As the Red Army advanced through Poland, SS commanders began organizing the forced evacuation of Auschwitz, sending thousands of prisoners on deadly winter death marches.

German forces completed their withdrawal from the Ardennes, ending Hitler's last major western offensive after six brutal weeks of fighting in deep snow.

American forces under General MacArthur pressed toward Manila during the brutal Philippines campaign, part of the broader liberation of the archipelago from Japanese occupation.

Soviet troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front entered Auschwitz-Birkenau, freeing roughly 7,000 starving survivors and exposing the machinery of Nazi genocide to the world.

Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin open the Yalta Conference in Crimea to plan the postwar reorganization of Europe.

British and American bombers began a devastating firestorm over Dresden, Germany, killing an estimated 25,000 people in one night.

British and American bombers dropped roughly 3,900 tons of explosives and incendiaries on Dresden, Germany, igniting a firestorm that killed an estimated 25,000 people.

U.S. Navy warships began a three-day pre-invasion bombardment of Iwo Jima, pounding Japanese defenses ahead of the Marine landing.

30,000 U.S. Marines storm the volcanic beaches of Iwo Jima under withering Japanese fire, opening one of the Pacific War's bloodiest battles.

Nearly 70,000 U.S. Marines waded ashore on Iwo Jima's black volcanic sand, beginning one of the Pacific War's bloodiest battles.

Japanese kamikaze aircraft struck the U.S. escort carrier Bismarck Sea and fleet carrier Saratoga off Iwo Jima, sinking one and badly damaging the other.

Five Marines and a Navy corpsman raised the American flag atop Mount Suribachi, producing history's most reproduced war photograph.

Soviet forces intensified their offensive against entrenched German positions in East Prussia, grinding down one of the war's last major fronts.

American B-29 Superfortresses dropped incendiary bombs on Nagoya, Japan's third-largest city, as part of the intensifying campaign of urban firebombing in the Pacific War.

After weeks of brutal fighting, American forces declared organized Japanese resistance on Iwo Jima effectively broken, though pockets of fighters held out for months.

U.S. troops of the 6th Armored Division liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, freeing 21,000 survivors.

American troops of the 6th Armored Division reach Buchenwald concentration camp, freeing thousands of starving prisoners just hours after inmates seized control themselves.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia, elevating Vice President Harry Truman just weeks before Germany's surrender.

American and Soviet forces linked up at the Elbe River near Torgau, Germany, splitting Nazi Germany in two and signaling the war's approaching end.

Italian partisans captured Benito Mussolini fleeing toward Switzerland and shot him near Lake Como, ending Fascist rule in Italy.

American troops liberate the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, uncovering the horrors of Nazi atrocities firsthand.

As Soviet troops fought within blocks of the Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler shot himself in his bunker while his new wife Eva Braun took cyanide.

General Helmuth Weidling surrendered the remnants of Berlin's garrison to Soviet forces, ending the Battle of Berlin and effectively closing the European war.

Soviet counterintelligence agents arrested Red Army artillery officer Alexander Solzhenitsyn near the front in East Prussia, sending him toward the Gulag and a literary destiny.

German General Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender of all German forces at Reims, ending the Second World War in Europe.

Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender takes effect, ending nearly six years of war in Europe and unleashing spontaneous celebrations from London to Moscow.

The Soviet Union celebrates Nazi Germany's surrender a day after the West, after Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed the capitulation in Berlin past midnight Moscow time.

Delegates from 50 nations signed the United Nations Charter in San Francisco, creating a new international body meant to prevent another world war.

The United States detonated the world's first nuclear weapon in the New Mexico desert, ushering in the atomic age.

The US, Britain, and China issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding Japan's unconditional surrender or face "prompt and utter destruction."

Crews on Tinian Island loaded the atomic bomb 'Fat Man' aboard a B-29, one day before it would fall on Nagasaki.

The B-29 Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb 'Little Boy' on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 70,000 people instantly and tens of thousands more from radiation.

The first news photographs and reports of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima reached the world, one day after the blast.

Allied firebombing raids destroyed much of Nagoya, Japan, including the centuries-old Nagoya Castle and its famous golden shachihoko ornaments.

The Soviet Union declared war on Japan, honoring its Yalta pledge, and prepared to launch a massive invasion of Manchuria within hours of the declaration.

The US dropped a plutonium bomb, 'Fat Man', on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 instantly and tens of thousands more from injuries and radiation.

One day after the Nagasaki bombing, Japan's government transmitted its willingness to surrender to the Allies, provided Emperor Hirohito's status was preserved.

Soviet Red Army forces continued their rapid offensive into Japanese-held Manchuria, days after declaring war, overwhelming the Kwantung Army as Japan's surrender neared.

Emperor Hirohito informed the Japanese people of surrender in a radio broadcast, while President Truman announced Japan's capitulation to the world, ending World War II.

Emperor Hirohito's surrender broadcast, recorded the day before, aired to the Japanese public, and Allied nations celebrated VJ Day as World War II officially ended.

Sukarno proclaimed Indonesian independence from Japanese and Dutch rule in Jakarta, launching a four-year war against returning Dutch colonists.

Aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japanese officials signed the instrument of surrender, formally ending World War II.

Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam independent in Hanoi, quoting the American Declaration of Independence to a crowd of 500,000.

French troops and colonial forces launched a coup against Vietnamese revolutionary authorities in Saigon, reigniting colonial war just weeks after Japan's surrender.

Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 premiered in a Moscow blacked out for artillery salutes celebrating Soviet victories, conducted by the composer himself.

The Food and Agriculture Organization was established in Quebec City, launching the United Nations' first specialized agency to fight global hunger.

The UN Charter takes effect after ratification by the required majority of signatory nations, formally establishing the organization amid the ashes of World War II.

Twenty-one senior Nazi officials went on trial before an International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, the first time a defeated regime's leaders faced justice for crimes against humanity.

Twenty-one senior Nazi leaders went on trial before an international tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Allied prosecutors formally lodged the indictment against 24 major Nazi war criminals ahead of the Nuremberg Trials, charging them with crimes against humanity.