Explore 5072 historical events from 1940–1949.
Masaru Ibuka was a Japanese electronics industrialist and co-founder of Sony, along with Akio Morita.
Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita founded the telecommunications corporation Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, later renamed Sony
Plutonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is a silvery-gray actinide metal that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidiz…
While working with a mass of plutonium known as the demon core, Manhattan Project physicist Louis Slotin accidentally ex
The Partisan Congress riots were attacks on Jews in Bratislava and other cities and towns in the autonomous Slovak region of Czechoslovakia between 1 and 6 August 1946. Nineteen pe…
Several days of anti-Jewish rioting began in Bratislava, instigated by former Slovak partisans opposed to the…
The 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake struck Vancouver Island on the coast of British Columbia, Canada, on June 23 at 10:15 a.m. with a magnitude estimated at 7.0 Ms and 7.5 Mw. The…
Canada's largest recorded onshore earthquake struck Vancouver Island, British Columbia
Bikini Atoll, known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 19th century and 1946, is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a 229.4-square-mile (594.1 …
Named after Bikini Atoll, the site of the nuclear-weapons test Operation Crossroads in the Marshall Islands, the…
The 1946 La Paz riots were a series of increasingly violent strikes and protests which culminated in the lynching and hanging of then president of Bolivia, Gualberto Villarroel, an…
After weeks of unrest, rioters lynched Bolivian president Gualberto Villarroel, desecrating and hanging his corpse in…
The Turkish Straits are two internationally significant waterways in northwestern Turkey. The Straits create a series of international passages that connect the Aegean and Mediterr…
The Soviet Union informed Turkey that the way in which the latter was handling the Turkish Straits no longer…
Direct Action Day was the day the All-India Muslim League decided to take a "direct action" using general strikes and economic shut down to demand a separate Muslim homeland after …
Widespread riots between Hindus and Muslims took place in Calcutta following the All-India Muslim League's call for an…
The Interim Government of India, also known as the Provisional Government of India, formed on 2 September 1946 from the newly elected Constituent Assembly of India, had the task of…
The interim government of India, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, was formed to assist the transition of India from British…
Darjeeling is a city in the northernmost region of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located in the Eastern Himalayas, it has an average elevation of 2,045 metres (6,709 ft). To the…
While riding a train to Darjeeling, India, Sister Teresa Bojaxhiu, later Mother Teresa (pictured), experienced what…
Montese is a town in the province of Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
World War II: Montese, Italy, is liberated from Nazi forces
A bomber is a military combat aircraft that utilizes air-to-ground weaponry to drop bombs, launch torpedoes, or deploy air-launched cruise missiles.
World War II: Over 1,000 bombers attack the small island of Heligoland, Germany
The Surrender at Caserta of 29 April 1945 was the written agreement that formalized the surrender of German and Italian Fascist forces in Italy, ending the Italian Campaign of Worl…
World War II: The Surrender of Caserta is signed by the commander of German forces in Italy
Stalag Luft I was a German World War II prisoner-of-war (POW) camp near Barth, Western Pomerania, Germany, for captured Allied airmen. The presence of the prison camp is said to ha…
World War II: Stalag Luft I prisoner-of-war camp near Barth, Germany is liberated by Soviet soldiers, freeing nearly 9,0
The Surrender at Caserta of 29 April 1945 was the written agreement that formalized the surrender of German and Italian Fascist forces in Italy, ending the Italian Campaign of Worl…
World War II: The surrender of Caserta comes into effect, by which German troops in Italy cease fighting
Wöbbelin was a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp near the city of Ludwigslust. The SS had established Wöbbelin to house concentration camp prisoners whom the SS had evac…
World War II: The US 82nd Airborne Division liberates Wöbbelin concentration camp finding 1,000 dead prisoners, most of
The Battle of Castle Itter was fought on 5 May 1945, in the Austrian village of Itter in the North Tyrol region of the country, during the last days of the European Theater of Worl…
World War II: Battle of Castle Itter, one of only two battles in that war in which American and German troops fought coo
U-boats are naval submarines operated by Germany, especially during World War I and World War II. The term is an anglicized form of the German word U-Boot, a shortening of Untersee…
World War II: Last German U-boat attack of the war, two freighters are sunk off the Firth of Forth, Scotland
The German Instrument of Surrender was a legal document effecting the unconditional surrender of the remaining German armed forces to the Allies, ending World War II in Europe. It …
World War II: The German Instrument of Surrender signed at Berlin-Karlshorst comes into effect
The Sétif and Guelma massacre was a series of massacres by French colonial authorities and pied-noir European settler militias on Algerian civilians in May and June 1945 around the…
Hundreds of Algerian civilians are killed by French Army soldiers in the Sétif massacre
Yevgeny Ananyevich Khaldei was a Soviet naval officer and photographer. He is best known for his World War II photograph of a Soviet soldier raising a flag over the Reichstag in Be…
World War II: Yevgeny Khaldei's photograph Raising a Flag over the Reichstag is published in Ogonyok magazine
Haakon VII was King of Norway from 1905 until his death in 1957, having reigned for nearly 52 years.
King Haakon VII of Norway returns from exactly five years in exile during World War II
The United States secretary of state (SecState) is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State, equ…
The United States Secretary of State approves the transfer of Wernher von Braun and his team of Nazi rocket scientists t
Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Joseph Pétain, better known as Marshal Pétain, was a French military officer who commanded the French Army in World War I and later became the head of th…
The post-war legal processes against Philippe Pétain begin.