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The Battle of the Coral Sea took place. The Japanese's advance into the Pacific was checked. It was the first major U.S. Navy fleet action against Japan. -
France is invaded when 156,000 American, British, and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France's Normandy region.
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The United States bombs Okinawa. The battle went on to be one of the largest battles and bloodiest of the Pacific in World War II. -
An atomic bomb is dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 80,000 people. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped in Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. -
On August 15, the Japanese government issued a statement declaring they would accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and on September 2, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan’s formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
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The first meeting of the United Nations general assembly takes place after its founding on October 24, 1945, by fifty-one nations, including the Security Council nations of China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.A. This event was highly significant to history. -
The Korean War begins when approximately 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean Army poured across the 38th parallel. The 38th parallel was the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. The invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. -
Dwight Eisenhower was elected President of the United States. Eisenhower obtained a truce in Korea and worked incessantly during his two terms (1953-1961) to ease the tensions of the Cold War. He was adamant that an atomic war would do no good for either party.