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World War II

1939–1945 global conflict

28 dated entries naming World War II, drawn from 25 separate years between 652 CE and 2025 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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7th century

  • 652The registers of population are prepared in Japan. Fifty houses are made a township, and for each township there is appointed an elder. The houses are all associated in groups of five for mutual protection, with one elder to supervise them one with another. This system prevails until the era of World War II.source

12th century

  • 1161The Cross of Saint Euphrosyne, commissioned by Euphrosyne of Polotsk in Belarus, is created by craftsman Lazar Bohsha. (It goes missing during World War II, and is not recovered subsequently).source

17th century

  • 1666May 21 – The Holy Roman Empire, ruled by Leopold I, repurchases the territory of the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz (Oppeln und Ratibor), which it had ceded to Poland in 1645, for the sum of 120,000 guldens and consolidates it with Upper Silesia. The territory will be ceded from Germany to Poland in 1945 at the end of World War II.source

19th century

  • 1887January 1 – Wilhelm Canaris, head of German military intelligence in World War II (d. 1945)source

20th century

  • 1903May 26 – Românul de la Pind, the longest-running newspaper by and about Aromanians until World War II, is founded.source
  • 1920November 21 – S. M. Ahsan, Pakistani Vice Admiral, Naval Commander, and recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross for his role in World War II (d. 1989)source
  • 1937November 5 – World War II: In the Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting and states his plans for acquiring "living space" for the German people (recorded in the Hossbach Memorandum).source
  • 1949September 9 – Notorious World War II veteran Edwin Alonzo Boyd commits his first career bank robbery, in Toronto.source
  • 1950December 12 – Peter Fraser, New Zealand political figure, 24th Prime Minister of New Zealand, leader of World War II (b. 1884)source
  • 1951July 23 – Marshal Philippe Pétain, former Prime Minister and Head of State of France, Chief of State of Vichy France during World War II, hero commander of World War I who led the French Army to victory at the nine-month-long Battle of Verdun, for which he was called "the Lion of Verdun", dies while serving a sentence of life-imprisonment on the island of Île-d'Yeu at 95 years old.source
  • 1954July 4 – Food rationing in Great Britain ends, with the lifting of restrictions on sale and purchase of meat, 14 years after it began early in World War II, and nearly a decade after the war's end.source
  • 1954May 14 – Heinz Guderian, German World War II general (b. 1888)source
  • 1959January 15 – The Soviet Union conducts its first census after World War II.source
  • 1965September 19 – Pakistani Forces achieve a decisive victory at the Battle of Chawinda, ultimately halting the Indian advance and successfully stabilizing the Sialkot Front; it is the world's largest tank battle since the Battle of Kursk in the Second World War between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.source
  • 1966November 5 – Dietrich von Choltitz, Nazi German military governor of Paris in World War II (b. 1894)source
  • 1967February 6 – Henry Morgenthau Jr., United States Secretary of the Treasury during World War II (b. 1891)source
  • 1969April 9 – FS Hussain, Pakistani aerobatic pilot who fought in World War II (b. 1924)source
  • 1969December 22 – Enrique Peñaranda, Bolivian general, 38th President of Bolivia, leader during World War II (b. 1892)source
  • 1974May 15 – Guy Simonds, Canadian Lieutenant-General, commander of the Canadian Armed Forces in World War II (b. 1903)source
  • 1978January 6 – The Holy Crown of Hungary (also known as Stephen of Hungary Crown) is returned to Hungary from the United States, where it was held since World War II.source
  • 1979November 15 – British art historian and former Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures Anthony Blunt's role as the "fourth man" of the 'Cambridge Five' double agents for the Soviet NKVD during World War II is revealed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom; she gives further details on November 21.source
  • 1988February 29 – A Nazi document implicates Kurt Waldheim in World War II deportations.source
  • 1988June 21 – The Poole explosion of 1988 caused 3,500 people to be evacuated out of the town centre in the biggest peacetime evacuation the United Kingdom had seen since the World War II.source

21st century

  • 2010May 12 – Following the 6 May United Kingdom general election, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties agree to form a coalition government, the UK's first since the Second World War.source
  • 2017November 22 – The International Court of Justice finds Ratko Mladić guilty of genocide committed in Srebrenica during the 1990s Bosnian War, the worst massacre in Europe since World War II. He is sentenced to life in prison.source
  • 2022April 14 – 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine: The Russian flagship Moskva becomes the largest warship to be sunk in action since World War II. Ukraine claims to have struck it with Neptune anti-ship missiles, while Russia claims it sank during stormy weather after an onboard fire.source
  • 2024September 29 – 2024 Austrian legislative election: Far-right Freedom Party secures a historical victory, but does not reach a majority in the National Council. The results are deemed the first far-right win since World War II.source
  • 2025May 6 – 2025 German federal election: Friedrich Merz is elected Chancellor of Germany in the second round of parliamentary voting, hours after being defeated in the first round, a first in post-WWII German history.source

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