On this day
Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Present when husband takes oath as Pres
Pres Truman asks Roosevelt Cabinet to continue in service
US Army officials predict end of organized fighting in Ger within a few days, Sen
possible J F Byrnes apptmt to position by Pres Truman seen
9th Army 2d Armored Div crosses Elbe in force, striking toward Berlin, less than 60 mi away; Paris newspaper repts Amers 15 mi from Berlin; Brit take Celle; expand Aller River bridgeheads; take Quackenbrueck and Lohne; Gers try to pivot back on Bremen area to protect northern ports; US 1st Army reaches Naumburg and Golzen; tanks skirt Harz Mts to reach Nieder Roblingen; DNB admits central front no longer exists; 3d Army takes Weimar and Erfurt; other units reach Saale River and reach Bergern; clear Thuringia Forest; 7th Army takes Schweinfurt; clears Heilbronn; expands Cocher bridgehead; reaches Krautosheim and nears Bamberg in Nuremberg drive; withdraws from positions around Crailsheim; French storm Rastatt and Baden
1945Judy Nunn, Australian actress and author[†]
Judith Anne Nunn (AM), , is an Australian former actress, and author of both adult and children's fiction titles. She has collaborated with writers Patricia Bernard and Fiona Waite.
1945Ernst Cassirer, Polish-American philosopher and academic (born 1874)[†]
Ernst Alfred Cassirer was a German philosopher and historian of philosophy. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he initially followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic philosophy of science.
1945World War II: German troops kill more than 1,000 political and military prisoners in Gardelegen, Germany.[†]
Nazi Germany, officially the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945, after 12 years, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin, ending World War II in Europe.
1945World War II: Soviet and Bulgarian forces capture Vienna.[†]
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), commonly referred to as the Soviet Union or Russia, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until it dissolved in 1991. During its existence, it was the largest country by area, extending across eleven time zones and sharing borders with twelve countries, and the third-most populous country. An overall successor to the Russian Empire, it was nominally organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), it was the flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.