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Oppenheimer, Fermi, Lawrence, Compton write a letter of recommendations to the President of the United States where they recognize the country’s obligation to use the bomb to save American lives in the war with Japan, they ask to also notify Great Britain, Russia, France, China

Richard Feynman’s wife Arline dies.

The team of German scientists formed by the Soviets for their missile program included 5,000 people compared to von Braun’s 127.

Mercato Saraceno (Forlì). Polish soldiers in a jeep block a partisan procession, seizing red flags. A firefight ensues, killing Polish corporal Tadeusz Slowik and wounding two non-commissioned officers. The soldiers of the Second Polish Army Corps, who fought for the liberation of Italy, all former

Kalniskes, a forest in southern Lithuania. A small but determined group of local partisans led by Jonas Neifalta, known as Lakunas (Pilot), faced a large detachment of Soviet NKVD troops in open battle. Neifalta was known for his opposition to both the Nazis and the

Bleiburg, Austria, on the Yugoslavian border. The first units of Croatian Ustashas arrive in Austria, fleeing Tito’s partisans. They immediately surrender to British forces, who refuse and force them to return to Yugoslavia unarmed, where they are captured by the partisans. Over the following days,

John von Neumann wrote the article “First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC,” describing, but in abstract, non-operational terms, his computer with a program stored on board (and therefore modifiable by the computer itself as if it were data). The first complete specifications arrived

Bletchley Park. There are 211 functioning three- and four-rotor “Bombes” with 1,676 Wrens and 265 mechanics.

Codevigo, Veneto. 114 Italian Social Republic fighters are captured and killed by partisans of the 28th Garibaldi Brigade “Mario Gordini” commanded by Arrigo “Bulow” Boldrini, later a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) parliament and national president of the National Association of Italian Partisans

American newsreels show for the first time the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. These include Ohrdurf, a branch of Buchenwald, Nordhausen, and Buchenwald itself.

Himmler attempts to open negotiations for surrender with the Allies; they are rejected.

5:30 p.m.: Americans join the siege of the Academy in Piazza Roma, Modena.

The Allies liberate Imola.

The Red Army enters Vienna after 12 days of street-to-street fighting with the Nazi SS.

Bergen-Belsen camp. The German troops on guard, fearing the spread of a typhus epidemic, let British troops enter, even though they were formally still at war.

A “Target Committee” begins to meet to remove possible targets of nuclear bombing in Japan from the list of cities to be bombed; by the end of July 1945 the list will include Hiroshima (classified as AA), Yokohama (A), Kokura (A), Niigata (B), Nagasaki; the

American troops enter the main Buchenwald camp, where 20,000 inmates are still held. General Eisenhower invites Western journalists and local residents into the camp, who are called upon to bury the dead and clear the rubble.

Germany. Tanks of the US 3rd Division enter Nordhausen, speed through it, and head toward Barby, on the Elbe. At the head of the column is a colonel who sees hundreds of civilians on the side of the road shouting and waving. He orders the

Soviet engineer Boris Chertok and American Colonel Holger “Ludi” Toftoy have the same mission, but on opposite sides of the future Iron Curtain: to find the best Nazi engineers and their artifacts. On April 10th, he receives information that Private John M. Galione has discovered

Germany. Huzel and Tassmann, von Braun’s collaborators, hide 14 tons of documents regarding the V2 projects in a mine near Dornten and collapse the entrance. The Americans are coming. They will find the material on May 21st. Von Braun, his brother Magnus, and other scientists

The NKGB completes a comprehensive intelligence report ordered by Lvrentii Beria: this is a terrible blow to the Americans as the Soviets are aware of all the salient elements of the American nuclear program.

Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Vysinsky visits King Michael and asks him to dismiss Prime Minister Radescu and install Petru Groza. While the king stalls, Romanian troops in the city are replaced by Soviet units. The next day, the king relents. The difference between Romania

Ardennes. The men of the 101st American Airborne Division, besieged in the snow-covered town of Bastogne, receive German officers demanding their surrender. The division commander, General McAuliffe, writes the response on a piece of paper, which is handed to the Germans. Four letters: NUTS (or

The British Signal Intelligence Agency (GC&CS) creates a department to study Soviet codes. Its American partner is kept in the dark. However, the Americans had already created such a department in February 1943. Both evidently understood that the USSR would soon become the enemy after

Aircraft carrier Uruyu sunk

Predappio (Mussolini’s birthplace) is conquered by Poles of the Second Polish Army Corps. Veterans of the Soviet Gulag, having passed through Iran, Palestine, and Egypt, they had raised the Polish flag on the ruins of the monastery at Montecassino a few months earlier. Polish commander

MacArthur’s Return. US General Douglas MacArthur returns to the Philippines, landing on the island of Leyte. The son of an American Civil War hero, MacArthur had served as a US military advisor in the Philippines before World War II. On December 8, 1941, the day

Gothic Line: Modena partisan Mario Ricci “Armando” and his partisan brigade enter Vidiciatico.

Unusually for them, Japanese cryptographers simultaneously changed the codebook (N), the additive tables (62 and 63), and the operating system, and made no errors in their implementation. For the first time, Washington encountered decryption difficulties. The problem was solved only after mid-October 1944.

Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, USA. The Bretton Woods Agreements are a set of international economic rules agreed in 1944 between the major industrialized countries of the Western world. In practice, the Bretton Woods Agreements tied the dollar to gold, and the currencies of other nations

Finland. Continuation War. The Finnish Prime Minister flies back to Stalin in Moscow, as he had done a few years earlier for the Winter War. The Soviet demands are almost the same as in 1941: they retake Karelia and the naval base, and the nickel

Finland. The Red Army takes back the Finnish city of Viipuri.

Montefiorino, in the Modena Apennines. The town is liberated by partisans, who manage to keep the Wehrmacht out for 48 days. It becomes the free “Republic of Montefiorino,” led by 52-year-old farmer Teofilo Fontana.

Saturday, 2:36 PM. During the bombing of Modena, a bomb also hits the north wall of Modena Cathedral. A huge hole opens in the cathedral’s walls, letting rays of dusty light filter inside. Covered by thousand-year-old bricks, two bodies are found embracing. After several hours

Montecassino. 11:00 PM. The sky above the abbey lights up with the fire of 1,600 Allied cannons. It’s the beginning of the offensive. The Poles of the Second Polish Army Corps, veterans of the Soviet Gulags and having passed through Iran, Palestine, and Egypt, are

Hitler and Mussolini discussed the Führer’s secret weapons for the first time at Klassheim Castle. The meeting lasted three days. Hitler realized late (fortunately for us) the potential of these weapons, which had actually been under development for several years, often before the war, and

Bell Labs’ Sigsaly system for secure pulse-modulated transmission of information across the Atlantic becomes fully operational.

First Flight of a V-1 (jet-powered, 1 ton of TNT, 250 km range, 700 km/h); designed by Robert Lusser of Gerhard Fieseler Flugzeugbau, 26,000 of which were built by the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Segelflug center; the V-1 was powered by an Argus Ar104 pulsejet designed

The Italian Social Republic is born. On this day, Mussolini moves from Monaco to Italy, to Rocca delle Caminate (in the province of Forlì); a few hours earlier, the list of ministers of the Italian Social Republic had been announced in a radio broadcast. Thus

The U.S. Army awards Bell Labs a contract for two Sigsaly systems for secure pulse-modulated transmission of information across the Atlantic.

Erwin Rommel at El-Alamein understands that the battle is now lost

German Enigma messages reporting incoming Italian supplies are promptly intercepted by the British, who send the Italian tankers to the sea: the Proserpina, the Tergestea, and two days later the Luisiano and Portofino. Rommel, who had been counting on this aid, however, has exhausted his

Chicago: They begin thinking about how to design a reactor that can contain the chain reaction. To cool it, a group of eight members is formed.

Iran. A bilateral invasion begins, with British forces in the southwest and Soviet forces in the north. There are only isolated pockets of resistance. On August 29 and 31, British and Soviet troops meet in the west of the country and near Tehran. Shah Mohammed

Moscow. Polish General Sikorski, head of the Polish government-in-exile, convinces Stalin to free all Polish prisoners in the Gulags and form the Second Polish Army Corps. 110,000 prisoners will set out on foot from the Gulags, sometimes walking thousands of kilometers, to reach the assembly

Hitler and several experts meet to establish the basis for the development of a future heavy tank: the Tiger II

Following the German invasion of Denmark, South African mathematician John Kerrich, who happened to be in Copenhagen, was also imprisoned. The mathematician used his (considerable) free time during his years in prison to toss a coin 10,000 times and record the result: 50.67% of the

The presumed date of Ettore Majorana’s death, as per a letter from Jesuit Ettore Caselli: he writes that the magazine Missioni has agreed to establish a scholarship for the late and dearly departed Ettore Majorana. He speaks of it as if it were a homily

Busan, Korea (under Japanese rule). Lee Byung-chul founds a trucking business he calls Samsung Trading Co., the precursor to Samsung, meaning “Three Stars” (explaining the initial corporate logos). Lee Byung-chul (Korean: 이병철; February 12, 1910 – November 19, 1987) was in fact the founder of

Clinton Davisson and George Thomson measured the wave properties predicted by de Broglie. In 1923, Arthur Compton had done the same for the light quanta predicted by Einstein.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt obtains Congress’ approval of the Social Security Act, the law on welfare, the cornerstone of the new welfare state.

Fermi’s group uses paraffin for the first time to slow down neutrons, a substance that proves particularly effective

Englishman Oliver Strachey manages to decrypt Japanese military code after the latest update.

Marie Curie died in Sanchellemoz; at a conference held in 1933, she had declared: “I am among those who think that science has a great beauty. […] And I do not believe that, in our world, the spirit of adventure is in danger of disappearing.”

George Gamow and his wife Rho were invited by Niels Bohr to a conference in Belgium. They took the opportunity to seek political asylum. Gamow was offered a professorship in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he would spend the rest of his professional career. They never

Carothers invented Nylon (later marketed in 1938 by DuPont) composed of carbon, air, water, the same components from which plastic and rubber would also be synthesized.

In Germany, Hinderburg dies and Hitler holds both the office of chancellor and president and becomes Fuhrer.

The German SA, or Brown Shirts, number 2,900,000.

Fermi’s group’s experiments on artificial radioactivity lead to uranium (atomic number 92) which produces “interesting” results, however the possibility of the atom splitting eludes the group of scientists.

Asteroid 1862 Apollo, approximately 1.7 km in size, is discovered in the asteroid belt. It is later lost (how can you lose an asteroid?) and rediscovered in 1973 (!). It is a NEO (Near Earth Object) that will give its name to an entire class

The DSK or Dvorak Simplified Keyboard was introduced, which was much faster to type than the QWERTY; the US Navy, which never lost sight of efficiency, adopted it for several decades.

Hungarian-American mathematician John Von Neumann introduces the Density Matrix

Warner Bros.’ The Public Enemy hits theaters; it covers Al Capone-inspired mafia themes.

Japan invades Manchuria. The territories south of the Amur River are called Manchukuo. For years, Japan will ponder how to continue its imperial expansion: northward through Russian Siberia, rich in raw materials, or eastward across the ocean toward Hawaii. Had they attacked the Soviet Union,

Belgian Catholic priest Abbe Georges Lemaitre theorizes the expansion of the Universe, the red shift, and the cosmic microwave background radiation.

Soviet Union. Sergei Pavlovich Korolev marries Lyalya Vincentini, a former classmate of Italian origin.

Umberto Nobile, embittered by Italy’s attitude toward him, resigned from the Air Force in 1929. Now out of favor with the Fascist regime, he left Italy in 1931 to participate in the Arctic expedition of the icebreaker Malyghin. The following year, he moved to the

The chain reaction triggered by the Great Depression in America first led to the cessation of American lending to German industry, but even more seriously, it caused the bankruptcy of the Viennese Creditanstalt. Other companies would go bankrupt, and unemployment would rise by millions each

Ernst Ruska invents the first electron microscope.

American chemist and farmer Samuel Kistler invents aerogel. The scientific discovery becomes official with the publication of his experiments in the journal Nature, in the paper “Coherent Expanded Aerogels and Jellies.”

Guglielmo Marconi is appointed President of the Academy of Italy. He will take office on November 29th. As soon as he takes office, he organizes an important conference on nuclear physics, collaborating with Enrico Fermi.

Charles William Beebe and Otis Barton inaugurated modern exploration at great depths: in the Bahamas they descended with their bathysphere to 183m.

New York. Work begins on Rockefeller Center, commissioned by oil magnate John D. Rockefeller Jr.

In 1861, in Bolivia, Charles Ledger, an Australian cinchona trader, persuaded an Indian to sell him cinchona tree seeds (which contain a high content of quinine, an antimalarial substance). Great Britain was uninterested in purchasing them, as past experience had shown that the plant did

Professor Rhine of Duke University examines the case of the wise mare, which has caused a stir. This mare can do math and answer erudite questions. He discovers that the trick, involuntary and therefore well-intentioned, lies in the subtle movements of her master’s whip, which

Modena. The Monumental Temple dedicated to the fallen of the Great War is inaugurated, directly across from Via Vittorio Emanuele II and Piazzale Natale Bruni, named after the bishop who commissioned the Temple’s construction and where he is buried.

Soviet Union. The USSR was the only country in the world that, between 1929 and 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, experienced an increase in industrial production. The price paid for forced industrialization was terrible: for every ton of steel produced under Stalin

United States. Nearly 15,000 American banks fail: 40% of the total. Money reserves collapse dramatically. The contraction in prices (deflation) pushes interest rates above 10%, crushing every indebted business or household. This will lead the government to take draconian measures and follow the policy suggested

Soviet Union. Sergei Pavlovich Korolev graduated with a degree in aeromechanical engineering and began working in the aircraft industry. He had previously worked with Andrei Tupolev. In 1933, he began to develop an interest in rockets and space.

Hirohito crowned in Japan. Two years after his father’s death, Michinomiya Hirohito was crowned the 124th monarch of a Japanese imperial dynasty dating back to 660 BC. Emperor Hirohito ruled during one of the most turbulent periods in Japanese history. From the rapid military expansion