Commander-in-Chief Timeline of Events

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Commander-in-Chief

A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military competencies that reside in a nation-state's executive, head of state or government...

Timeline of Events

1783

12.23.1783

George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.

1922

8.22.1922

Michael Collins, Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Free State Army is shot dead during an Anti-Treaty ambush at Béal na mBláth, County Cork, during the Irish Civil War.

1939

9.30.1939

General Władysław Sikorski becomes commander-in-chief of the Polish Government in exile.

1941

12.19.1941

World War II: Adolf Hitler becomes Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the German Army.

1945

5.9.1945

World War II: Ratification in Berlin-Karlshorst of the German unconditional surrender of May 8 in Rheims, France, with the signatures of Marshal Georgy Zhukov for the Soviet Union, and for the Western Headquarters Sir Arthur Tedder, British Air Marshal and Eisenhower’s deputy, and for the German side of Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff as the representative of the Luftwaffe, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel as the Chief of Staff of OKW, and Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg as Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine.