Top News Stories from 1945

World Events

• Yalta Conference (Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin) plans final defeat of Germany (Feb).
• Hitler commits suicide (April 30); Germany surrenders (May 7); May 8 is declared V-E Day. Background: World War II
• Japan signs official surrender on V-J Day (Sept. 2).
• Potsdam Conference (Truman, Churchill, Stalin) establishes basis of German reconstruction (July–Aug.).
• San Francisco Conference establishes the United Nations (April–June).
• US drops atomic bombs on Japanese cities of Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9). Background: nuclear weapons

U.S. Events

• FDR dies (April 12) and Harry S. Truman becomes president.
• Manhattan Project tests first atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico (July 16).
• A B-25 bomber flies into the Empire State Building, damaging the 78th and 79th floors and killing 13 (July 28).

Economics

Sports

World Series

Stanley Cup

Kentucky Derby Champion

NCAA Basketball Championship

NCAA Football Champions

Entertainment

Events

• The FCC creates the commercial broadcasting spectrum of 13 channels, and receives 130 applications for broadcast licenses.
• Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes premieres in London, which signals the rebirth of British opera.

Movies

• The Lost Weekend, Mildred Pierce, National Velvet, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Spellbound

Music

• Gene Autry, "At Mail Call Today"
• Bing Crosby, "Aren't You Glad You're You?"
• Judy Garland, "This Heart of Mine"
• King Cole Trio, "The King Cole Trio"
• Glenn Miller, "Glenn Miller"
• Carousel soundtrack
• Frank Sinatra, "Put Your Dreams Away"

Books

• W. H. Auden, The Collected Poems
• Gwendolyn Brooks, A Street in Bronzeville
• F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up and Other Uncollected Pieces
• John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
• Richard Wright, Black Boy

Science

• ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator), the first all-electronic computer, completed. Background: Computers and Internet
• First atomic bomb is successfully detonated at Alamagordo, NM. Background: nuclear weapons
• Grand Rapids, Michigan becomes the first community to fluoridate its water supply.
• Raymond Libby develops oral penicillin.
• American Cyanamid discovers folic acid, a vitamin abundant in green leafy vegetables, liver, kidney, and yeast. Background: Health & Nutrition

Death

• Béla Bartók
• Ernie Pyle
• George Patton
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt
• Theodore Dreiser

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