This day in history. Read about what happened today. A short and interesting account of historical events and facts about this day as well as any other day of the year. Find historical birthdays, deaths, tragedies, war events, disasters and sports events.

This year in history
In the year 1945

	January 10th	English singer, Rod Stewart, was born in London.
	January 17th	Soviet forces captured the Polish city of Warsaw.
	January 20th	Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated for a fourth term as President of the United States. He is the only US president to serve more than two terms in office.
	January 27th	The Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz was liberated by the army of the Soviet Union.
	January 29th	American actor, Tom Selleck, was born in Detroit, Michigan. He was the first selection for the role of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark but was unable to take the part due to his engagement in the television series, Magnum.
	February 4th	The Yalta Conference began. It was a meeting between the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, where the political playfield that would govern the world after the second world war was set.
	February 5th	British actress, Charlotte Rampling, was born in Sturmer.
	February 9th	American actress, Mia Farrow, was born in Los Angeles. She became famous after being cast in the soap opera, Peyton Place, and rose to become one of the most prominent actress of the 20th century. She is also famous for her activism and her illustrious marriages to Frank Sinatra and Woody Allen.
	February 13th	Soviet Union forces captured Budapest, Hungary from the Germans.
	February 14th	The fire bombing of Dresden, during World War II, took place. It was executed by the British Royal Air Force and the United States army air force. The bombing destroyed most of the city and caused the death of a large number of civilians, two facts which led many to label the bombing a war crime.
	February 19th	The Battle of Iwo Jima began as more than 28,000 United States Marines landed on the island of Iwo Jima. The battle has been immortalized due to a picture of United States soldiers raising the American flag over the island.
	March 4th	Finland declared war on Nazi Germany.
	March 9th	The United States air force conducted an extensive bombing campaign over the Japanese capital of Tokyo. The American bomber planes dropped a large number of incendiary bombs which sparked a massive firestorm that claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people.
	March 16th	The Battle of Iwo Jima came to an end with American forces claiming victory. More than 20,000 Japanese and over 6,000 American soldiers died in the struggle to control the island.
	March 16th	The German city of Wurzburg was almost entirely destroyed by British bomber planes.
	March 20th	American basketball player and coach, Pat Riley, was born in Rome, New York. He is widely considered as one of the greatest NBA coaches of all time. He has been the head coach the NBA champion team five times, the assistant coach to another and a player for yet another.
	March 20th	American film producer, Rick Berman, was born in New York. He is most famous for his work as the producer of the Star Trek series.
	March 22nd	The Arab League was founded in Cairo, Egypt.
	March 30th	British musician, Eric Clapton, was born in Surrey, England. His first band was "The Yardbirds", which he left in 1965 to form his own band, "The Cream".
	March 30th	Soviet armed forces invaded Austria and captured the city of Vienna.
	April 12th	US President Franklin D. Roosevelt died at the age of 63. He served four terms as president of the US between the years of 1933 and 1945.
	April 14th	English guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore, was born in North Somerset. He was the guitarist in the legendary rock band, Deep Purple. In 1975, after he left Deep Purple, he formed his own band, Rainbow, up until the reunification of Deep Purple in 1984. He left Deep Purple once again to reform Rainbow in 1994. In 1997 he formed Blackmore's Night.
	April 16th	The Soviet army began its final assault on German forces in Berlin.
	April 18th	Over 1000 allied planes bombed the island of Heligoland, Germany. The island housed one of the largest naval bases of Nazi Germany during the first and Second World War.
	April 29th	German forces stationed in Italy unconditionally surrendered to the Allies.
	April 29th	German dictator, Adolf Hitler married his long time partner Eva Braun during a ceremony at a Berlin bunker.
	April 29th	The Dachau concentration camp was liberated by United States troops.
	April 30th	German dictator, Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide one day after getting married. Hitler was 55 and Braun 33 years old.
	May 6th	The Prague Offensive, the last major battle of the Eastern Front, began.
	May 8th	German armed forces unconditionally surrendered to the allies.
	May 8th	French army forces fired upon and murdered thousand of anti French rule protesters in Algeria. The event is known as the Setif massacre. France apologized for the massacre in 2005.
	May 23th	Heinrich Himmler, the notorious head of the Nazi SS, committed suicide while in an Allied prison.
	June 21st	After a long battle the Japanese island of Okinawa fell to American forces.
	June 26th	50 nations signed the charter of the United Nations in the city of San Francisco, USA.
	July 16th	The United States detonated the first ever plutonium-based nuclear weapon at the Trinity test site in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The event marked the beginning of the Atomic Age.
	July 28th	A US Army bomber accidentally crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building in New York. 14 people died as a result of the crash.
	August 6th	The nuclear bomb, Little Boy, was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan.
	August 8th	The Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria.
	August 9th	The second atomic bomb ever used on a city was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, Japan.
	August 14th	German film director, Wim Wenders, was born in Dusseldorf. He is a critically acclaimed director, most known for the 1984 film, Paris, Texas and the 1987 film, Wings of Desire.
	August 19th	The Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh assumed power in Hanoi, Vietnam.
	August 30th	British forces liberated Hong Kong which had been occupied by Japan for almost four years.
	August 31st	The Liberal Party of Australia was founded.
	September 2nd	The 2nd World War officially ended with the surrender of Japan aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
	September 2nd	Vietnam declared its independence from the rule of France, forming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
	September 21st	American film and television producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, was born in Detroit, Michigan. He is one of the most successful film producers in Hollywood having produced such hits as the Beverly Hills Cop films, Top Gun, Pirates of the Caribbean and many others. He is also the producer of the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation hugely successful television series.
	September 30th	Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, was born in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine. During August 2006 he ordered Israeli forces to attack neighbouring Lebanon after the militant group Hezbolah took two Israeli soldiers hostage during a border raid.
	October 2nd	American musician, Don McLean, was born in New Rochelle, New York, USA. He is most famous for his ballad "American Pie", a song about the plane crash in which Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper were killed.
	October 13th	American businessman, Milton S. Hershey, died at the age of 88. He was the founder of what is still today one of the largest confectionery business in the world and a name that is synonymous with chocolate.
	October 15th	French politician, Pierre Laval, was executed on the charge of treason by the French government. He had served as prime minister of the Vichy government of France which collaborated with Nazi Germany after the invasion of France by the Germans.
	October 19th	American actor, John Lithgow, was born in New York. He won a scholarship to Harvard University, where he was living in the same dormitory as former US Vice President Al Gore and fellow actor Tommy Lee Jones.
	October 21st	Women in France acquired the right to vote for the first time.
	November 21st	American actress, Goldie Hawn, was born in Washington, DC.
	December 1st	American actress and singer, Bette Midler, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.
	December 9th	American general, George S. Patton, was heavily injured in an automobile crash in occupied Germany. He died twelve days later as a result of his injuries.
	December 15th	Shinto was abolished as the official state religion of Japan.
	December 21st	American army general, George S. Patton, died at the age of 60. He died from the injuries he received in a car crash.
	December 27th	The World Bank was created after the agreement between 28 nations.

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