta or
Potsdam Conferences alongside the USA, UK, and USSR.
22/10/1944, Sunday (-198) Russian troops in Finland reached the
Norwegian border.
21/10/1944, Saturday (-199) Aachen
was captured by the Allies. The battle for the city, the first major German
city to fall to the Allies, lasted a week, and over 10,000 prisoners were
taken. Much of the city was destroyed.
20/10/1944. Friday (-200) (1)
Tito�s partisans and the Red Army took Belgrade.
It had been taken by Germany on 13/4/1941.
(2)
General Mac Arthur returned to the Philippines with 250,000 troops, fulfilling
a promise he made when his forces retreated from the Japanese.
19/10/1944, Thursday (-201) Churchill returned home after talks
with Stalin.
18/10/1944. Wednesday (-202) The Russian army entered East
Prussia and Czechoslovakia.
17/10/1944, Tuesday (-203)
Rival
partisans in Athens began to fight each other.
16/10/1944, Monday (-204) Aachen was surrounded by US forces.
15/10/1944, Sunday (-205) Sali
Berisha, President of Albania, was born.
14/10/1944, Saturday (-206) Field
Marshall Erwin Rommel, 53, Commander of the Afrika Corps 1941-43, �took his own life by swallowing poison rather
than be executed for an attempt on Hitler�s life. Hitler had promised him a
hero�s funeral if he committed suicide. Otherwise Rommel would face the notorious
Nazi judge, Roland Freisler, who had already condemned the other conspirators
against Hitler to slow hanging by piano wire. The official cause of Rommel�s
death was given as heart failure.
13/10/1944, Friday (-207) Athens
was liberated from the Germans, who occupied it on 27/4/1941.
12/10/1944. Thursday (-208) Angela Rippon, British TV presenter,
was born in Plymouth.
11/10/1944, Wednesday (-209) Cluj, capital of Transylvania,
recaptured by the Russians.
10/10/1944, Tuesday (-210) Ramon Grau took office as President
of Cuba.
9- 19/10/1944, Churchill
travelled to Moscow for talks with Stalin.
9/10/1944, Monday (-211) Canadian and British forces landed
behind German lines south of the Scheldt Estuary. Russian forces reached the
Baltic coast near Libau.
8/10/1944, Sunday (-212) In Egypt, King Farouk dismissed the Wafd
Government of Nahas Pasha.
7/10/1944, Saturday (-213) The
Dumbarton Oaks Conference ended.
6/10/1944, Friday (-214) Soviet troops entered Hungary.
5/10/1944, Thursday (-215) In Germany, Joseph Goebbels announced a
reduction in food rations.
4/10/1944, Wednesday (-216) Allied troops landed on the Greek
mainland, at Patras.
3/10/1944, Tuesday (-217)
The insurgents in the Warsaw Uprising surrendered to German forces.
2/10/1944. Monday (-218) British troops landed on Crete.
1/10/1944, Sunday (-219) The German war economy was hopelessly
disorganised. In September 1944 German factories produced 3,000 fighter planes,
but aviation fuel production was only 10,000 tons, as against Luftwaffe
consumption of 165,000 tons in April 1944. These new planes sat on the runway
with empty fuel tanks and vacant cockpits, as pilot training had virtually
ceased.
===================================================================================
30/9/1944. Saturday (-220) Canadian forces captured Calais.
29/9/1944, Friday (-219) The Battle of Arracourt ended in American
victory.
28/9/1944, Thursday (-222) Soviet, Yugoslav Partisan and
Bulgarian forces began the Belgrade Offensive.
27/9/1944, Wednesday (-223) Soviet troops and Yugoslav Partisans
crossed the border into Albania.
26/9/1944, Tuesday (-224)
The Canadian 2nd Army captured the German guns on Cap Gris Nez; the
Allies now had total control of The Channel.
25/9/1944, Monday (-225) (1) The Allied
forces who had been parachuted into Arnhem (17/9/1944) had succeeded in
capturing key bridges over the Rhine, Maas and Waal rivers but had met fierce
resistance from the 9th and 10th German Panzer Divisions.
This resistance forced the withdrawal of Allied troops from Arnhem to south of
the Rhine.
(2) Hitler called up all remaining males aged between 16
and 60 for the Volksturm, a home defence force.
24/9/1944, Sunday (-226) The second Quebec Conference
ended (began 13/9/1944), see 24/8/1943.�
It was concerned with shifting the war effort to the Pacific to finish
off the Japanese, also how best to advance into Germany (the Morgenthau Plan),
and operations in The Philippines.
23/9/1944, Saturday (-227) Soviet forces entered Hungary,
22/9/1944, Friday (-228) (1) Boulogne surrendered to Canadian
forces. Rimini captured by Allied forces.
(2) The Russians captured Tallinn, capital of Estonia.
This blocked the final seaborne escape route for German Army Group North.
(3) In Britain details of demobilisation were released to
the public. Class B �demob� covered builders and others with skills greatly
needed for post-war reconstruction; these had priority of demob, but could be
recalled to the military if they entered another trade. Class A covered
everyone else. They would be released from military service on a scheme that
equated years of age to years of military service at 6:1. This meant a 40 year
old with 1 year�s military service had the same demob priority as a 22 year old
with 3 year�s military service. The first demobilisations in the UK were on
18/6/1945.
21/9/1944, Thursday (-229) (Germany) San Marino declared war on Germany.
20/9/1944, Wednesday (-230) British forces reached The Rhine at Nijmegen.
19/9/1944, Tuesday (-231) (1) Brest
taken by US forces.
(2) Finland agreed to the peace terms demanded by Russia
(see 20/6/1944), except that the indemnity was halved to US$300million.
18/9/1944, Monday (-232) The Battle of Arracourt began near the French
town of Arracourt.
17/9/1944. Sunday (-233) The British airborne invasion of Arnhem
and Nijmegen, Holland, began as part of Operation Market Garden, to secure a
bridge over the Rhine.� However a hard
winter for Holland began as German forces in the north of the country resisted
Allied attacks under Field Marshal Model.�
Food became scarce and could
only be bought by barter on the black market.�
Money had no value and the rations system collapsed. In Britain
the blackout was replaced by the dimout, except for all areas within 5 miles of
the coast where the blackout remained in force.
16/9/1944, Saturday (-234) The Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front occupied the
Bulgarian capital of Sofia.
15/9/1944, Friday (-235) In London, the Benelux Organisation was
formed.
14/9/1944, Thursday (-236) (1) Russian forces took Praga, on the right bank
of the River Vistula, opposite Warsaw.�
An anti-Nazi uprising by Poles had begun in Warsaw on 1/8/1944.� However the Russian forces did not
immediately cross the Vistula to Warsaw, but held back whilst the Nazis put
down the Polish rebellion and razed the city.�
Warsaw was only taken by the Russians on 17/1/1945.
(2) Patton�s Third Army took Nancy in France.
13/9/1944. Wednesday (-237) (1) William Heath Robinson, the English
artist famous for his drawings of excessively complicated machinery cobbled
together, died.
(2) The Maastricht area was captured by Allied forces.
12/9/1944, Tuesday (-238) Le Havre captured by the British.
11/9/1944. Monday (-239) The Allies in the west under US First
Army General Omar Bradley took their troops onto German soil, north of Trier.
Large numbers of German troops were deserting. Civilian morale in Aachen
collapsed as Nazi SS officials, troops and police hurriedly left the German
city for Cologne, as US troops drew close
10/9/1944, Sunday (-240) RAF Bomber Command began Operation Paravane, another
attack on the German battleship Tirpitz
anchored in northern Norway.
9/9/1944, Saturday (-241) The
Russians captured Sofia, capital of Bulgaria.
8/9/1944, Friday (-242) (1) Liege taken by US forces.
(2) The first V-2
fell in on Chiswick in the London area, killing three people. By the end
of the war, 1,100 V-2s fell in England an a further 1,675 on the continent,
mainly on Antwerp.� V-2 stood for
Vergeltungswaffe, or �reprisal weapon�. The V-2 rocket weighed 12 tons and
travelled at 3,600 mph, faster than sound, so there was no warning of its
imminent arrival. It had a range of 200 miles and carried a one ton bomb. The
Germans fired them from launchers in The Netherlands, but the explosions in
London were attributed, by the authorities, to gas explosions to mislead the
German intelligence. The earlier V-1 rocket was slower and had a shorter range;
V-1 strikes on London ceased as the Allies captured the launch sites in France.
7/9/1944, Thursday (-243) Hungary declared war on Romania and
crossed into southern Transylvania
6/9/1944. Wednesday (-244) (1) Bulgaria
declared war on Germany.� Bulgaria had
wanted to become neutral but Russia found this �insufficient� and threatened to
declare war on Bulgaria.� Bulgaria
therefore declared war on Germany and Russian troops marched into Bulgaria
unopposed�� On 28/10/1944 Bulgaria signed
an armistice with the Allies and the Bulgarian Army, under Soviet command,
attacked German forces in Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Austria.� See 2/2/1945.
(2) The Polish Committee for National Liberation decreed
the expropriation of farms with over 50 Ha (123.5 acres) arable land, or more
than 100 ha (247 acres) land overall. Some of this land was given to
agricultural labourers; the rest was made into state farms, and the forests
were nationalised.
5/9/1944, Tuesday (-245) German and Dutch Nazis began to flee
Holland, as Allied forces advanced through Belgium.
4/9/1944. Monday (-246) The Allies crossed into Holland.
Antwerp was liberated.
3/9/1944. Sunday (-247) (1) The
Allies entered Belgium, and liberated Brussels. The Belgian resistance was then
well trained and armed, and German plans to destroy the docks at Antwerp as
they retreated were thwarted. Thus the Allies could use this port to land
ammunition and troops during the remaining eight months of fighting. Lyons also
liberated by the Allies.
(2) Anne Frank and her family were transported to the
Auschwitz death camp in Poland, see 14/6/1943.
2/9/1944 Saturday (-248) Allied forces took Pisa.
1/9/1944, Friday (-249) Dieppe
taken by the Canadians. British forces, helped by the Belgian Resistance, took
Antwerp; see 1/11/1944.
====================================================================================
31/8/1944. Thursday (-250) Russian and Romanian forces captured the Ploesti oilfields, which had
supplied Germany with one third of its military oil. Allied troops
reached Amiens, northern France. Meanwhile Hitler declared that the political
differences between the Allies would result in the collapse of their efforts
against Germany (see 19/8/1944).
30/8/1944, Wednesday (-251) Rouen taken by the Canadians. Soviet forces took Bucharest. German forces, putting up
little resistance to the Allied advance in France, were retreating across the
Seine; they were flooding the lower reaches of the Somme to delay the Allied
advance there.
29/8/1944, Tuesday (-252) Constanza taken by Russia.
28/8/1944, Monday (-253)
Marseilles and Toulon fell to the Allies.
27/8/1944. Sunday (-254) Polish and Russian officials showed the
news media the Maidenek concentration camp.
26/8/1944, Saturday (-255) The Battle of Toulon ended in Allied victory.
25/8/1944. Friday (-256) (1) Germans in Paris surrendered. The Nazi
commander, General von Cholitz, ignored Hitler�s instructions to destroy the
city. The USA had held back to allow
the French under General LeClerc to retake Paris, led by General De Gaulle.� Paris had been under German occupation since
14/6/1940.
(2) Finland was forced to sue the USSR for peace (see
12/3/1940) under pressure from the Soviet Army.�
Finland gave up territory gained from the USSR since 1940, and also
ceded the Petsamo region, with the Arctic port at Porkkala; this gave the USSR
a common border with Norway.
24/8/1944, Thursday (-257) Canadian forces captured Bernay and crossed
the Risle River at Nassandres
23/8/1944. Wednesday (-258) (Germany,
Romania) Following a coup d�etat in
Bucharest, in which pro-Nazi dictator General Ion Antonescu was overthrown
(born 1882, acceded 1940), Romania
changed sides and declared war on Germany and Soviet troops entered
Rumania as allies. Germans had entered Bucharest as allies in September 1940,
after Antonescu seized power, forcing King Carol II into exile after Carol had
surrendered Romanian territory to Hungary, Bulgaria and Russia. Romania then supported
Germany when it invaded Russia in June 1941, and assisted in the Nazi capture
of Odessa, which was then renamed �Antonescu�, with areas of south-west Ukraine
annexed to Romania. However the Soviets began to force back the Romanians, and
other Axis forces, in the winter in 1942/3. On this day, 23/8/1944, Carol II�s
23-year-old son, King Michael, had Antonescu arrested. Antonescu was
subsequently charged with war crimes in May 1946 and on 1/6/1946, after a brief
trial, was condemned to death and shot. Meanwhile, French forces took
Marseilles, then advanced up the Rhone Valley.
22/8/1944, Tuesday (-259) The Royal Navy began Operation
Goodwood, a series of raids against the German battleship Tirpitz anchored in
northern Norway.
21/8/1944, Monday (-260) (1) US forces crossed the Seine.
(2) Meetings began at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC, on
starting the Charter of the United Nations.�
These meetings ended on 7/10/1944.
20/8/1944, Sunday (-261) (1) Toulouse taken by French forces.
(2) Rajiv Ghandi, younger son of Prime Minister Indira
Ghandi, was born.
19/8/1944. Saturday (-262) (1) Allied forces in Italy took Florence.�
(2) Paris
rebelled against German occupation.
(3) Differences emerged between the Americans and the
British as to how to press on against Germany. The US wanted to go directly
east into Germany via the Saar region; the British wanted to secure Belgium and
Holland and then occupy the industrial Ruhr region. This latter option would
both neutralise the V-weapon launching sites and capture the deepwater port of
Antwerp. Politically, however, both options had to be pursued, or else public
outrage would ensue if one Allied army was halted whilst the other pressed on.
18/8/1944, Friday (-263)
The
Allies closed the Falaise Gap, trapping German forces to the north and west.
17/8/1944, Thursday (-264) (1)
Falaise taken by the Canadians.
(2) The Russians
reached the border of East Prussia.
16/8/1944, Wednesday (-265)
Canadian troops surrounded Falaise, France.
15/8/1944. Tuesday
(-266) US and French forces landed in southern
France, on a front from Nice to Marseilles, and joined up in eastern France
with the forces landing in Normandy. This was Operation Anvil. From Marseilles
Allied forces swung north up the Rhone Valley.
14/8/1944, Monday (-267)
Robyn
Smith Astaire, US �jockey, was born in
San Francisco, California.
13/8/1944, Sunday (-270) Davina Galica, skiing champion, was born.
12/8/1944. Saturday (-269) PLUTO, or Pipeline Under The Ocean,
began operating. It carried fuel from Shanklin, Isle of Wight, to Allied forces
advancing against the Germans in France.
11/8/1944, Friday (-270) Florence
evacuated by the Germans.
10/8/1944, Thursday (-271) US/French offensive at Alencon.
9/8/1944, Wednesday (-272) St Malo and Le Mans taken by US
forces.� The USA completed the recapture
of Guam.
8/8/1944. Tuesday (-273) Officers convicted of an attempt on
Hitler�s life were hanged with piano wire. See 20/7/1944.
7/8/1944, Monday (-274) RAF attacked German lines south of
Caen.
6/8/1944, Sunday (-275) The Soviets began the Osovets Offensive as part
of the final phase of Operation Bagration.
5/8/1944, Saturday (-276) Germans bombed the Warsaw suburb of Wola,
during the Warsaw Uprising.
4/8/1944, Friday (-277) (1) Anne
Frank and her family, who had gone into hiding from the Nazis on 6/7/1942 (see
also 14/6/1943) were discovered by the Nazis, see 3/9/1944.
(2) Purge of
the German Army by Hitler.
3/8/1944, Thursday (-278) Rennes taken by US forces.
2/8/1944. Wednesday (-279) Turkey broke off relations with Germany, reluctantly, under pressure
from the United Nations to fulfil its treaty obligations.
1/8/1944. Tuesday (-280) (1) Anti-Nazi
rising in Warsaw began.� Russian forces
were close to the city, see 14/9/1944.
(2) US forces captured the Pacific island of Tinian from
the Japanese. Tinian was then developed as a US air force base, from which the
mission to drop atom bombs on Japan was to depart (see 6/8/1945).
====================================================================================
31/7/1944. Monday (-281) (1) The
Allies drove the Germans out of Normandy. Avranches was captured, opening the
way into Brittany.
(2) The pilot and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of �The Little Prince�, was
reported missing.
(3) The last scheduled deportation of Parisian Jews from
Drancy. By now gunfire could be heard in Paris and liberation seemed very
close. Nazi Army commanders wanted to requisition the deportation trains for
moving their own troops back to safer positions.
30/7/1944, Sunday (-282)
Soviet forces captured Simno, Poland, only 35 miles from the Prussian border
and 330 miles as the crow flies from Berlin. They also took Gluda which cut the
railway line west from Riga. German forces in Riga now had just one minor rail
line west as an escape route, leading to Windau, a small Baltic port.
29/7/1944, Saturday (-283) Soviet forces crossed the River Vistula,
capturing the town of Sandiomerz in central Poland
28/7/1944. Friday (-284) Soviet forces took Brest Litovsk,
Poland.
27/7/1944, Thursday (-285) (Germany)
Russian forces captured Lvov from Germany.
26/7/1944, Wednesday (-286) Dvinsk retaken by Russia.� Narva, Estonia, retaken by Russia.
25/7/1944. Tuesday (-287) Allied forces in Normandy forced
through weakened German defences at St Lo.
24/7/1944, Monday (-288) Lublin retaken by Russia. German losses in the past 5
weeks amounted to over 2,000 tanks, 340 aircraft and 113,000 men. Only 10,000
men replaced them.
23/7/1944, Sunday (-289) The Lvov Uprising, an armed insurrection of the Home
Army in Poland against the Nazi German occupiers, began in the city of Lvov.
22/7/1944, Saturday (-290) The
Bretton Wood conference ended.
21/7/1944, Friday (-291) Guam, in the western Pacific, was
liberated by US Marines.� It had been
under Japanese occupation since December 1941.
20/7/1944. Thursday (-292) (1) Roosevelt was nominated for a fourth
term.
(2) An attempt was made on Hitler�s
life by a German Staff Officer, Count Claus Von Stauffenberg, at Hitler�s
headquarters at Rastenburg, East Prussia. A bomb was left in a briefcase under a table in
the conference room where Hitler was to speak. The plot failed because the
heavy oak table top shielded Hitler from much of the blast, as did the thick
table leg against which the briefcase was placed. The plotters were arrested,
as were 1,000 other people implicated in the plot. See 8/8/1944.
(3) Tbe USA began to retake the island of Guam from the
Japanese.
19/7/1944, Wednesday (-293) Leghorn retaken by American forces.
18/7/1944. Tuesday (-294) Prime Minister Tojo of Japan resigned.
17/7/1944, Monday (-295) Field Marshal Rommel was badly injured when an
Allied fighter plane shot up his car.
16/7/1944, Sunday (-296) A large gun on the French coast that was almost
ready to fire huge shells at British south coast towns was destroyed in a
sustained air raid.
15/7/1944, Saturday (-297) The Second Battle of the Odon began as part of
the Battle of Normandy.
14/7/1944, Friday (-298)
Soviet forces entered Pinsk, less than 200 miles from east Prussia.
13/7/1944. Thursday (-299) The capital of Lithuania, Vilnius,
was recaptured by the Russians.
12/7/1944, Wednesday (-300) (1) The RAF became the first air force to use jet
aircraft in operational service.
(2) The
Russians advanced 21 miles on the Baltic Front.
11/7/1944, Tuesday (-301) The new German Tiger II heavy tank
saw frontline combat for the first time during the Normandy campaign.
10/7/1944, Monday (-302) New Soviet offensive against German Army Group
North began.
9/7/1944. Sunday (-303) The Allies took Caen. The last train carrying
Jews to the concentration camps left from Budapest (see 13/1/1945).
8/7/1944, Saturday (-304) (Germany) British and Canadian troops
approached the outskirts of Caen. The German defenders contested every street.
7/7/1944, Friday (-305) Tony Jacklin, British golf champion,
was born in Scunthorpe, North
Lincolnshire.
6/7/1944, Wednesday (-307)
4/7/1944, Tuesday (-308)
Conclusion of the Battle of Kohima-Imphal. Crucial battle of the Burma
campaign; the 14th Army under Slim fought the Japanese in Burma from
4/3/1944. Allied troops were supplied by air and held back the Japanese from
the key towns of Kohima and Imphal.
3/7/1944, Monday (-309) (1)
Evacuation of children from London because of the V-1 bombings.
(2) Siena retaken by French troops.
(3) Minsk was recaptured by the Russians.
2/7/1944, Sunday (-310) (Germany)
Marshal von Kluge replaced General von Rundstedt
1/7/1944. Saturday (-311) (1) The Bretton Woods Conference began.� Representatives from 44 nations began
formulating the post World War Two International Monetary Policy.
(2) A bottle of Scotch cost 25s 9d (�1.29), up from 16s
(80p) at the start of the War. A �coupon saver� dress from Debenham and
Freebody cost �9 9s (�9.45) plus 11 coupons. A �popular crepon neat practical
skirt� from the same store cost �2 9s 11d (�2.49 �) plus six coupons. The First
Sea Lord and Chief of |Naval Staff received an annual salary of �4,525. the
Senior Design Officer in the Directorate of camouflage got an annual salary of
�700.
===================================================================================
30/6/1944, Friday (-312) The
last German resistance in the Contentin Peninsula, France, ceased with the
Allied capture of Auderville.
29/6/1944, Thursday (-313) The Russians captured Petrozavodsk
from Finland, see 20/6/1944.� See
19/9/1944.
28/6/1944, Wednesday (-314) (Germany) Hitler replaced Field Marshall Busch,
of the Army Group Centre, with General Model.
27/6/1944. Tuesday (-315) The Allies took Cherbourg. This was important as it
gave the Normandy bridgehead its first deep water port.
26/6/1944, Monday (-316) (1) (Germany)
Vitebsk retaken by Russia. The Nazi 3rd Pamzer Amy was surrounded.
(2) Naval fighting between the USA and Japan off the
Marianas Islands.
25/6/1944, Sunday (-317) Allied tanks reached the suburbs of Cherbourg.
The German Commander of Cherbourg, General Karl Wilhelm von Schleiben, asked
Rommel to be allowed to surrender, as he had 2,000 wounded who could not be
treated. Rommel refused and ordered him to fight to the end.
24/6/1944, Saturday (-318) Rio Gebhardt, German composer, died
aged 36
23/6/1944, Friday (-319) (Germany) The German 4th Army, NE of
Minsk, was surrounded.
22/6/1944, Thursday (-320) (Germany) (1) The Russians commenced Operation Bagration.
Under the supreme command of Zhukov, some 1.2 million troops launched a 4-pronged
assault towards Minsk. A simultaneous assault was launched towards Lithuania.
(2) (US
Universities) US Congress enacted the GI Bill of Rights (Servicemen�s
Readjustment Act), providing finance for college education for millions of US
War veterans.
21/6/1944, Wednesday (-321) (Germany) Berlin was heavily bombed.
20/6/1944, Tuesday (-322) (1) Perugia, Italy, taken by the Allies.
(2) The Russians attacked Finland, which
had begun peace discussions with the USSR in February 1944. Russia had demanded
restoration of the 1944 frontier, plus Petsamo, thus excluding Finland from the
Arctic Ocean, and an indemnity of US$ 600 million, Finland�s entire national
income for 1939.� Finland refused such humiliating
terms, and Russia attacked, capturing Viipuri this day.� See 29/6/1944.
19/6/1944, Monday (-323) (1) The
French retook Elba.
(2) The USA took Saipan.�
It took over three weeks to defeat the Japanese, at a cost of 3,000
Americans dead and 17,000 wounded; 27,000 Japanese also died.� The US did not attempt to capture all Pacific
islands in their path to Japan, only selected ones, leaving other heavily-armed
islands to �wither on the vine�.� The
Japanese fought fiercely and had no fear of death; many �Banzai�-charged the US
soldiers, led by officers wielding swords.
18/6/1944, Sunday (-324) (Japan) The
Japanese 11th Army occupied the Chinese cities of Changsha and
Chuchow.
17/6/1944. Saturday (-325) Iceland became an independent republic.
The 25-year Union with Denmark had expired, see 1/12/1918.
16/6/1944, Friday (-326) Marc Bloch, French historian, died aged 57.
15/6/1944. Thursday
(-327) Air raids on Japan hit steel mills
at Yawata.
14/6/1944, Wednesday (328) Joe Grifasi, US actor, was born.
13/6/1944. Tuesday (-329) (1) The
first V-1 flying bomb, or doodlebug, to hit Britain landed on a house in
Southampton, killing three people.�
Within 24 hours, others hit London.�
(2) Fifteen US warships bombarded Saipan with 165,000
shells. Saipan, with Tinian (see 1/8/1944), was a small Pacific island halfway
between Australia and Japan, occupied by the Japanese. 8,000 US marines landed
on Saipan on 15/6/1944; Japanese troops hid in caves but were attacked with
flame throwers. On 7/7/1944 3,000 cornered Japanese troops, along with hundreds
of civilians jumped to their death rather than surrender.
12/6/1944, Monday (-330) Churchill visited the front in
Normandy. The 101st American Airborne division captured the town of
Carentan, which commended the Vire estuary; this closed the last gap in the
Normandy beachheads, between Omaha and Utah beaches, into a single front 42
miles wide.
11//6/1944, Sunday (-331)
Roscoe Orman, US actor, was born.
10/6/1944. Saturday (-332) (1)
Allied troops began a push towards Caen. This tied down large numbers of German
troops and Hitler sent in his elite Panzer forces.
(2) Troops from the 2nd SS Panzer Division
massacred 642 people in the French village of Oradour sur Glane in revenge for
Resistance attacks. After the war, President De Gaulle ordered that the village
be left as a ruin, as a memorial; a new village was built nearby.
(3) The USSR began an offensive against Finland.
9/6/1944, Friday (-333)
Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery ordered massive air raids on German positions
in northern France as the Allies advanced from Normandy. 450 Allied bombers hit
towns including Lisieux and le Havre.
8/6/1944, Thursday (-334) Bayeux liberated.
7/6/1944. Wednesday (-335) King Leopold of Belgium was
arrested.
6/6/1944. Tuesday
(-336) D � Day. Allied forces
landed in Normandy. Operation Overlord was the biggest sea-borne invasion in
history. It was delayed 24 hours due to bad weather. In the early morning
of Tuesday 6 June 1944 11,600 aircraft, 6,000 surface craft, and nearly 170,000
men assaulted the coast of France on a 50 mile front, and 9,000 had been killed.
Men from boats joined with parachutists. By the sixth day, 326,000 Allied
soldiers were in the French bridgehead. The Luftwaffe mustered 183 planes,
which faced 11,000 Allied planes. The Allies had also intercepted a Luftwaffe
message indicating they were critically short of aviation fuel, and Allied
bombing raids were concentrated on German oil installations. Crucially for
the Germans, Hitler was asleep when the D-Day landings began, at 06.35 local
time, and no-one dared waken him.
Extra reinforcements could not be ordered without him, and vital hours were
lost by the Axis forces battling to hold Normandy. By the end of the first
day, the Allies had a beachhead 25 miles long and 5 miles deep. Further initial
advance was delayed by the Normandy bocage, small fields with thick hedgerows,
and steep valleys and hillsides. See 15/5/1944.
5/6/1944. Monday (-337) The Caf� Gondree was the first place to
be liberated from the Germans on the eve of the D-Day landings when
paratroopers from the 6th Brigade dropped on the town of Benouville
to seize a vital canal bridge.
4/6/1944. Sunday (-338) (1) Rome liberated by the Allies.
(2) Eisenhower decided on a 24-hour delay to D-Day due to
poor weather.
3/6/1944, Saturday (-339)
Richard Verber, US chess master, was born.
2/6/1944, Friday (-340)
Eisenhower settled on 5 June for D-Day
1/6/1944, Thursday (-341)
The BBC transmitted a coded alert to the French Resistance� warning of the D-Day landings; the message
was the first verse of Paul Verlaine�s poem, Chanson D�Automne.
====================================================================================
31/5/1944, Wednesday (-342) Allied bombs cut the communications between
the German HQ in Paris and German Air Force bases at Rennes and Caen, for three
crucial days. Meanwhile the Luftwaffe no longer had the resources to both bomb
Britain and fight off a cross-Channel Allied attack.
29/5/1933, Monday (-344)
28/5/1944, Sunday (-345) Second US
bombing raid on 5 of Germany�s synthetic oil plants, already damaged by a raid
on 12/5/1944..
27/5/1944, Saturday (-346) Due to
Allied decrypting of German messages, they learnt f a major axis troop
concentration at La Haye-du Puits, on the Contentin Peninsula, where the US had
planned to parachute in troops. This part of the D-Day plan was therefore
amended, with the scheduled date for the capture of Cherbourg put back by 7
days.
26/5/1944, Friday (-347) Allied
daylight air raid on Lyon, to block German reinforcement routes from the south.
717 French civilians were killed.
25/5/1944. Thursday (-348) Tito escaped to the hills as German
troops captured his Bosnian headquarters.
23/5/1944. Tuesday (-350) The Battle of Anzio, Italy. Landings
by the Allies had begun at Anzio on 22/1/1944, 40 miles behind German lines and
just 30 miles south of Rome. German troops in the area were sparse but rather
than break out straightaway, taking advantage of the element of surprise, the
Allies waited until further reinforcements came, by which� time the Germans had brought in more troops
too.
21/5/1944, Sunday (-352) The Allies
launched Operation Chattanooga Choo Choo, to destroy railway engines and
rolling stock across northern Europe, including Germany. This Operation was so
effective that even Jews from the concentration camps were being drafted in to
repair the damage.
20/5/1944, Saturday (-353) The
Germans still did not know where the Allies might land in western Europe.� The German Navy did not mine the Seine
estuary, as Rommel wanted, nor were German troops deployed that could have
covered both Normandy and Brittany, because Germany feared an Allied airborne
landing around Paris.
18/5/1944. Thursday (-355) Allied troops captured Monte Casino
in Italy.� This opened the way to
Rome.� See 15/2/1944 and 4/6/1944.
16/5/1944, Tuesday (-357) George Ade, US author (born 9/2/1866) died.
15/5/1944. Monday (-358) (1) In St Pauls School, London, the D-Day
landings of 6/6/1944 were planned using a huge map of the area. 8 divisions, 5
seaborne and 3 airborne, were to be landed in the first 48 hours. The Germans
had 60 divisions defending the coast of the Netherlands, Belgium and France. An
elaborate deception was mounted to make Germany think Calais was the landing
point with fake radio traffic, misleading reports from Nazi agents who had been
�turned� to serve the Allies, �and a
phantom army with wooden tanks stationed in south-east England. In May 1944
Montgomery received a decode of a message from Field Marshall Rommel to Hitler
saying that Allied bombing of railways in northern France was disrupting his
efforts to defend the Calais area from an Allied invasion.
(2) Field
Marshall Erwin Rommel attempted
to cut off occupied France from neutral countries to stop information being
passed out to the Allies.
14/5/1944, Sunday (-359) The last attempted air raid on Bristol. 91
bombers took part but most failed even to find the city; a few small bombs were
dropped in the suburbs.
13/5/1944, Saturday (-360) At Bagneres de Bigorre, near the Pyrenees,
sabotage by British and French agents put a factory producing carriers for
self-propelled guns out of action for 6 months.
12/5/1944, Friday (-361) US planes launched a major attack on Germany�s
synthetic oil plants, destroying 7 plants that had produced a third of Germany�s
total output. Germany�s armed forces were now totally dependent on thbis
synthetic oil to continue fighting.
11/5/1944, Thursday (-362) Heavy military barrage by Allies against
Monte Cassino began, followed by an infantry attack.
10/5/1944, Wednesday (-363) Jim Abrahams, film director was born in
Shorewood, Wisconsin
9/5/1944. Tuesday (-364) The
Russians took Sevastopol, liberating all of the Crimea.
8/5/1944, Monday (-365)
Eisenhower settled on 5, 6, or 7 June as date for the D-Day landings.
7/5/1944, Sunday (-366) (Science) Stuart
Ballantine, US physicist, died in Morristown, New Jersey, USA.
6/5/1944, Saturday (-367)
Rehearsals for the D-Day landings were held at Slapton Sands, Devon.
3/5/1944, Wednesday (-370)
=============================================================================
30/4/1944, Sunday (-373) Pre-fabricated
houses went on show in London. 500,000 of them were planned as temporary
housing for those who had lost their homes to Luftwaffe bombs.
29/4/1944, Saturday (-374) Bernardino Machado, President of
Portugal, died.
28/4/1944, Friday (-375) Second
US attack on Truk in 10 weeks. 30 IUs aircraft were shot down but 25 of the
pilots were rescued. However the Japanese fuel and ammunition depots were destroyed,
making any Japanese flank attack on western New Guinea impossible,
27/4/1944, Thursday (-376)
24/4/1944, Monday (-379) The Japanese evacuated New Guinea as US
troops landed.
23/4/1944, Sunday (-380) Hollandia, New Guinea, fell to the Americans without
much fighting.
22/4/1944, Saturday (-381) The US launched Operation Persecution, attacking
the Japanese on the north coast of New Guinea.
21/4/1944, Friday (-382) In
France, women got equal voting rights with men.
20/4/1944. Thursday
(-383) The RAF set a new bombing record.
4,500 tons of bombs were dropped in a single raid, on Hitler�s 55th
birthday.
19/4/1944, Wednesday (-384)
The RAF bombed railways and river bridges in France.
18/4/1944, Tuesday (-385) (Japan) The 5th Brigade attacked
Japanese defences near Kohima.
17/4/1944, Monday (-386) John Hearne, cricketer, died (born 3/5/1867).
16/4/1944, Sunday (-387) Soviet forces cleared out the last pockets of German
resistance at Yalta.
15/4/1944, Saturday (-388) The US began devising Operation Wed;lock, a
spurious plan to attack the Kurile Islands, northern Japan. This was a
diversionary tactic.
14/4/1944, Friday
(-389) (Japan)
British forces overcame a Japanese roadblock near Zubza, western Kohima trail,
relieving the besieged 161st Indian Brigade.
13/4/1944, Thursday (-390) The Russian army took Simferopol,
capital of Crimea.
12/4/1944, Wednesday (-391) (Japan)
Japanese forces cut the road between Kohima and Imphal.
11/4/1944, Tuesday (-392) The USSR regained Odessa.
10/4/1944, Monday (-393) US aircraft attacked German shore batteries
along the Normandy coast.
9/4/1944, Sunday (-394) Easter
Sunday. General Charles De Gaulle became commander in chief of the Free
French forces. This angered his rival for the post, World War veteran General
Henri Giraud. De Gaulle fled France for Britain in 1940.
8/4/1944, Saturday (-395) Russia began on offensive to evict the Germans
from Crimea, the last part of pre-War Russia they still occupied.
7/4/1944, Friday (-396) Hitler suspended all laws in Berlin and
made Goebbels dictator of the city.
6/4/1944, Thursday (-397) In the UK, PAYE (pay as you earn)
Income Tax began.
5/4/1944, Wednesday (-398) The Germans began deporting Jews
from Hungary.
4/4/1944, Tuesday (-399) On the Eastern Front, a counterattack by the
German 4th Panzer Army captured Kovel.
3/4/1944, Monday (-400) British aircraft bombed the German battleship Tirpitz, damaging her but failing to
sink her.
2/4/1944, Sunday (-401) USSR
troops crossed the Romanian frontier.
1/4/1944, Saturday (-402) Many German troops were surrounded in the
eastern Galician town of Skala. Over the next 9 days, 26,000 of them were
killed.
====================================================================================
31/3/1944, Friday (-403) The Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front took
Ochakov.
30/3/1944, Thursday (-404) Soviet forces were now within 16 miles of
the Hungarian fromtier.
29/3/1944, Wednesday (-405) Soviet forces took Kolomyja, a town inside
�Greater Germany�.
28/3/1944, Tuesday (-406) Stephen Leacock, Canadian writer, died aged
74.
27/3/1944, Monday (-407) (Germany) Germany poured massive reinforcements
into Hungary as the Russians approached.
26/3/1944, Sunday (-408) Diana Ross, US actress, was born.
25/3/1944, Saturday (-409)
German army commander, Von Manstein, leader of Army Group South, successfully
argued with Hitler that the 1st Panzer Army must be allowed to
retreat to avoid a Soviet encirclement south-east of Tarnopol. Von Manstein was
a much better strategist than Hitler, and was never afraid to argue
persuasively and strongly with the Fuhrer when necessary. However Von Manstein
was replaced by Field Marshal Model. Army Groups South and A were renamed,
respectively, Army Groups Northern and Southern Ukraine; an ironic move given
that by now very little of the Ukraine remained under German occupation.
24/3/1944, Friday (-410) Orde Wingate, British Army Commander
who created and led the Chindits in Burma, was killed in a plane crash in the
rainforest in Assam. The Chindits, from the Burmese for �mighty lion� struck
deep behind Japanese lines, destroying railways and bridges.
21/3/1944, Tuesday (-413)
20/3/1944, Monday (-414) Soviet forces took Vinnitsa, on the Southern
Bug,and crossed the Dneister north of Kishinev,
19/3/1944, Sunday (-415) (Germany) Germany
began a direct occupation of its ally, Hungary, as Soviet forces advanced
towards the Danube Plain. Hungarian oil was vital for Germany, and Hitler was
alarmed at reports that Admiral Horthy, Hungarian Regent, was intending to
surrender to the Russians as soon as they crossed the border into Hungary.
18/3/1944, Saturday (-416) The Soviets took Zhmerynka, central Ukraine.
17/3/1944, Friday (-417) Soviet forces entered the railway junction
town of Dubno, 25 miles inside Poland and only 170 miles from Hungary.
16/3/1944, Thursday (-418) Rick Renick: US baseball player, was born.
15/3/1944, Wednesday (-419) Heavy air raids against the ancient
monastery at Casino by the
Allies.
14/3/1944, Tuesday (-420)
Heavy German air raid on London, with 100 Luftwaffe bombers.
13/3/1944, Monday (-421) Kherson retaken by Russia.
12/3/1944. Sunday (-422) The UK government banned all travel
between Britain and Ireland to prevent Normandy invasion plans being passed to
pro-German spies in Ireland.
11/3/1944, Saturday (-423) The Irish
prime Minister, Eamon de Valera, refused to comply with a US request to close
the German and Japanese Embassies in Dublin, to prevent possible transmission
of military intelligence.
10/3/1944, Friday (-424) The anti-malarial drug quinine was discovered
by Robert Edward and William van Eggers.
9/3/1944, Thursday (-425) The U.S. 5th Marine Regiment took Talasea in
New Britain unopposed.
8/3/1944, Wednesday (-426)
9,000 Welsh miners went on strike over pay differentials; the government met
their demands.
7/3/1944, Tuesday (-427) Japan launched an offensive from Burma into
India.
6/3/1944. Monday (-428) US planes began daylight bombing raids
on Berlin, flying from bases in
Britain.
1/3/1944, Wednesday (-433)
====================================================================================
29/2/1944. Tuesday (-434) US troops landed at Los Negros in the
Admiralty Islands.
28/2/1944, Monday (-435) Josef Maier, West German footballer, was born.
27/2/1944, Sunday (-436) The Battle of the Green Islands in the Solomon
Islands ended in Allied victory.
26/2/1944, Saturday (-437) (Finland) The Finnish capital, Helsinki, was
devastated in a 12-hour air raid by 600 Soviet bombers.
25/2/1944, Friday (-438) Francois Cevert, racing driver, was born in
Paris, France (died 1973)
24/2/1944, Thursday (-439) (Finland)
Finnish Prime Minister, Risto Ryti, made peace approaches to the USSR.
23/2/1944, Wednesday (-440) Leo Hendrik Baekeland, Belgian-born
American chemist, inventor of a plastic called Bakelite, died.
22/2/1944, Tuesday (-441) Krivoi Rog retaken by Russia.
21/2/1944. Monday (-442) Hideki Tojo became Chief of Staff of
the Japanese Army.
20/2/1944, Sunday (-443) Saboteurs blew up a ship on Lake Tinnsjo,
Norway, which was carrying heavy water for use in a Nazi atomic research
facility.
19/2/1944, Saturday (-444) (Japan) The US
Submarine Jack attacked a Japanese
convoy 428 km west of Luzon, sinking four vessels.
18/2/1944, Friday (-445) (France) The
RAF raided Amiens prison, where many French Resistance fighters were being
held. They succeeded in bringing down the prison walls, and although 56
Resistance were shot by guards, 258 more escaped. They had faced execution the
next day.
17/2/1944, Thursday (-446)
In the UK, the White Paper on the National Health Service was published. The
Education Bill was also published, raising the school leaving age to 15, see
30/12/1938. Also, fre secondary education was provided for all children
up to age 15, divided into grammar schools, technical schools and secondary
modern schools, selection for these by an 11-plus examination. Primary
education was divided into infant and junior schools. Schools would provide
free milk, subsidised meals, and free dental and medical examinations. There
was provision for raising the school leaving age to 16; this was implemented in
1973.
16/2/1944, Wednesday (-447) (Cape Verde) Ant�nio
Mascarenhas Monteiro, the second President of Cape Verde, was born.
15/2/1944, Tuesday (-448) (1) Casino monastery bombed by the Allies.� The monastery, founded in 529 AD by St
Benedict, occupied a strategic position at the entrance to the Liri valley and
the route to Rome.� See 18/5/1944.
(2) The US cleared the Solomon Islands of Japanese
forces.
14/2/1944, Monday (-449)
Carl Bernstein, the journalist who exposed the Watergate scandal along with Bob
Woodward, was born.
13/2/1944. Sunday (-450) The Allies dropped weapons for the
French Resistance in Haut-Savoie.
9/2/1944, Wednesday (-453)
Alice Walker, African-American author and social activist, was born.
4/2/1944, Friday (-459) US warships shelled the Japanese
homeland; the island of Paramishu.
3/2/1944, Thursday (-460) Germans reopened an offensive against
the Anzio beach head.
2/2/1944, Wednesday (-461) The Battle of Narva began on the
Eastern Front.
1/2/1944, Tuesday (-462) In New York, the Dutch artist Piet
Mondrian died, aged 71.
====================================================================================
31/1/1944, Monday (-463) (Japan) US
forces made major amphibious landings on the Marshall Islands.
30/1/1944, Sunday (-464) The Brazzaville Conference; French colonial
governors met in Brazzaville, capital� of
French Equatorial Africa, to set out post-war relations between France and her
African colonies. Further integration between France and the colonies was
anticipated, rather than eventual independence.
29/1/1944, Saturday (-465) Battle of Cisterna in central
Italy.
28/1/1944, Friday (-466) John Tavener, English composer, was born (died
2013)
27/1/1944, Thursday (-467) Russia announced the complete lifting
of the 2-year blockade against Leningrad.�
The Leningrad to Moscow railway reopened.
26/1/1944, Wednesday (-468) (Argentina)
Argentina, under pressure from the United States, severed diplomatic relations
with Germany.
25/1/1944, Tuesday (-469) In
Macao the Reverend Florence Tim-Oi Lee became the first woman Anglican Priest.
24/1/1944, Monday (-470) Klaus Nomi, German singer was born (died 1983).
23/1/1944. Sunday (-471) Death of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch.
22/1/1944. Saturday (-472)
The Allies landed at Anzio, Italy.� Anzio was over
60 miles behind German lines and only 35 miles from Rome. The Allies found the
town deserted; the Italians had evacuated the place and the German army had
moved elsewhere. 50,000 Allied troops and 3,000 vehicles were put ashore with
only 13 casualties, from mines. Initially the Germans were taken by surprise
but rushed troops to the area to contain the bridgehead, which did not rejoin
Allied forces until May 1944 with the general retreat of the Germans north of
Rome.� Anzio made it impossible for Kesselring to establish a German defensive
line south of Rome.
21/1/1944, Friday (-473) The
Luftwaffe resumed bombing raids on London, after a lull of over two years. 268
tons of bombs were dropped, followed by a similar raid a week later.
20/1/1944, Thursday (-474) (1) Russia
recaptured Novogorod.
(2) The RAF dropped 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin.
19/1/1944, Wednesday (-475) US air raid on Japanese air base at Truk,
Caroline Islands.
18/1/1944, Tuesday (-476)
The first batch of UK conscripts to be sent down the mines, nicknamed �Bevin
Boys�, began their training. See 2/12/1943.
17/1/1944, Monday (-477) British troops crossed the Garigliano River,
Italy.
16/1/1944, Sunday (-478)
General Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe.
15/1/1944, Saturday (-479)
Major earthquake hit San Juan province, Argentina.
14/1/1944, Friday (-480) (Germany)
German Army Group North was overwhelmed by a new Soviet offensive on the entire
Leningrad, Volkhov and 2nd Baltic Fronts.
12/1/1944, Wednesday (-482) Allied troops in Italy launched an attack
on Monte Cassino, but the determined German defence and bad winter weather made
the town impossible to capture.
10/1/1944. Monday (-484) Mussolini�s son in law was sentenced to
death for treason.
5/1/1944, Wednesday (-489) Marshall
Brooks, athletics (high jump) died (born 30/5/1855).
4/1/1944. Tuesday (-490) Hitler
ordered the mobilisation of all children over the age of ten. On this day
Soviet forces crossed the pre-war frontier from Russia into Poland at Rokitno.
Hitler, anticipating an Allied attack on France, was keen to hold the northern
French and Belgian coasts, so as to be able to launch the V weapons against
Britain, even if this meant some territorial losses in the east.
3/1/1944, Monday (-491) �Soviet forces reached Olevsk, just 11 miles
from the pre-war Polish border, and 280 miles from East Prussia.
2/1/1944, Sunday (-492) US forces
launched Operation Dexterity, a seaborne assault on the Japanese stronghold of
Saidor, New Guinea. The fort was captured; 1,275 Japanese were killed, against
55 US troops.
1/1/1944, Saturday (-493) In the UK, the Abbey National Building
Society was formed from a merger of the Abbey Road Building Society (founded
1874 in Abbey Road, London) and the National Building Society (founded 1849).
=====================================================================================
31/12/1943, Friday (-494) Penicillin was finally in common
usage in hospitals, its development having been delayed by the War. Its first
successful use had been on 13/2/1941. Another �wonder drug�, sulphonamide, was
also useful against infections.
28/12/1943, Tuesday (-497)
Allied troops landed at Ortona, east coast of Italy.
26/12/1943. Sunday (-499) The German battleship Scharnhorst was sunk by the Royal Navy
off the North Cape.
24/12/1943, Friday (-501) British bombing raid on Berlin.
22/12/1943. Wednesday (-503) The author Beatrix Potter died aged
77. The UK government announced there were only enough turkeys left for one in
ten families.
19/12/1943. Sunday (-506) At the first war crimes trial, in the
USSR, three Germans were found guilty of atrocities and hanged at Kharkov.
17/12/1943, Friday (-508) (1) (Rail Tunnels), The Kvineshei rail tunnel,
Norway, 9.064 km long, opened. The Haegebostad Tunnel, 8.474 km long, opened.
The Gyland rail tunnel, Norway, 5.5 km long, opened.
(2) (USA) US
President Roosevelt repealed the Chinese Exclusion Acts of 1882 and 1902, and
signed the Chinese Act. This made Chinese residents of the US eligible for
naturalisation, and allowed an annual immigration of 105 Chinese.
6/12/1943, Monday (-519) Gilbert Smith, footballer, died (born
25/11/1872).
3/12/1943, Friday (-522) Colin
Dixon, rugby player, was born in Cardiff.
2/12/1943, Thursday (-523) Britain was running out of
manpower. The number of registered unemployed, 1,250,000 in 1939, was now just
60,000, and the conscription age was now from 18 to 51. Conscription of women
had also been extended upwards from those in their 20s to those in their 50s,
although they could choose between armed forces or factory work.
1/12/1943, Wednesday (-524) The Cairo Declaration, issued by
the USA, UK, and China, pledged independence for Korea �in due course�. The
provisional Korean government in exile, in Chungking, south west China, asked
for clarification of this vague phrase, but received none.
=====================================================================================
30/11/1943, Tuesday (-525)
Oscar
Harris, Surinamese singer, was born.
29/11/1943, Monday (-526) The
Jacje Congress began (ended 30/11/1943). Delegates from various regions of
Yugoslavia met in the Bosnian town of Jacje, which had been taken by Tito�s
partisans from the Nazis in September 1942. The Congress was organised by the
AVNOJ (Anti-Fascist National Liberation Committee), and decided on various
aspects of Yugoslavia�s post war governance and leadership.
28/11/1943. Sunday (-527) The main Allied leaders, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, all met in
Tehran.
Co-ordinating the Normandy landings with a Russian attack on the eastern front was
discussed, also a Russian attack on Japan, and a post-war United Nations
Organisation. All agreed that the USSR could have eastern Poland as far west as
the Curzon line, and Poland would be compensated with lands in eastern Germany.
This was confirmed at the Yalta Conference of 4 � 11 February 1945.
25/11/1943, Thursday (-530) US bombers attacked Shinchiku Airfield,
Formosa.
23/11/1943. Tuesday (-532) (1) Berlin
TV ceased broadcasting altogether after Allied bombers scored a direct hit on
the transmitter. Unlike in the UK, German TV had continued throughout the War,
but restricted to 2 or 3 hours in the afternoon and a further 2 hours in the
evening from 8 � 10pm. As Allied bombing raids intensified, the evening 2-hour
slot was gradually brought forward, to 6-8pm, so Berliners could be in their
shelters after dinner.
(2) US forces
retook Makin in the Gilbert Islands.
22/11/1943, Monday (-533) A major RAF raid on Berlin
destroyed the armaments ministry, the Charlottenburg Palace, and the British
Embassy.� A church at the end of the
Kurfurstendamm, the main shopping street in Berlin, was also destroyed, but its
bell tower was rebuilt as a landmark in post-War Berlin.
20/11/1943. Saturday (-535) Oswald Moseley, leader of the British
Union of Fascists, was released from gaol on grounds of ill-health. The UK
Labour Party protested.
16/11/1943, Tuesday (-539) (Germany)
US 8th Army Air Force bombers attacked the German heavy water plant
at Vermork, Norway. This was a vital centre for Germany�s atomic weapons
programme.
15/11/1943, Monday (-540) (Germany) The Nazis extended their
extermination policies from the Jews to the Romany. Heinrich Himmler, head of
the SS, ordered all Romany to be sent to the concentration camps.
13/11/1943, Saturday (-542) Roberto Bonninsegna, Italian footballer, was
born.
11/11/1943. Thursday (-544) French troops arrested the Lebanese
government after it declared itself independent.
9/11/1943, Tuesday (-546) Soviet
troops retook the western Ukrainian town of Zhitomir, just 75 miles from the
pre-War Polish frontier
8/11/1943, Monday (-547) Martin
Peters, footballer, was born.
7/11/1943, Sunday (-548)
6/11/1943. Saturday (-549) Russian
troops retook Kiev.
5/11/1943, Friday (-550) Allied planes accidentally
bombed The Vatican; there were no casualties.
3/11/1943. Wednesday (-552) US miners ended a 6 month strike.
1/11/1943, Monday (-554) (1)
Russians cut off the Germans who were attempting to retreat from the Crimea.
(2) US forces retook Bougainville, in the Solomon Islands.
=====================================================================================
28/10/1943. Thursday (-558) The
UK Court of Appeal ruled that money saved from the housekeeping by a wife
belonged to the husband.
27/10;/1943, Wednesday (-559) New
Zealand troops landed on Stirling Island, central Solomons, unopposed.
25/10/1943, Monday (-561) Japan celebrated the completion of the
Burma-Thailand railway. Of the 46,000 Allied PoWs forced to work on it, 16,000
had died of starvation, disease and maltreatment. 50,000 Burmese labourers had
also died during its completion.
22/10/1943, Friday (-564) Heavy British air raid on the German city of
Kassel, destroying German air craft and rocket manufacturing facilities.
20/10/1943, Wednesday (-566) The United Nations War Crimes Commission was formed.
19/10/1943. Tuesday (-567) Italian
troops began to help Tito�s partisans in their fight against the Germans.
16/10/1943, Saturday (-570) (Jewish, Germany) Nazi German forces began to round up
Jews from Rome for deportation to the death camps. 1,200 Jews were deported, of
whom only 15 survived the War. However Giovanni Borromeo, head of the
Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Rome, rapidly admitted many Jews and other
anti-fascists with so-called K Syndrome. The Nazis took this to mean Koch
Syndrome (tuberculosis) and feared to enter the hospital, on an island in the
Tiber, saving many from the Nazi extermination camps.
14/10/1943, Thursday (-572) US
bombers mounted a raid on tye German ball bearings factory at Schweinfurt.
However little damage was done but US losses were heavy.
13/10/1943. Wednesday (-573) Italy
changed sides and declared war on Germany. See 8/9/1943.
10/10/1943, Sunday (-576)
7/10/1943,
Thursday (-579) Russian forces crossed
the Dnieper River.
6/10/1943, Wednesday
(-580) US forces landed unopposed on the central Solomon Island of
Kolombangara.
5/10/1943,
Tuesday (-581) Thomas Newman, billiards champion,
died.
4/10/1943.
Monday (-582) Allied troops occupied
Corsica, the first part of France to be liberated.
3/10/1943, Sunday (-583)
2/10/1943,
Saturday (-584) A Japanese
counter attack in New Guinea was beaten off by Australian forces.
1/10/1943,
Friday (-585) Hitler ordered that all Danish
Jews be arrested and deported. However the Danes largely thwarted this move,
see 9/4/1940.
=====================================================================================
30/9/1943.
Thursday (-586)
Allied troops entered Naples.
29/9/1943. Wednesday (-587)
(1)
In a decisive battle, which lasted until 4/10/1943, French forces, together
with Italians, fought the Germans and forced them to evacuate Corsica.� The Germans retreated to mainland France and
the Italians moved to Sardinia.
(2) Polish leader Lech
Walesa was born in Popovo, the son of a carpenter.
27/9/1943, Monday (-589) Citizens of Naples revolted against the
Germans after German soldiers looted a shop in the city centre.
25/9/1943. Saturday (-591) The USSR retook Smolensk.
24/9/1943, Friday (-592) Repairs were finished on the M�hne river dam,
which had been heavily damaged in a British bombing raid on May 16; the Edersee
Dam, which had been bombed in the same raid, was restored to full operation six
days later.
23/9/1943, Thursday (-593) The German battleship Tirpitz was severely damaged and
disabled.
22/9/1943. Wednesday (-594) UK government announced that P.A.Y.E. was to begin in April 1944.
Income tax collection needed reform after the number of manual workers paying
it rose from 1 million in 1939 to 7 million in 1943. Deduction from pay packets
based on the previous year�s earnings was considered, but that could cause
hardship if overtime fell. The solution was to deduct tax at wage payment each
week.
21/9/1943, Tuesday (-595) The Soviet 43rd Army captured Demidov.
20/9/1943.
Monday (-596) Allies attacked Naples.
19/9/1943,
Sunday (-597) Germany evacuated Sardinia.
18/9/1943, Saturday (-598) Mass
deportations began of French Jews in Paris, with 1,150 being shipped in
railroad freight cars to the Buchenwald concentration camp.
17/9/1943,
Friday (-599) Briansk retaken by
Russia.
16/9/1943,
Thursday (-600) Novorossisk retaken by
Russia.
15/9/1943, Wednesday
(-601) (Italy, France-Germany) Three days after freed from imprisonment by Germany, and seven weeks
after his overthrow in July, Benito Mussolini was restored to leadership of
Italy by the Nazi occupiers; German paratroopers also landed in St. Peter's
Square at Vatican City in Rome, despite the Vatican's neutrality in the war �Mussolini made his announcement of a return to
power from Adolf Hitler's headquarters at Rastenburg.
14/9/1943. Tuesday (-602) Yugoslav
partisans were advancing along the Dalmatian coast, and Allied officers had
reached Tito. Allied troops landed at Bari, SE Italy.
13/9/1943, Monday (-603) (1), Free French forces attacked the German and Italians
on Corsica, see 29/9/1943.
(2)
Chiang Kai Shek was elected President of China.
12/9/1943.
Sunday (-604) Mussolini was rescued from prison by the
Germans.
11/9/1943, Saturday (-605) �(Italy,
France-Germany) German
Field Marshal Albert Kesselring declared that all Italian territory was under
German military control, which former dictator Benito Mussolini would later
describe as reducing Italy to the status of a German "colony". Adolf
Hitler ordered that the occupied Italian territory be divided into three zones,
with the area around Rome extending south toward the front lines against the
Allies, the Alpine mountain region ("Alpenvorland") and the coast
along the Adriatic Sea ("Adriatische Kusterland"). Hitler also issued
orders to deal with any Italian military units that had gone over to fight for
the Allies, with all officers to be executed, and soldiers and non-combatants
to be deported to Germany as labourers.
10/9/1943.
Friday (-606) (1) German troops occupied Rome.
(2)
Allied troops took Tarantino, Italy.
9/9/1943. Thursday (-607) (Italy, Germany) Allied
forces landed at Salerno, Italy. King Umberto of Italy left Rome and fled to
Brindisi in the south. This was seen as an abandonment by many Italians and
contributed to the conversion of the country to a Republic in 1946.
8/9/1943. Wednesday (-608) The
Italian Prime Minister, Badoglio and King Victor Emmanuel agreed to Italy�s unconditional surrender to the Allies
(see 25/7/1943, and 13/10/1943).
7/9/1943, Tuesday (-609) (1) (Italy, Germany)
Suspecting that Italy was about to make peace with the Allies, German troops
quickly occupied Italy, especially its airfields, to forestall a complete
Allied possession of the country. However the entire Italian navy escaped to
Malta, thereby freeing up Allied ships for combat in the Pacific or Atlantic.
(2) German troops began a retreat from the Ukraine.
6/9/1943, Monday (-610) The railway junction of Konotop fell to the
Soviet 60th Army.
5/9/1943, Sunday (-611) US and Australian troops seized Nazdab, New
Guinea, where an airstrip was quickly built to facilitate an assault on Lae.
4/9/1943, Saturday (-612) British troops, under the command
of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, captured the Italian ports of Reggio
Calabria and San Giovanni di Gerace.
3/9/1943. Friday (-613)
Allied troops landed on the Italian mainland, in the
province of Calabria. See 25/7/1943.
2/9/1943. Thursday (-614) Inmates of the concentration camps in
Poland were being used for medical experiments.
1/9/1943, Wednesday (-615) Minami-Tori-shima, a Japanese coral
atoll that included an airstrip, located approximately 1,600 km from Tokyo, was
attacked by the US in the first successful strike of the new Fast Carrier Task
Force.
==================================================================================
31/8/1943, Tuesday (-616) Gustav Bachmann, German World War I Admiral,
died aged 83.
30/8/1943, Monday (-617) Taganrog retaken by Russia.
29/8/1943, Sunday (-618) The Nazis occupying Denmark dismissed the Danish
Government, following extensive strike action and acts of sabotage against the
Germans. In response the Danes formed the Frihedsrad (Free Council) in order to
coordinate and escalate resistance activity. It commanded a Danish Resistance
Army of some 43,000 men; several of its members held government positions in
the post-war Danish Government from 1945.
28/8/1943, Saturday (-619)
Boris III, Tsar of Bulgaria, died.
27/8/1943, Friday (-620) Tuesday Weld, US �film and TV actress, was born.
26/8/1943, Thursday (-621) Edward Ray, golfing champion, died (born
28/3/1877).
25/8/1943, Wednesday (-622) US forces captured New Georgia in the
Solomon Islands.
24/8/1943, Tuesday (-623)
The Quebec Conference ended (began 10/8/1943).�
Code-named Quadrant, it was concerned with plans for the Normandy
landings, also land operations in south east Asia (especially Burma), and with
campaigns in Italy.� See 16/9/1944.
23/8/1943, Monday (-624) Kharkov retaken by Russia.
20/8/1943, Friday (-627)
18/8/1943, Wednesday (-629) The
UK implemented Plan Bunbury, the planting in the UK media of a story about the
destruction of an electricity generating plant at Bury St Edmunds, resulting in
the deaths of 159 workmen. In fact the event never took place, but was intended
to reassure the Germans of the integrity of two double agents whom Germany
thought were acting as their spies.
17/8/1943. Tuesday (-630) The
Allies completely controlled Sicily.
16/8/1943. Monday (+631) (1) US troops took Messina, Sicily.
(2) Jews in the ghetto at Bialystock, Poland, rose up.
15/8/1943. Sunday (-632) (1) US
forces landed on Kiska Island, Aleutians. However the Japanese forces they
expected to find there had already evacuated under cover of foggy nights in July
1943.
(2) The Allies
attacked Messina.
13/8/1943. Friday (-634) The Allies bombed Rome, Milan, and
Turin.
11/8/1943, Wednesday (-636)
German troops began evacuating Sicily. The Allies knew this was to happen but
lacked the resources to stop it, which meant they faced stiffer opposition when
later invading the Italian mainland.
10/8/1943, Tuesday (-637) The Quebec Conference opened.
Churchill, Roosevelt and McKenzie were present.
9/8/1943, Monday (-638) Painter
Chaim Soutine died in Paris, aged 49.
7/8/1943, Saturday (-640)
5/8/1943. Thursday (-642) The USSR retook Orel.
4/8/1943, Wednesday (-643) At the German V-2 rocket plant at
Peenem�nde, the decision was made to employ concentration camp inmates as slave
labour to build the missiles. For every non-Jewish German employee, there would
be at least ten camp inmates supplied by the SS.
3/8/1943, Tuesday (-644) (Germany) The
Russian Voronezh, Steppe and South-West Fronts began a major offensive against
German Army Group South below the Kursk Salient.
2/8/1943, Monday (-645) Hamburg was seriously damaged by Allied
aircraft, at a cost of 87 British aircraft. The RAF had considerably enlarged
its bomber force; in January 1943 the RAF only had 260 heavy bombers, but now
it regularly sent 700 bombers on a single raid, One million civilians had fled
the city after three nights of bombing, and 40,000 were killed. 7,000 tons of
bombs destroyed 10 square miles of Hamburg, creating a 1,000 C firestorm, and
U-boat construction yards were severely damaged. The RAF used Pathfinder aircraft
to drop marker bombs on the target city, then release masses of aluminium foil
to confuse enemy radar, followed by the main bomber raid. The scale of these
raids forced Hitler to withdraw Luftwaffe forces from the Russian front, where
in August 1943 just 20% of Luftwaffe strength was then deployed. Albert Speer,
Hitler�s Minister for War Production, feared that just six more raids on the
scale of Hamburg could bring Germany to its knees.
1/8/1943, Sunday (-646) (Germany) Allied
raid on the Ploesti oil refineries, Romania, which supplied much of Germany�s
oil. However anti-aircraft fire was much heavier than anticipated. Some
refining capacity was taken out but some remained intact.
====================================================================================
31/7/1943, Saturday (-647) Hedley Verity, cricketer, died (born 18/5/1905).
30/7/1943, Friday (-648) In
Sweden, the Saab 21 became the first aircraft to fly with the modern
explosives-powered ejector seat.
29/7/1943, Thursday (-649) The Alaskan island of Kiska was evacuated by
the remaining 5,183 Japanese officers, enlisted men and civilians who had
occupied the American territory. U.S. ships had been diverted away from the
island between July 23rd and 26th, when American radar detected what appeared
to be a convoy seven reinforcement ships. With the U.S. warships away from
Kiska, the Japanese escaped to their own rescue ships within 55 minutes. When
Allied troops arrived on August 15, they were surprised to find that the island
was deserted.
28/7/1943, Wednesday (-650) The
Italian Fascist Party was formally dissolved.
27/7/2943, Tuesday (-651) Herbert Roper Barrett, tennis champion, died (born
24/11/1873).
26/7/1943, Monday (-652) Mick Jagger, English rock singer (The Rolling
Stones), was born as Michael Philip Jagger in Dartford
25/7/1943. Sunday (-653)
Mussolini was ousted from power by the Fascist Grand
Council. On
3/9/1943 the Italian Prime Minister, Badoglio, secretly signed an armistice
with the Allies. See 8/9/1943.
24/7/1943, Saturday (-654) Operation Gomorrah, the destruction of the
German port of Hamburg began. British and Canadian airplanes bombed the city by
night, and American planes followed during the day. By the end of the operation
in November, 9,000 tons of explosives had killed more than 30,000 people and
destroyed 280,000 buildings. For the first time, the British forces used
"Window", aluminium strips dropped to distort radar images, against
the German anti-aircraft defences.
23/7/1943, Friday (-655)
Allied troops took Palermo, Sicily. Only the north east of the island now
remained under German occupation.
21/7/1943, Wednesday (-657)
19/7/1943, Monday
(-659) (Italy, Germany)
First Allied air raid on Rome. The raid was a political warning that
Mussolini�s regime must be overthrown.
18/7/1943, Sunday (-660) Herbert Leo
Price, hockey champion, died (born 21/6/1899).
16/7/1943, Friday (-662)
13/7/1943. Tuesday (-665) The Germans lost the greatest tank battle in history, in the cornfields
around Kursk. See 8/2/1943 for more details.
12/7/1943, Monday (-666) Bruce Taylor, New Zealand cricketer, was born.
11/7/1943, Sunday (-667) The German headquarters at Taormina, Sicily, was
destroyed by Allied forces.
10/7/1943, Saturday (-668) Allied forces under US General Patton invaded
Sicily (Operation Husky), landing in the south and south west of the island.� 3,000 Allied troopships were used. Palermo
fell on 23/7/1943.
9/7/1943, Friday (-669) Clifford Beers, US mental hygiene
pioneer, died aged 67.
8/7/1943. Thursday (-670) French Resistance leader, Jean
Moulin, died after torture by the Gestapo.
7/7/1943, Wednesday (-671) (Germany)
The 4th Panzer Army under Hoth, in the south of the Kursk
Salient, made good progress, advancing 20 miles into the Salient at Yakovlevo
and Pokrovka.
6/7/1943, Tuesday (-672) (Germany) Marshall-General
Rokossovsky�s counter attacked against the Germans at Kursk but could not
prevent their advance. However stiff Soviet resistance prevented the Germans
gaining more than six miles of ground.
5/7/1943, Monday (-673) (Germany) At
4.30 am, German forces in Russia began Operation Citadel, an assault into the
Kursk Salient. However the main concentration of German troops did not reach
the battle area until 5.00 am, due to Soviet shelling of the assembly areas.
Soviet intelligence had picked up details of the offensive.
4/7/1943, Sunday (-674) Victor Cazelet, squash player, died (born
27/12/1879).
====================================================================================
29/6/1943, Tuesday (-679) US forces landed in New Guinea.
23/6/1943, Wednesday (-685) US
troops occupied Kiriwina Island, largest of the Trobriand Group.
22/6/1943, Tuesday (-686) US
troops occupied Woodlark Island, Trobriand Island group.
21/6/1943, Monday (-687)
20/6/1943, Sunday (-688) The RAF
began Operation Bellicose; bombers left Britain to hit the steelworks at
Friedrichshafen, then flew on t Algeria, then on the return flight they bombed
the Italian naval base at La Spezia. The British did not know that the
Friedrichshafen works also contained the assembly line for V2 rockets, and
these raids caused the assembly line to be abandoned.
19/6/1943. Saturday (-689) Goebbels
declared Berlin to be �free of Jews�.
17/6/1943, Thursday (-691)
15/6/1943, Tuesday (-693) Cecil
Parker, cricketer, died (born 18/2/1886)
14/6/1943, Monday (-694) Anne Frank (born 12/6/1929)
began to write her famous diary. She was born in Frankfurt, Germany, to Otto
and Edith Frank; Otto was a German Army officer in World War One. Anne had a
sister called Margot. In 1933, as the Nazis came to power, the Frank family
moved to Amsterdam where they hoped to be safe from Hitler�s anti-Semitic
policies. However Germany invaded The Netherlands in May 1940.
12/6/1943, Saturday (-696)
11/6/1943, Friday, (-697) The
Allies captured the island of Pantelleria, between Tunisia and Sicily, after a
heavy bombardment.
10/6/1943. Thursday (-698) The
ball point pen was patented by its inventor, a Hungarian called Laszlo Biro. He
had devised a prototype pen that would not blot in 1938, but fled to Paris and
then Argentina in 1940, to escape the Nazis. In 1944 the RAF began using the
pens as they were not affected by low air pressure in aircraft.
9/6/1943, Wednesday (-699) US
Congress approved the Pay as You Go scheme for deducting income tax from
salaries.
6/6/1943, Sunday (-702)
4/6/1943, Friday (-704) Walter
George, athlete, died (born 9/9/1858).
3/6/1943, Thursday (-705)
Charles de Gaulle of France set up the Committee of National Liberation,
through which he promised that Algerians would have a full say in how their
country was run after World War Two. De Gaulle�s failure to honour this promise
after the War was a major factor in the hardening of Algerian desire for
independence.
2/6/1943, Wednesday (-706) US
troops completed the recapture of Attu Island, Aleutian Islands, from Japan.
1/6/1943, Tuesday (-707) The close of the Hot Springs
Conference (opened 18/5/1943); the Allies discussed World War Two.
=====================================================================================
31/5/1942, Monday (-708) Major
1,000 bomber Allied raid against Cologne.
29/5/1943, Saturday (-710)
28/5/1943, Friday (-711) Japanese
forces launched a suicide attack against US troops at Attu Island.
27/5/1943, Thursday (-712) Cilla
Black, singer and presenter of the TV show Blind
Date, was born.
26/5/1943, Wednesday (-713)
Edsel Ford, president of the Ford Motor Company from 1919, died.
25/5/1943. Tuesday (-714) The
Allies bombed Sardinia.
22/5/1943, Saturday (-717)
After a month of disastrous losses, Grand Admiral Karl Donitz ordered his
U-boats out of the \North Atlantic. On 19/5/1943 his son Peter died when U-954
was sunk by an RAF Liberator bomber from Iceland. Allied losses from U-boats
had declined sharply from 1942 when 8 million tons of shipping was lost. Even
in March 1943 600,000 tons were sunk. However the Allies developed new
shortwave radar that could detect U-boats surfacing to recharge their batteries
(see 26/10/1940), also more powerful depth charges. A week earlier, 5 U-boats
out of 33 were lost in an unsuccessful attack on convoy SC-130. The Allies were
better at breaking Germans communications codes; from 24 codebreakers at the
beginning of the war the Royal Navy now had 1,000 codebreakers, including historians,
mathematicians and linguists, many of them German refugees. Listening posts to
intercept German communications were scattered across Britain and British
territories overseas.
18/5/1943, Tuesday (-721) UNRRA was founded.
16/5/1943. Sunday (-723) (1) The RAF launched its �Dambuster�
raid on the Ruhr dams, which had provided power to Germany�s industrial
heartland. The Mohne, Eder, and Sorpe dams were destroyed by special �bouncing
bombs� designed by Dr Barnes Wallis; these bombs could skip over barriers
placed in the dam lakes. The bombing squadron consisted of 19 Lancaster bombers
from 617 squadron, from Scampton, led by Guy Gibson. The dams were destroyed,
but less than half the bombers returned to the UK.
(2) German forces began an offensive against Tito�s
partisans in Yugoslavia.
14/5/1943, Friday (-725) Jules Gabriel Fisher, Louisiana State Senator,
died (born 15/4/1874).
12/5/1943. Wednesday (-727) All
resistance by Axis forces in North Africa was over.
11/5/1943, Tuesday (-728) US
forces began to recapture Attu in the Aleutian Islands, from Japan.
10/5/1943. Monday (-729) The
Allies bombed Sicily.
7/5/1943. Friday (-732) Tunis, and Bizerta, 60 miles NNW of
Tunis, were recaptured by the Allies. See 14/11/1942.
4/5/1943, Tuesday (-735) Georgi
Asparoukhov, Bulgarian footballer, was born.
3/5/1943. Monday (-736) The
UK government made part-time war work compulsory for women aged 18 to 45.
2/5/1943, Sunday (-737) The
RAF bombed Berlin.
====================================================================================
28/4/1943, Wednesday (-741) Sergei Rachmaninov, Russian composer, died
in Beverley Hills, California.
26/4/1943. Monday (-743) The mass grave of 4,000 Polish officers was
found in the Katyn forest. Germany accused Russia of the murder. The
Soviet Union finally admitted carrying out the 1940 massacre, of up to 15,000
Polish officers, on 12/4/1990.
25/4/1943, Sunday (-744) Easter
Sunday.
24/4/1943, Saturday (-745) Heavy bombing raid on Dortmund.
21/4/1943, Wednesday (-748) Battle of Enfidaville. Montgomery attempted
to break into the Axis bridgehead around Tunis. However he was not equipped for
fighting in the mountainous terrain there and failed.
19/4/1943. Monday (-750)
Polish Jews in Warsaw put up a major
fight against the Nazis. This was the first case of serious resistance by
the Jews to the Nazis, en masse. The Jews could not win, but they seriously
hampered German operations. The Nazis retook the ghetto on 20/4/1943, and
massacred the Jews.� The Warsaw ghetto
was totally erased from the city.
17/4/1943, Sunday (-751)
Hitler and Ribbentrop demanded that Hungary round up its Jews for extermination
in concentration camps; part of the �final solution�. Hungary initially delayed
but Germany exercised considerable political influence within Hungary.
14/4/1943. Wednesday (-755) Rommel
evacuated his troops from Tunis. The Allies entered Tunis on 7/5/1943.
13/4/1943, Tuesday (+756) Allied
forces took Enfidaville, Tunisia.
12/4/1943, Monday (-757) Allied
forces took Sousse, Tunisia.
10/4/1943. Saturday (-759) The Allied 8th army took
Sfax, Tunisia.
7/4/1943. Wednesday (-762) (1)
Keynes published his plan for the post-war recovery of Britain.
(2) The drug LSD
(lysergic acid di-ethylamide) was first synthesised by Swiss scientist Albert
Hoffman.
6/4/1943, Tuesday (-763) In north Africa, Rommel�s forces retreated
north from Gabes gap, Tunisia, enabling British and US forces to link up.
5/4/1943, Monday (-764) Heavy British air raid on Kiel, 1,400 bombs
were dropped. Meanwhile US planes bombed the Renault tank assembly lines near
Paris.
4/4/1943, Sunday (-765) Allied air raid in the port at Naples; 221
Italians died.
3/4/1943, Saturday (-766) British bombers dropped 900 tons of bombs on
the Krupp factory at Essen.
2/4/1943, Friday (-767) In the face of intensifying Allied air raids
on German cities, Goering made air raid patrol duty compulsory for every
able-bodied German.
1/4/1943. Thursday (-768) The rationing of meats, fats, and
cheese began in the USA.
===================================================================================
31/3/1943, Wednesday (-769) Christopher Walken, US actor, was born in
Queens, New York City.
30/3/1943, Tuesday (-770) Silly Putty was patented in the USA.
29/3/1943. Monday (-771) (1) Montgomery
broke through the Axis Mareth Line in north Africa.
(2) British Prime Minister John Major was born.
28/3/1943, Sunday (-772) Russian-American composer, Sergei
Rachmaninov, died in Beverley Hills, California.
21/3/1943, Sunday (-779) Russian forces retook Durovo, shrinking the
German Kursk salient.
17/3/1943, Wednesday (-783) The
Bulgarian Parliament voted unanimously against any mass deportation of
Bulgarian Jews, as demanded by Germany.
14/3/1943. Sunday (-786) The
Germans re-occupied Kharkov in a
counter offensive against the Russians.
13/3/1943, Saturday (-787) J P
Morgan Jnr, US financier, died aged 75.
12/3/1943, Friday (-788) Russian
forces recaptured Vyazma.
11/3/1943, Thursday (-789)
9/3/1943. Tuesday (-791) Bobby Fischer, chess champion, was born in Chicago. He took the
world title from Boris Spassky in 1972.
8/3/1943, Monday (-792) Michael Grade, BBC chief, was born.
7/3/1943, Sunday (-793) Carolyn Carlson, American ballet dancer, was
born.
6/3/1943. Saturday (-794) The RAF pounded the Ruhr city of Essen.
5/3/1943, Friday (-795) Billy Backus, American boxer, was born.
4/3/1943, Thursday (-796)
The Battle of the Bismarck Sea ended (began 2/3/1943). A Japanese convoy
carrying troops to Papua New Guinea was sunk by Allied forces.
3/3/1943, Wednesday (-797) (London, London
Underground) 173 people were crushed to death whilst descending the
stairs into Bethnal Green tube station to shelter during an air raid. A woman
at the top of the stairs, carrying a child, slipped and fell on those
immediately in front of her, causing those below to lose their balance too.
2/3/1943, Tuesday (-798) Alexandre Yersin, physician, died.
1/3/1943. Monday (-799) Ghandi broke his fast after 12 days.
===================================================================================
28/2/1943, Sunday (-800) Ron Barry, champion jockey, was born in
Limerick, Ireland.
25/2/1943, Thursday (-803)
(Germany) US forces recaptured the
Kasserine Pass, but the Allies suffered 10,000 casualties there.
22/2/1943, Monday (-806) (Germany) Members of the White Rose (die Weisse Rose) anti-war group in Germany were publically guillotined, their execution intended to discourage others. They had been caught distributing leaflets at university; most members were students who once supported Hitler but who had become disillusioned after Nazi war atrocities. Their execution, and the whole group, was swiftly forgotten in Germany until the 1970s when they were rediscovered and b