* 1939 – 1945, the Second Battle of the Atlantic.

* 1945 – World War II: Sarajevo is liberated from German and Croatian forces by the Yugoslav Partisans.

* 1945 – World War II: the Battle of Slater's Knoll on Bougainville comes to an end.

* 1945 – Neal Boortz, American radio personality

* 1945 – U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies while in office ; vice-president Harry Truman is sworn in as the 33rd President.

* 1945 – Lee Jong-wook, Korean Director-General of the World Health Organization ( d. 2006 )

* 1945 – World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for one day.

* 1945 – Annie Dillard, American writer

* 1945 – Mimi Fariña, American singer-songwriter, musician, and activist ( d. 2001 )

* 1945 – Michael J. Smith, American astronaut ( d. 1986 )

* 1871 – Theodore Dreiser, American author ( d. 1945 )

* 1905 – Aris Velouchiotis, Greek military leader ( d. 1945 )

* 1945 – Jan Sloot, Dutch inventor ( d. 1999 )

* 1945 – World War II: Hiroshima, Japan is devastated when the atomic bomb " Little Boy " is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay.

* 1945 – Ron Jones, English director ( d. 1993 )

* 1945 – Andy Messersmith, American baseball player

* 1945 – World War II: Nagasaki, Japan is devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped by the United States B-29 Bockscar.

* 1945 – World War II: The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and begins the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation.

* 1945 – Barbara Delinsky, American author

* 1945 – Aleksandr Gorelik, Russian figure skater ( d. 2012 )

* 1945 – Posy Simmonds, English cartoonist

* 1866 – Giovanni Agnelli, Italian businessman, founded Fiat S. p. A ( d. 1945 )

* 1945 – Lars Engqvist, Swedish politician

* 1945 – Robin Jackman, English cricketer

* 1897 – Karl-Otto Koch, German SS officer ( d. 1945 )

* Yukio Kasahara ( 1 August 1942 – 7 April 1945 )

A Gaetano Faillace 1945 image of Ginza 4chome and the Hattori Tokei-ten building

* 1945 – World War II: Filipino troops of the 66th Infantry Regiment, Philippine Commonwealth Army, USAFIP-NL and the American troops of the 33rd and 37th Infantry Division, United States Army was liberated in Baguio City and they fought against the Japanese forces under by General Tomoyuki Yamashita.

* 1945 – World War II: The Japanese battleship Yamato, the largest battleship ever constructed, is sunk by American planes 200 miles north of Okinawa while en-route to a suicide mission in Operation Ten-Go.

During the Sino-Japanese War ( 1937 – 1945 ) and World War II ( 1939 – 1945 ), the Special Research Units of the Imperial Japanese Army, such as Unit 731, conducted human experimentation on thousands of Chinese, among others.

In 1945 the island was liberated from the Japanese.

On 9 March 1945, during the Japanese occupation of Cambodia, young king Norodom Sihanouk proclaimed an independent Kingdom of Kampuchea, following a formal request by the Japanese.

Another well-documented case occurred in Chichijima in February 1945, when Japanese soldiers killed and consumed five American airmen.

The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CPC continued, openly or clandestinely, through the 14-year long Japanese occupation of various parts of the country ( 1931 – 1945 ).

The U. S. Army's last horse cavalry actions were fought during World War II: a ) by the 26th Cavalry Regiment ( PS ) in World War II — a small mounted regiment of Philippine Scouts which fought the Japanese during the retreat down the Bataan peninsula, until it was effectively destroyed by January 1942 ; and b ) on captured German horses by the mounted reconnaissance section of the U. S. 10th Mountain Division in a spearhead pursuit of the German Army across the Po Valley in Italy in April 1945.

Despite some early cooperative military successes against Japan, by the time that the Japanese surrendered in 1945 neither the CPC nor the KMT trusted each other or were actively cooperating.

In 1945, when Japan surrendered, Chiang's Chongqing government was ill-equipped and ill-prepared to reassert its authority in formerly Japanese-occupied China, and asked the Japanese to postpone their surrender until Kuomintang ( KMT ) authority could arrive to take over.

" Staying On: Japanese Soldiers and Civilians in China, 1945 – 1949.

" Staying On: Japanese Soldiers and Civilians in China, 1945 – 1949.

This relationship was rooted largely in the generous and lenient treatment of Japanese POWs by the Nationalist government in the years immediately following the Japanese surrender in 1945, and was felt especially strongly as a bond of personal obligation by the most senior members then in power .< ref name =" Journal1 "> Gillin, Donald G. and Etter, Charles.

" Staying On: Japanese Soldiers and Civilians in China, 1945 – 1949.

This slaughter forced the tiny surviving Party to switch from a workers ' union-to a peasant, guerilla-based organization, and to seek the aid of the most heterodox sources: from " patriotic capitalists " to the dreaded KMT itself, with which it openly sought to participate in a coalition government, even after the Japanese general surrender in 1945.

Nuclear warfare has only occurred once with the United States bombing the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Among notable recipients below flag rank are: X-1 test pilot Chuck Yeager and X-15 test pilot Robert M. White, who both received the DSM as U. S. Air Force majors ; Air Force Major Rudolf Anderson, the U-2 pilot shot down during the Cuban Missile Crisis ; director Frank Capra, decorated in 1945 as an Army colonel ; actor James Stewart, decorated in 1945 as an Army Air Forces colonel ( later Air Force Brigadier General ); Col. Wendell Fertig, who led Filipino guerrillas behind Japanese lines ; Col. ( later Major General ) John K. Singlaub, who led partisan forces in the Korean War ; and Maj. Maude C. Davison, who led the " Angels of Bataan and Corregidor " during their imprisonment by the Japanese, and Colonel William S. Taylor, Program Manager Multiple Launch Rocket System.

Japan took Vietnam from France and the Axis-occupied Vietnam was declared an empire by the Japanese in March 1945.