WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO SEPTEMBER 1945
Find out what all happened January to September 1945

World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila. (5. February 1945)

Lapland War: Finland declares war on Nazi Germany. (4. March 1945)

World War II: As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17s of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin, a raid which kills between 2,500 to 3,000 and dehouses another 120,000. (3. February 1945)

Cold War: Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet Union embassy clerk, defects to Canada, exposing Soviet espionage in North America, signalling the beginning of the Cold War. (5. September 1945)

William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) is charged with treason for his pro-German propaganda broadcasting during World War II. (18. June 1945)

The Bourne End rail crash, in Hertfordshire, England, kills 43 (30. September 1945)

World War II: Ratification in Berlin-Karlshorst of the German unconditional surrender of May 8 in Rheims, France, with the signatures of Marshal Georgy Zhukov for the Soviet Union, and for the Western Headquarters Sir Arthur Tedder, British Air Marshal and Eisenhower's deputy, and for the German side of Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff as the representative of the Luftwaffe, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel as the Chief of Staff of OKW, and Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg as Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine. (9. May 1945)

World War II: The Battle of Poljana, the final skirmish in Europe is fought near Prevalje, Slovenia. (15. May 1945)

World War II: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz is placed in command of all U.S. Naval forces in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima and Okinawa in Japan. (3. January 1945)

World War II: The liberation of the Philippines is declared. (5. July 1945)

The Halifax Riot starts when thousands of civilians and servicemen rampage through Halifax. (8. May 1945)

President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially beginning U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations. (14. February 1945)

World War II: Benito Mussolini is arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, while attempting escape disguised as a German soldier. (27. April 1945)

Pierre Laval, the fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria. (31. July 1945)

Elbe Day: United States and Soviet troops meet in Torgau along the River Elbe, cutting the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany in two, a milestone in the approaching end of World War II in Europe. (25. April 1945)

World War II: the main three leaders of the Allied nations, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam to decide the future of a defeated Germany. (17. July 1945)

World War II: Prisoners at the Jasenovac concentration camp revolt. 520 are killed and 80 escape. (22. April 1945)

Japan accepts the Allied terms of surrender in World War II and the Emperor records the Imperial Rescript on Surrender (August 15 in Japan Standard Time). (14. August 1945)

World War II: Fall of Berlin: The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin and Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over the Reichstag building. (2. May 1945)

The last German troops retreat from Finland's soil in Lapland, ending the Lapland War. Military acts of Second World War end in Finland. (25. April 1945)