1945 Trivia, History, and Fun Facts
Quick Facts from 1945
Top Ten Baby Names of 1945
Girls: Mary, Linda, Barbara, Patricia, Carol, Sandra, Nancy, Judith, Sharon, Betty
Boys: James, Robert, John, William, Richard, David, Charles, Thomas, Michael, Ronald
The Stars
Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford, Olivia de Havilland, Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Katharine Hepburn, Hedy Lamarr, Vivien Leigh, Myrna Loy, Gene Tierney, Lana Turner, Jane Wyman
Hollywood Hunks and Leading Men
Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, James Stewart
The Quotes
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt (his words, remembered especially after his death on April 12, 1945)
“It is a far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” — Sydney Carton’s final words, A Tale of Two Cities — the passage FDR was reading when he died
“I have a terrific headache.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt’s final words, April 12, 1945
“The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.” — President Harry S. Truman, August 6, 1945 (Hiroshima was not primarily a military base; approximately 70,000 civilians died in the initial blast)
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” — Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, after Pearl Harbor — a quote that defined how Japan’s war ended as much as how it began
17th Academy Awards
The ceremony was held on March 15, 1945, at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, and was hosted by Bob Hope.
Going My Way — a musical drama about a young priest — swept the evening with seven awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Leo McCarey), Best Actor (Bing Crosby), and Best Supporting Actor (Barry Fitzgerald).
Ingrid Bergman won Best Actress for Gaslight.
Barry Fitzgerald became the only person ever nominated in both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for the same role — then-current rules allowed it. He was nominated for both but won only Supporting Actor. The rules were immediately changed.
Time Magazine Person of the Year
Harry S. Truman, who became president upon FDR’s death, having been vice president for only 83 days, never knew about the atomic bomb project, and then had to decide whether to use it.
Miss America
Bess Myerson, New York City — the first and only Jewish woman to win the Miss America title. She was asked by pageant officials to change her name to something less obviously Jewish. She refused.
We Lost in 1945
Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, died April 12, at age 63, of a cerebral hemorrhage at Warm Springs, Georgia. He had been president for 12 years, led the country through the Depression and through World War II, and died 25 days before Germany surrendered. He never knew.
Adolf Hitler — died by suicide on April 30, age 56, in his underground bunker in Berlin as Soviet forces closed in. He shot himself; Eva Braun, whom he had married the previous day, took cyanide. Their bodies were burned at his instruction.
Benito Mussolini, Italian dictator, was captured and shot by Italian partisans on April 28 and hanged upside down at a Milan gas station.
Ernie Pyle, beloved war correspondent, was killed April 18 by Japanese machine-gun fire on the island of Ie Shima off Okinawa. American infantrymen braved enemy fire to recover his body. He is described on his memorial simply as “a buddy.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian and resistance leader, was hanged at Flossenbürg concentration camp on April 9, just days before American forces liberated it. His last words: “This is the end — for me, the beginning of life.”
Anne Frank, diarist — died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in February or March 1945, age 15. Her diary, found by her father Otto Frank — the only member of the family to survive — was published in 1947.
Béla Bartók, Hungarian composer — died September 26, age 64 Käthe Kollwitz, German artist — died April 22, age 77 Theodore Dreiser, American novelist — died December 28, age 74
The End of World War II
Europe:
January 27, 1945: Soviet forces liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. What they found, and what Allied forces subsequently found at Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, and other camps, was the full revelation of the Holocaust. Six million Jews had been systematically murdered. The world had not previously understood the full scope.
April 12: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Warm Springs, Georgia. Harry S. Truman, who had been vice president for 83 days and had never been briefed on the Manhattan Project, was immediately sworn in as president.
April 25: American and Soviet forces met at the Elbe River in Germany — the linkup that effectively split what remained of the Third Reich. The soldiers embraced. They would be adversaries within two years.
April 30: Adolf Hitler died by suicide in his Berlin bunker. The Thousand-Year Reich had lasted twelve years.
May 8, 1945 — V-E Day: Germany signed its unconditional surrender. Crowds erupted in celebration across the Allied world. In London, the crowds outside Buckingham Palace were so dense that King George VI and Churchill appeared on the balcony eight times. In New York, two million people flooded Times Square. In a farmhouse in Reims, France, German General Alfred Jodl signed the document. The war in Europe was over.
The Pacific:
The battles of Iwo Jima (February-March) and Okinawa (April-June) were the bloodiest of the Pacific War. Iwo Jima cost 6,800 American lives; Okinawa cost over 12,000. Japanese forces fought almost to the last man. American planners estimated an invasion of Japan itself would cost one million Allied casualties.
February 23, 1945: U.S. Marines raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the moment. The photograph became the most reproduced in history. There are six flag raisers in the image: Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, John Bradley, Harlon Block, Michael Strank, and Rene Gagnon. Three were killed in action before the battle ended.
August 6, 1945: The United States dropped an atomic bomb called “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan. The bomb was equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT. The explosion instantly killed an estimated 70,000 people; by the end of 1945, the death toll from burns, radiation, and injuries exceeded 140,000.
August 9: A second bomb, “Fat Man,” was dropped on Nagasaki. Approximately 40,000 people died immediately; 80,000 by year’s end.
August 15 — V-J Day: Emperor Hirohito broadcast his surrender announcement on Japanese radio. It was the first time most Japanese citizens had ever heard his voice. Many couldn’t understand his formal court Japanese and learned the news from announcers who translated.
September 2, 1945: Japan signed the formal surrender documents aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. General Douglas MacArthur presided. The ceremony lasted 23 minutes. World War II was officially over.
The total death toll: approximately 70-85 million people — soldiers, civilians, Holocaust victims, and those killed by famine and disease caused by the war. It was the deadliest conflict in human history.
The Atomic Bomb
The Manhattan Project began in 1942 under the scientific direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, New Mexico, with facilities across the country at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington. The project employed over 130,000 people and cost approximately $2 billion. Most workers had no idea what they were building.
On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb test — code-named Trinity — was detonated at Alamogordo, New Mexico. Oppenheimer watched the explosion and recalled a line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” He said this was what came to him at that moment. He never fully reconciled his role in what followed.
The decision to use the bomb was made by President Truman, who had been told of the Manhattan Project only after becoming president. He was advised that a land invasion of Japan would cost approximately one million Allied casualties. He authorized the use of the bomb. Whether this decision was justified, and whether alternatives existed, has been debated by historians ever since.
Pop Culture Facts and History
The famous “V-J Day Kiss” photograph — Alfred Eisenstaedt’s image of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on August 14, 1945 — became one of the most iconic images of the 20th century. Neither the sailor nor the nurse was ever definitively identified during their lifetimes, though multiple people later claimed to be them. The nurse, whoever she was, later said she had no choice in the matter; the sailor had grabbed her. The photograph’s meaning has been reexamined accordingly.
The first issue of Ebony magazine was published in November 1945 by John H. Johnson, featuring Black life, achievement, and culture in a mainstream format that no existing publication provided. It became one of the most influential magazines in American history, reaching a peak circulation of 1.3 million.
Percy Spencer, a Raytheon engineer working on radar magnetrons, noticed in 1945 that a peanut butter candy bar in his pocket had melted while he was working near active radar equipment. He deliberately experimented with popcorn kernels, then an egg (which exploded), and other foods, and recognized that microwave radiation could cook food. Raytheon patented the microwave oven in 1945. The first commercial unit was six feet tall and weighed 750 pounds.
Three Musketeers candy bars originally came in three pieces — chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla — hence the name. In 1945, wartime sugar and ingredient rationing made the strawberry and vanilla flavors too expensive to produce. The bar was simplified to chocolate only. It has remained that way ever since.
A B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed into the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945, in heavy fog. Fourteen people were killed. Elevator operator Betty Oliver survived a 75-story elevator shaft fall when cables snapped during the rescue, setting a record for the longest survived elevator fall. She survived.
The United Nations was formally established on October 24, 1945, with 51 founding member nations signing the UN Charter. The date is now observed annually as United Nations Day. It replaced the League of Nations, which had failed to prevent the war.
The Nuremberg Trials began on November 20, 1945, prosecuting senior Nazi officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Twenty-four defendants were tried; twelve were sentenced to death. The trials established the principle that “following orders” was not a defense for participating in atrocities.
The term “cold war” was coined by George Orwell in an essay published on October 19, 1945, titled “You and the Atom Bomb,” in which he predicted the world would be dominated by two nuclear superpowers in a state of permanent tension that never quite erupted into direct conflict. He was precisely right.
The GI Bill (Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944) began paying out in earnest in 1945 as veterans returned. It provided low-cost mortgages, college tuition, and business loans to returning servicemen. By 1956, it had provided education and training to 7.8 million veterans and helped 2.4 million buy homes. It created the American middle class.
Approximately 4 million American servicemen and women returned home in 1945. The marriage rate immediately surged. The birth rate surged nine months later. The Baby Boom had begun.
Bing Crosby’s recording of White Christmas, first released in 1942, was reissued and dominated the 1945 Christmas season. It has sold an estimated 50 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling physical single of all time.
Abbott and Costello’s The Naughty Nineties (1945) contained the longest version of their famous “Who’s on First?” routine ever filmed. The bit had been performed so many times by 1945 that Bud Abbott reportedly could deliver it in his sleep — and sometimes did.
Bess Myerson, elected Miss America in September 1945, was the first Jewish woman to win the title. Pageant officials suggested she change her name to something less identifiably Jewish to avoid antisemitic backlash. She refused. She went on to become a television personality and New York City consumer affairs commissioner.
The last president to have a net worth under a million dollars was Harry Truman, who left office in 1953 and returned to Independence, Missouri, where he lived modestly on his Army pension. He declined corporate board memberships and speaking fees, saying he didn’t want to “commercialize” the presidency.
The 1945 Food and Nutrition Board recommendation that “humans require roughly 2.5 liters of water per day” was the origin of the “8 glasses a day” rule — but the full recommendation noted that most of this fluid comes from food and other beverages, not drinking water alone. The second half of the sentence has been omitted in health advice ever since.
The Nobel Prize in 1945
Physics — Wolfgang Pauli (for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle) Chemistry — Artturi Ilmari Virtanen (for research in agricultural chemistry)
Medicine — Sir Alexander Fleming, Ernst Boris Chain, and Howard Walter Florey (for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in infectious diseases — penicillin had been mass-produced during the war and saved hundreds of thousands of lives)
Literature — Gabriela Mistral (Chilean poet — first Latin American to win the prize)
Peace — Cordell Hull (U.S. Secretary of State, for his work toward establishing the United Nations)
Economics — Prize not yet established (first awarded 1969)
Popular and Best-Selling Books of 1945
Animal Farm — George Orwell (published August 17, 1945 — a political allegory about totalitarianism that was rejected by several publishers, including one at the advice of the British Ministry of Information, before being published)
Black Boy — Richard Wright
Captain from Castile — Samuel Shellabarger
Cannery Row — John Steinbeck
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn — Betty Smith (published 1943, still dominating bestseller lists)
Forever Amber — Kathleen Winsor
Hungry Hill — Daphne du Maurier
The Robe — Lloyd C. Douglas
Stuart Little — E.B. White
Witch Wood — John Buchan
Animal Farm was completed by George Orwell in 1943 but rejected by publisher after publisher, including Victor Gollancz and T.S. Eliot at Faber & Faber. When it finally appeared in August 1945, just as the full nature of Soviet totalitarianism was becoming clear, it became a sensation.
Broadway in 1945
Carousel by Rodgers and Hammerstein opened April 19, 1945, and is considered by many the greatest American musical ever written. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams opened March 31, 1945, launching Williams’s career and introducing a new kind of American dramatic writing.
Best Film Oscar Winner
Going My Way, directed by Leo McCarey and starring Bing Crosby, won Best Picture at the 17th Academy Awards in 1945, presented for the 1944 film year. It won seven Oscars. Bing Crosby became the only performer to win Best Actor playing a priest.
The Bomb
Movie: Nob Hill — a period musical that tried to capitalize on nostalgia for pre-war San Francisco and found few takers among audiences dealing with actual history. Radio: Every war-themed dramatic program immediately became irrelevant in 1945 as the war ended. Producers scrambled to pivot to peacetime content almost overnight.
Top Movies of 1945
Most Popular Radio Shows of 1945
1945 Billboard Number One Songs
(Chart methodology continued to track radio airplay and record sales simultaneously)
There I’ve Said It Again — Vaughn Monroe (dominant through early 1945)
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive — Johnny Mercer and the Pied Pipers
Sentimental Journey — Les Brown with Doris Day (became the defining song of servicemen’s homecomings)
Rum and Coca-Cola — The Andrews Sisters
I’m Beginning to See the Light — Harry James
It’s Been a Long, Long Time — Harry James with Kitty Kallen (released September 1945 specifically for returning veterans; immediately #1)
Till the End of Time — Perry Como Laura, various artists
On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe — Johnny Mercer and the Pied Pipers
If I Loved You — Perry Como (from Carousel)
White Christmas — Bing Crosby (reissued and #1 for the Christmas season)
Sentimental Journey by Les Brown featuring vocalist Doris Day became the unofficial anthem of the returning soldier in 1945. It’s Been a Long, Long Time was written and recorded in August 1945 specifically for the end of the war. By November, it was the #1 song in America.
Sports Champions of 1945
World Series: Detroit Tigers (defeating the Chicago Cubs — the Cubs’ last World Series appearance for 71 years)
NFL Champions: Cleveland Rams
Stanley Cup: Toronto Maple Leafs
U.S. Open Golf: Not held due to World War II
U.S. Open Tennis — Men: Sgt. Frank Parker | Women: Sarah Palfrey Cooke
Wimbledon: Not held due to World War II
NCAA Football: Army (led by Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard, who would win the Heisman Trophy in 1945 and 1946, respectively)
NCAA Basketball: Oklahoma A&M
Kentucky Derby: Hoop Jr.
Sports Highlight: The 1945 World Series featured the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs — two teams using many players who were either too old, too young, or physically ineligible for military service. The regular players were still at war. Detroit won in seven games. Cubs fans would wait 71 more years for another Series appearance.
FAQ — 1945 History, Facts and Trivia
Q: When did World War II end?
A: In two stages. Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 8, 1945: V-E Day (Victory in Europe). Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945 — V-J Day (Victory over Japan) — following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9. The formal surrender ceremony took place aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
Q: What were the atomic bombs dropped on Japan?
A: On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped a uranium bomb called “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, killing approximately 140,000 people by year’s end. On August 9, a plutonium bomb called “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki, killing approximately 80,000. Japan announced its surrender on August 15. The bombings ended the war but opened the Atomic Age.
Q: Who became president when FDR died?
A: Harry S. Truman, who had been vice president for only 83 days when Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. Truman had not been told about the Manhattan Project or the atomic bomb. He learned of them after taking office and decided to use them.
Q: What were the Nuremberg Trials?
A: Beginning November 20, 1945, senior Nazi officials were tried by an international military tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Twelve were sentenced to death. The trials established the landmark legal principle that following orders does not excuse participation in atrocities.
Q: What famous magazine launched in 1945?
A: Ebony magazine published its first issue in November 1945, founded by John H. Johnson. It became the most widely read magazine in Black American households and one of the most influential publications of the 20th century.
Q: What invention was accidentally discovered in 1945?
A: The microwave oven. Raytheon engineer Percy Spencer noticed a candy bar in his pocket had melted near radar equipment, realized microwave radiation was cooking food, and patented the concept in 1945. The first commercial microwave was six feet tall and weighed 750 pounds.
Q: Who was Bess Myerson?
A: The 1945 Miss America — the first and only Jewish woman to win the title. Pageant officials asked her to change her name to avoid antisemitic backlash. She refused. She went on to a distinguished career in public service.
Q: What song defined the end of the war in 1945?
A: Sentimental Journey by Les Brown featuring Doris Day became the anthem of returning servicemen. It’s Been a Long, Long Time by Harry James, released in August 1945 specifically for the war’s end, reached #1 within weeks. Doris Day was 21 years old when she recorded Sentimental Journey.
Q: What famous photograph was taken in Times Square in 1945?
A: Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day, August 14, 1945. It became one of the most reproduced photographs in history. The identities of both subjects were disputed for decades.
Q: What organization was founded in 1945 that still exists today?
A: The United Nations, formally established on October 24, 1945, with 51 founding member nations. It replaced the failed League of Nations. October 24 is now observed annually as United Nations Day.
More 1945 History and Trivia Resources
Popular and Notable Books (popculture.us)
Broadway Shows that Opened in 1945
1945 Calendar, courtesy of Time and Date.com
Fact Monster
Forties Nostalgia
1940s, Infoplease.com World History
1945 in Movies (according to IMDB)
Retrowaste Vintage Culture
1940s Slang
Wikipedia 1945
Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki