** 25 cent WWII ( Dutch coin )

** WWII: Forward elements of General Hoeppner's XVI Panzerkorps take up positions outside Warsaw.

** WWII: Polish troops on the Westerplatte are forced, due to lack of food and ammunition, to surrender.

** WWII – Sonderaktion Krakau: Germans take action against scientists from the University of Kraków and other Kraków universities at the beginning of WWII.

** WWII – Winter War: Soviet forces attack Finland and reach the Mannerheim Line, starting the war.

** WWII – Sweden declares non-belligerency in the Winter War.

** George Unwin, British fighter ace of WWII ( d. 2006 )

** WWII: The 27th Polish Home Army Infantry Division is re-created, marking the start of Operation Tempest by the Polish Home Army.

** WWII: The Japanese launch an offensive in central and south China.

** WWII: A train stalls inside a railway tunnel outside Salerno, Italy ; 521 choke to death.

** WWII: Battle of Monte Cassino: Allied aircraft bomb German-held monastery and stage an assault.

** WWII: The National Council of the French Resistance approves the Resistance programme.

** Operation Bagration: A general attack by Soviet forces clears the German forces from Belarus, resulting in the destruction of German Army Group Centre, possibly the greatest defeat of the Wehrmacht during WWII.

** WWII: At Camp Hood, Texas, future baseball star and 1st Lt. Jackie Robinson is arrested and later court-martialed for refusing to move to the back of a segregated U. S. Army bus.

** WWII: Over 500 Japanese prisoners-of-war attempt a mass breakout from the Cowra POW Camp.

** WWII: The Soviet Union occupies Warsaw, Poland.

** WWII: " Black Friday ": A force of Allied Bristol Beaufighter aircraft suffers heavy casualties in an unsuccessful attack on German destroyer Z33 and escorting vessels sheltering in Førde Fjord, Norway.

** WWII – Operation Varsity: Two airborne divisions capture bridges across the Rhine River to aid the Allied advance.

** WWII: The Battle of Königsberg, in East Prussia, ends.

** WWII – Elbe Day: United States and Soviet troops link up at the Elbe River, cutting Germany in two.

** V-E Day ( Victory in Europe, as Nazi Germany surrenders ) commemorates the end of WWII in Europe, with the final surrender being to the Soviets in Berlin, attended by representatives of the Western Powers.

** WWII: Emperor Hirohito announces Japan's surrender on the radio.

** WWII: Korea gains independence following Japan's surrender.

** Leaders of the Soviet Union

** President of the Soviet Union

** Premier of the Soviet Union

** Theatre of the Soviet Union

** 114. flerovium, Fl, named after Soviet physicist Georgy Flyorov, founder of the JINR ( 1999 ).

** The Soviet Union launches 2 scientific satellites, Elektron I and II, from a single rocket.

** Soviet military forces shoot down an unarmed reconnaissance bomber that had strayed into East Germany ; the 3 U. S. flyers parachute to safety.

** U. S. President Lyndon Johnson in New York, and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow, simultaneously announce plans to cut back production of materials for making nuclear weapons.

** British businessman Greville Wynne, imprisoned in Moscow since 1963 for spying, is exchanged for Soviet spy Gordon Lonsdale.

** Spain beats the Soviet Union 2 – 1 to win the 1964 European Nations Cup.

** Soviet war in Afghanistan ( 1979 – 1989 )-Although taking place almost entirely throughout the 1980s, the war officially started on December 27, 1979.

** The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.

** Soviet Union invades Poland, Finland, occupies Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Romanian region of Bessarabia from 1939 to 1941.

** Germany attacks the Soviet Union ( June 22, 1941 ).

** Yalta Conference, wartime meeting from 4 February 1945 to 11 February 1945 among the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union — President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively — for the purpose of discussing Europe's postwar reorganization, intended to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe.

** A variety of Soviet space program paraphernalia are put to auction in Sotheby's New York, and sell for a total of US $ 6. 8M.

** Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ( CMEA or COMECON ) established by Soviet Union and other communist nations.

** The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, code named " Joe 1 ".

** Natalia Kuchinskaya, Soviet gymnast

** Konstantin Chernenko, President of the Soviet Union ( d. 1985 )

** Space Age – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth.

** Leon Trotsky and Lev Kamenev are removed from the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

** The Soviet Union launches Venera 6 toward Venus.

** The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 4.

** Soviet and Chinese forces clash at a border outpost on the Ussuri River.