Explore 5072 historical events from 1940–1949.
The British Army is the land warfare force of the United Kingdom responsible for defending the UK, the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. The British Army, founde…
The British Army directed fleeing Croatian soldiers to surrender to the Yugoslav Partisans, beginning the Bleiburg repat
The United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), commonly known as the San Francisco Conference, was a convention of delegates from 50 Allied nations that took …
At a conference in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations signed a charter establishing the United Nations
Bahia was the lead ship of a two-vessel class of cruisers built for Brazil by the British company Armstrong Whitworth. Crewmen mutinied in November 1910 aboard Bahia, Deodoro, Mina…
The Brazilian cruiser Bahia (pictured) was accidentally sunk by one of its own crewmen, killing more than 300 people.
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the naval infantry service branch of the United States Armed Forces. …
Three African-American United States Marines who repeatedly raped local women in Katsuyama near Nago, Okinawa were…
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion reactions, …
The United States conducted the first detonation of a nuclear weapon during the Trinity test (pictured).
The North American B-25 Mitchell is an American medium bomber that was introduced in 1941 and named in honor of Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell, a pioneer of U.S. milita…
A B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building in New York City, killing 14 people and causing an estimated…
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many eng…
World War II: The U.S. Army Air Force bomber Enola Gay dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan…
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many eng…
World War II: The USAAF bomber Bockscar dropped a Fat Man atomic bomb (replica pictured) on Nagasaki, Japan.
Kraków, officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the c…
Amid rumors of kidnappings of children by Jews in Kraków, a crowd of Poles took part in a pogrom, resulting in at…
The Smyth Report is the common name of an administrative history written by the American physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth about the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to develop atom…
An official administrative history of the Manhattan Project, written by American physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth, was…
Stanley Internment Camp was a civilian internment camp in Hong Kong during the Second World War. Located in Stanley, on the southern end of Hong Kong Island, it was used by the Jap…
The Stanley Internment Camp in Hong Kong was liberated following the announcement of the surrender of Japan in World…
The Proclamation of Indonesian Independence was read at 10:00 Tokyo Standard Time on Friday, 17 August 1945 in Jakarta. The declaration marked the start of the diplomatic and armed…
The independence of Indonesia was proclaimed by Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta , igniting a revolution against the Dutch…
Animal Farm is a satirical allegorical dystopian novella, in the form of a beast fable, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It follows the mistreated an…
Animal Farm, George Orwell's satirical allegory of Soviet totalitarianism, was first published.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many eng…
World War II: Amid a Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Sakhalin, Japanese police massacred 18 Koreans in Kamishisuka.
Haroutune Krikor Daghlian Jr. was an American physicist with the Manhattan Project, which designed and produced the atomic bombs that were used in World War II. He accidentally irr…
American physicist Harry Daghlian accidentally dropped a tungsten carbide brick onto a plutonium bomb core, exposing…
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and is designated as the navy of the United States in the Constitution. With 290 comba…
On the deck of the U.S. Navy battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, representatives from the Empire of Japan and the Allied…
The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945. It played a central role in Japan's rapid modernization during the Meiji p…
The Japanese-run camp at Batu Lintang in Borneo was liberated by the Australian 9th Division, averting the planned…
Mike the Headless Chicken was a male Wyandotte chicken that lived for 18 months after he was beheaded, surviving because most of his brain stem remained intact, and a blood clot pr…
Mike the Headless Chicken was decapitated on a farm in Colorado; he survived another 18 months as part of sideshows…
The Topoľčany pogrom was an antisemitic riot in Topoľčany, Slovakia, on 24 September 1945 and the best-known incident of postwar violence against Jews in Slovakia. The underlying c…
Dozens of Jews were injured in the Topoľčany pogrom, one of the worst episodes of anti-Jewish violence in postwar…
The 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida is one of three United States Air Force active duty Special Operations wings and falls under the Air Force Special Operat…
The 1st Air Commando Group using Sikorsky R-4 helicopters stage the first use of helicopters in combat with combat searc
The fall of Denmark in April 1940 left the Danish colony of Greenland an unoccupied territory of an occupied nation, under the possibility of seizure by the United Kingdom, United …
World War II: In Greenland, the Allied Sledge Patrol attack the German Bassgeiger weather station
Karl Heinrich Georg Ferdinand Kreipe was a German career soldier who served in both World War I and World War II. While leading German forces in occupied Crete in April 1944, he wa…
Heinrich Kreipe is captured by Allied commandos in occupied Crete
Börse Berlin AG, also known as the Berlin Stock Exchange, is a stock exchange based in Berlin, Germany, in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf borough. Founded in 1685 by an edict of El…
Börse Berlin building burns down after being hit in an air raid during World War II
The V-1 flying bomb was an early cruise missile. Its official Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM) name was Fieseler Fi 103 and its suggestive name was Höllenhund (hellhound). It was also…
World War II: Germany launches the first V1 Flying Bomb attack on England