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5:08 a.m. Jornada del Muerto, New Mexico. Meteorologist Hubbard signs off the OK for the explosion. Immediately afterward, Bainbridge starts the countdown timer.

Thursday. Los Alamos, New Mexico. The plutonium from the Trinity Site experiment is transported, in two separate vehicles, from Los Alamos to the designated location in the semi-desert Jornada del Muerto area. It is thus officially transferred from the military to the scientists, who that

Signing of the UN Charter. Delegates from various nations sign the UN Charter. Even before celebrations for the end of World War II began in Europe, delegates from 51 nations convened a 63-day conference in San Francisco that established the UN, the organization dedicated to

After the terrible losses suffered at Okinawa, Nimitz becomes convinced that he cannot sustain the invasion of Japan.

On the outskirts of the village of Barnstedt, between Bremervörde and Hamburg, Himmler (who had assumed the identity of Heinrich Hitzinger) and a small group were stopped by a British military patrol and taken to prisoner-of-war camp 031 near Bramstedt. Himmler, revealing his identity, then

Germany. The US 3rd Division, stationed in Nordhausen, finds 14 tons of documents relating to the V-2, hidden in a mine by von Braun. Staver manages to postpone the American withdrawal from the sector until June 21st, to make way for the British. They hastily

Berlin. 110,000 women are recorded as having been raped. Overall, it is believed that nearly 2 million German women were raped in the immediate postwar period.

Bologna. The Allies disarm the partisan forces present in the city. For the past two weeks, they had turned a blind eye, or rather both, to the summary trials and executions of fascists captured by the partisans. Bologna is the only city in Northern Italy

Surrender of the Third Reich to the Soviets signed in Berlin

Prague. After the city’s uprising against Nazi occupation and the intervention of the Russian Liberation Army, the Nazis signed a ceasefire on May 8th. After Eisenhower halted the advance of their troops, the Red Army entered the already liberated city on May 9th. For decades,

Surrender of the Third Reich to the Allies signed by Donitz to Eisenhower in an elementary school in Reims

Netherlands. Anticipating the arrival of British and Canadian troops, a crowd gathers in the Dam, Amsterdam’s main square, in front of the royal palace, dancing and singing. In a final outburst of rage, a group of Nazi officers fires into the crowd with a machine

Prague. The city’s uprising against Nazi occupation begins. Prague was the first to be occupied and the last to be liberated. Czech resentment is atavistic and dates back to before the war. Many Germans are beaten, doused in petrol, and burned. Dozens are hanged from

Goebbels and his wife commit suicide, also killing their 6 children

In Modena, the synagogue reopens for worship; the Jewish community is almost halved compared to before the war.

Holland. British and American Avro Lancasters and B-17s dropped sacks of Swedish white bread flour, crates of chocolate, margarine, canned meat, powdered eggs, cigarettes, coffee, and chewing gum. The Dutch were exhausted by the German blockade of supplies and the flooding of their camps as

Moscow. Solzhenitsyn recounts, locked in prison and without information on the course of the war, hearing 30 cannon shots, which usually signified the capture of a European capital. Only Prague and Berlin were missing: he just had to guess which. Then on May 9th, they

Battle for Berlin: Red Army casualties number 350,000, German casualties unknown

As many as 1.8 million German soldiers surrendered to the Americans in May alone, fleeing the advancing Red Army. In total, during the war, the Americans, British, and French captured 8 million German soldiers, while the Russians captured 3.1 million, more than a million of

Revenge against female collaborators in Western European countries manifests itself almost exclusively through haircuts (around 20,000 cases), while in Eastern Europe, widespread rape is the norm. Throughout Europe, there is also talk of “horizontal collaborationism”: between one and two million children of German soldiers were

The vendettas against collaborators in northern Italy resulted in a certain number of victims, a figure that would be exploited by the Italian far right in the years to come. This number is probably around 15,000, while some put it at the absurd figure of

The Soviets enter the Ravensbruck concentration camp

Mid-afternoon: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun take their own lives, he with a pistol, she with poison.

At Ponte della Priula, a hamlet of Susegna near San Polo di Piave, the Military Tribunal worked at a frenetic pace, sentencing 100 fascists to death and carrying out executions. The trial records, if ever drawn up, were never recovered. The victims were 49 legionaries

Liberation of Milan: Garibaldi partisans from Oltrepo Pavese, led by Italo Pietra “Edoardo,” enter through Porta Ticinese; there are 600 of them, with another 600 arriving the next day. The Giustizia e Liberta’ partisans enter through Porta Vigentina, and on April 28-29, Ciro Moscatelli’s partisans,

A secret meeting took place in a villa on the Turin hills between partisan Franco Antonicelli, president of the CLN, and British Colonel John Melior Stevens, head of the Special Forces in Piedmont. At the end of the meeting, the British officer concluded: “Listen, Mr.

End of the war in Italy

The Americans requisitioned an apartment in the house at the intersection of Via Nonantolana and Via Albareto in Modena, to set up a dental clinic; within minutes, dozens of citizens lined up outside the office.

Tokyo is hit by the largest bomber formation ever seen on Japanese targets: 502 B-29 Super-Fortress bombers; the destruction reaches levels never seen even in German cities; Osaka, Kope, Nagoya, Yokohama, Toyama are subsequently hit; in total the B-29s raze 28,500 hectares of urban surface

The American X Division crosses the Po followed by the South African VI

American photojournalist Bob Schmidt and his assistant Louis J. Murchio photograph a combat scene in Largo Garibaldi in Modena: some snipers are shooting from a building

Himmler met with Count Folke Bernadotte in the cellar of the Swedish consulate in Lübeck, proposing German surrender on the Western Front, but not on the Eastern Front. The Western Allies were careful not to consider Himmler’s peace proposal; however, the offer was publicized in

American intelligence units, under Operation Hermes, reach the Mittelwerke facility in the Harz Mountains. Their goal is to secure the cooperation of hundreds of German scientists and engineers before the Russians arrive. This marks the beginning of the space race between the US and the

The Partisans enter Modena followed by the Americans

3:30 PM: Partisans besiege the Academy (Palazzo Ducale) where the Germans have taken refuge; the Germans attempt two sorties with vans and reach Via Taglio, Modena, where the battle is raging.

11 a.m.: The Germans retreat from Via Emilia Centro towards Piazza Roma: the battle with the partisans rages on in Via Taglio, Modena.

Gothic Line: Brazilian FEB troops capture Zocca, in the Province of Modena. The Gothic Line has collapsed. The German Wehrmacht forces flee in disarray, and the Allies sweep across the plain in pursuit.

The US XIV Army enters CastelFranco and continues towards the Po pursuing the retreating Nazis

Genoa. X MAS raiders, using Chariot underwater assault craft, disable the Italian aircraft carrier Aquila, anchored in Genoa, to prevent it from being used by the Germans or sunk to block access to the port of Genoa.

Formigine, a southern outskirts of Modena. A small formation of American fighter-bombers destroys Formigine. Among the dead, in a shelter in the castle’s basement, is Count Tito Bentivoglio, a renowned scientist.

Schio. The Black Brigades arrested Giacomo Bogotto, a partisan from Schio, tortured him, gouged out his eyes, and perhaps buried him alive. His body was exhumed the day after Schio’s liberation, April 30, before the eyes of a shocked and enraged population. In May, news

The Soviets arrive at the Peenemunde base, between East Germany and Poland; it is the base where the V-1 and V-2 were built and tested; but by now it is almost emptied of equipment and men, who have fled to West Germany.

Los Alamos, New Mexico. Chemist George Kristiakowsky develops the scientific confidence necessary to establish that it is possible to completely control the development of the TNT explosion that triggers an atomic bomb. It is therefore possible to guarantee the success of the atomic bomb test

As the Third Reich collapsed, American intelligence agents from the Alsos Mission captured “Hitler’s Uranium Club,” the masterminds of the German nuclear program. This included geniuses like the politically ambiguous Werner Heisenberg, as well as less brilliant and openly Nazi scientists like Kurt Diebner. Intelligence

The Anglo-Americans broke through the Gothic Line in Italy and spread towards the Po; the Gothic Line held the Allies back for 200 days, exacting a toll of 200,000 human lives; on one side Nazis and Italians (the latter on the Ligurian-Tuscan side) and on

502 B29 to Tokyo and then to Osaka, Kope, Nagoya, Yokohama, Toyama

Los Alamos, New Mexico. Physical chemist Joseph Hirschfelder suddenly enters his colleague John Magee’s office, shouting, “What about radioactivity?” The two will be tasked with estimating the impact of radioactivity on the environment surrounding the Trinity Site in the Jornada del Muerto area. Based on

With the D and F reactors also at full capacity, plutonium shipments to Los Alamos are taking place on a weekly basis.

Wernher Von Braun and hundreds of other German engineers leave Peenemunde to find refuge in a village near the Austrian border

Winston Churchill tells the Chief of Staff that the continued bombing of German cities, intended to terrorize them, albeit under a different pretext, must be reconsidered; otherwise, we will control a devastated land. What in most Western countries is called “area bombing” is called “terror

Los Alamos scientists gather in an impromptu evening meeting to discuss the political aspects of the Manhattan Project. At the last minute, the project leader, Robert Oppenheimer, shows up. Fermi and Feynman also attend. Oppenheimer says that research on the bomb should continue and lead

334 B-29 SuperFortresses with 2,000 tons of incendiaries bomb Tokyo. Between 130,000 and 200,000 people die. The use of area bombing with 2.7 kg M69 magnesium-phosphorus incendiaries in clusters of 38 bombs was considered after unsuccessfully testing the precision bombing technique so tenaciously defended in

At Remagen, the Lunderdoff Bridge was captured by the Americans; it collapsed on March 18th after being bombed first by the Americans and then by the Germans; but by then, the American engineers had already prepared six pontoon bridges.

Civil war in Greece. The warring parties, exhausted by the fighting, sign an armistice in Varkiza.

Zgoda, now southwestern Poland, near Świetochłowice. The Poles established a German punishment camp in a labor camp abandoned by Nazi troops. Thousands of local Germans were deported there and forced to work. At its peak, there were 5,048 prisoners. Two-thirds were sent to work in

Gothic Line: Brazilian FEB troops re-attack Monte Castello and capture its summit. The Brazilians are tasked with protecting the X Mountain Division’s advance toward Bologna on the left flank. Meanwhile, the partisans are tasked with capturing the positions around Monte Cimone.

Landing on Iwo Jima: 7,000 American dead, 20,000 Japanese (practically all the Japanese soldiers present on the island)

Gothic Line: The U.S. 10th Mountain Division attacks the Riva Mountains. They will capture them the next morning.

The Yalta Agreements shifted Poland’s eastern border significantly westward along the so-called Curzon Line, handing Lviv to Ukraine, Brest-Litovsk to Belarus, and Vilnius to Lithuania. For the Poles, this amounted to endorsing the Soviet invasion of 1939, mostly without even being consulted. There was talk

Los Alamos, New Mexico. The first shipment of plutonium arrives from the Hanford reactor in Washington State.

Meeting of the Big Three in Yalta. On February 4, 1945, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin met in Yalta, a Ukrainian city on the Black Sea. During the second and more difficult conference, the three

Yalta Conference between Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill

The Nazi Luftwaffe’s secret Enigma code adopts a new system for enciphering call signs, each time differently. This slows down the decryption at Bletchley Park, and the number of messages deciphered per day drops from 1,800 to 1,000.

At Peenemünde, Werner von Braun called a meeting with the other scientists to decide whether to wait for the Russians or move upstream, hoping to surrender to the Americans. They all unanimously decided to go south, with only one dissenting voice: that of Helmut Grottrup,

Philosopher Bertrand Russell publishes A History of Western Philosophy, for which he will win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Biro sold the ballpoint pen license to Bic, which began mass production. Over the next 60 years, Bic would sell 100 billion pens.

The location of the International Conference between the likely victors of the war is under discussion. Churchill suggests Malta, Roosevelt (very ill: he will die a few weeks later) suggests Sicily, but Stalin (who never left the USSR) is adamant: it will be held in

Mauthausen, Austria. In the northernmost sector of the camp’s “guarded area,” a tent city was built where typhus, malnutrition, and disease claimed hundreds of victims (many buried in mass graves, as the crematoria were no longer capable of disposing of the corpses). In April, a

Romania. Deputy Prime Minister Petru Groza encourages peasants to take over the land of large landowners, effectively preempting agrarian reform.

Kristiakowsky insisted on a plutonium bomb design with so-called “lenses,” or specially shaped explosives that would have formed a sphere when imploded. Oppenheimer, in a critical decision for the project, supported this idea.

The USAF during World War II lost an average of one aircraft every 95 missions

Franklin Delano Roosevelt re-elected to the White House for the fourth time

The Leopoldville disaster, torpedoed by U-boats, killed 802 of the 2,223 Americans on board, while the British officers and Belgian crew were all safe. The incident remained a military secret until 1959. The Belgian government only took a stand in 1992, praising the crew’s conduct.

Signal Intelligence: Nearly 12 months after its introduction, the first Allied countermeasures to the Luftwaffe’s Unkehrwalze Dora (UKD) become operational. The electromechanical Autoscritcher machine deciphers the UKD-encrypted Red code, but is very slow. The electronic version, Superscritcher, will not enter service until after the war.

Back in 1877, Louis Pasteur was the first to demonstrate that one microorganism could be used to kill another. These would be called antibiotics. Note that there is also a broader definition of antibiotic, which includes chemicals derived from dyes that attack certain bacteria. Pasteur

The Soviets are seriously alarmed by both the extent and determination of the resistance they encounter in Lithuania. Lavrenti Beria, head of the NKVD, orders Lithuania to be cleared of partisans within two weeks. It will take a few more years, but it will be

Western Ukraine. An anti-Soviet guerrilla resistance movement develops, numbering 400,000 members.

Ardennes. Colonel Skorzeni’s men (the same man who kidnapped Il Duce at Gran Sasso) are increasing the chaos behind the American lines. Disguised as American soldiers, trained to behave like true Yankees, even down to the way they light a cigarette, they infiltrate the retreating

Hitler orders Joachen Peiper’s 1st SS Panzer Division, which had long been preparing to take the port of Antwerp through the Ardennes forests, to launch an offensive. This is part of the larger Battle of the Bulge offensive. The Nazis number 1,500 tanks, and the

Kitty and Robert Oppenheimer’s daughter, Katherine, is born. As with her first child, Kitty suffers a psychological crisis and leaves Los Alamos for a while, leaving her daughter with Robert and Pat Sherr, who cares for her. After two months, Pat is astonished when Robert