World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.

World War II: The siege of Budapest concludes with the unconditional surrender of German and Hungarian forces to the Red Army.

World War II: Japanese Kamikaze planes sink the escort carrier Bismarck Sea and damage the Saratoga.

World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines and a commonly forgotten U.S. Navy Corpsman, reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo would later win a Pulitzer Prize and become the model for the national USMC War Memorial.

World War II: Turkey declares war on Germany.

World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends but small pockets of Japanese resistance persist.

World War II: British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma.

World War II: Soviet Union forces invade Austria and take Vienna; Polish and Soviet forces liberate Gdańsk.

World War II: Battle of Okinawa|Operation Iceberg

World War II: American troops liberate Ohrdruf forced labor camp in Germany.

World War II: Sarajevo is liberated from the German and Croatian Nazis by the Yugoslav Partisans.

World War II: American forces liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp.

World War II: US troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to later cede the city to the Soviet Union.

World War II: Battle of Bautzen (1945)|Battle of Bautzen

World War II: The German Army in Italy unconditionally surrenders to the Allies.

World War II: Fall of Berlin: The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin and Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over the ''Reichstag'' building.

World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document takes effect the next day.

World War II: Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, commits suicide while in Allied custody.

World War II: liberation of the Philippines declared.

World War II: the leaders of the three Allied nations, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill, President of the United States Harry S Truman and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam to decide the future of a defeated Germany.

World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis, killing 883 seamen.

World War II: Hiroshima is devastated when the atomic bomb "Little Boy" is dropped by the United States B-29 ''Enola Gay''. Around 70,000 people are killed instantly, and some tens of thousands die in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning.

World War II: Nagasaki is devastated when an atomic bomb, ''Fat Man'', is dropped by the United States B-29 ''Bockscar''. 39,000 people are killed outright.

Japan accepts the Allied terms of surrender in World War II and the Emperor records the Imperial Rescript on Surrender (August 15 in Japan standard time).

World War II: Australian 9th Division forces liberate the Japanese-run Batu Lintang camp, a POW and civilian internment camp on the island of Borneo.

World War II: Desmond Doss is the first conscientious objector to receive the U.S. Medal of Honor.

World War II: The former premier of Vichy France Pierre Laval is shot by a firing squad for treason.

World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.

The American and British occupation zones in Germany, after the World War II, merge to form the Bizone, that later became the Federal Republic of Germany.

In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials, including General Hideki Tojo, to death for their roles in World War II.

A former sharpshooter in World War II, Howard Unruh kills 13 neighbors in Camden, New Jersey, with a souvenir Luger to become the first U.S. single-episode mass murderer.

The Allied occupation of Austria stemming from World War II, ends.

The Soviet battleship Novorossiisk strikes a World War II mine in the harbor at Sevastopol.

Memorial Day: the remains of two unidentified American servicemen, killed in action during World War II and the Korean War respectively, are buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.

Japan conducts a test of the NAMC YS-11, its first aircraft since World War II and its only successful commercial aircraft from before or after the war.

Vietnam War: off the coast of North Vietnam the USS Forrestal catches on fire in the worst U.S. naval disaster since World War II, killing 134.

Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.

Miki Takeo makes the first official pilgrimage to Yasukuni Shrine by an incumbent prime minister on the anniversary of the end of World War II.

The Crown of St. Stephen (also known as the Holy Crown of Hungary) is returned to Hungary from the United States, where it was held after World War II.

An IRA bomb kills British World War II admiral Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma and 3 others while they are boating on holiday in Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Another bomb near Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland kills 18 British soldiers.