On this day

August 17, 1945

Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.

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Notable Births

1945Rachel Pollack, American author, poet, and educator (died 2023)[โ€ ]

Rachel Grace Pollack was an American science fiction author, comic book writer, and expert on divinatory tarot.

Notable Deaths

Reidar Haaland

1945Reidar Haaland, Norwegian police officer and soldier (born 1919)[โ€ ]

Reidar Haaland was a police officer and voluntary frontline soldier for the German forces.

Historical Events

Sukarno

1945Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaim the independence of Indonesia, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.[โ€ ]

Sukarno was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967.

Animal Farm

1945The novella Animal Farm by George Orwell is first published.[โ€ ]

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 anthropomorphic farm animals of the fictional Manor Farm as they rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where all animals can be equal, free, and happy away from human interventions. However, by the end of the novella, the rebellion is betrayed, and under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon, the farm ends up in a far worse state than it was before.

Evacuation of Manchukuo

1945Evacuation of Manchukuo: At Talitzou by the Sino-Korean border, Puyi, then the Kangde Emperor of Manchukuo, formally renounces the imperial throne, dissolves the state, and cedes its territory to the Republic of China.[โ€ ]

The evacuation of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo occurred during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945, part of the last phase of World War II.