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Top Song(s)
• The Andrews Sisters - Rum & Coca-Cola
• Perry Como - Till The End of Time
• Les Brown - My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time
• Vaughn Monroe - There! I've Said it Again
• Harry James - It's Been a Long, Long Time
Top Film(s)
• Brief Encounter
• Children of Paradise
• The Lost Weekend
• Mildred Pierce
• Rome, Open City
Best Selling Book(s)
• Animal Farm - George Orwell
• Stuart Little - E.B. White
• Pippi Langstrump - Astrid Lindgren
• Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
• The Glass Menagerie - Tennessee Williams
Famous Deaths
• January 12 – Teresio Olivelli, Italian Roman Catholic soldier and venerable
• February 13 – Maria Orosa, Filipino technologist, chemist, humanitarian and WWII heroine
• March 18 – William Grover-Williams, British/French racing driver, war hero
• April 12 – Franklin D. Roosevelt, political leader and statesman, 32nd President of the United States
• May 14 - Heber J. Grant, 7th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• June 27 – Emil Hacha, 3rd President of Czechoslovakia
• August 4 – Gerhard Gentzen, German mathematician and logician
• September 15 - Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer, German physician and bacteriologist
• October 19 - Plutarco Elías Calles, Mexican general, politician and 40th President of Mexico
• December 21 – George S. Patton, American general
Medical/Science/Technology
• Salvador Edward Luria and Alfred Day Hershey independently recognize that viruses undergo mutations.
• A team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory led by Charles Coryell discovers chemical element 61.
• George Stigler solves the Stigler diet problem heuristically.
• The Amsler grid is introduced for monitoring of the central visual field.
• Raymond L. Libby, announces a method of orally administering the antibiotic penicillin.
• Nuclear testing: the Trinity test, the first test of an atomic bomb, using 6 kilograms of plutonium.
• Slinky toy first demonstrated by engineer Richard T. James in Philadelphia.
• The first desalination plant becomes operational.
• Kathleen Lonsdale and Marjory Stephenson become the first women elected as Fellows of the Royal Society of London.
• Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki make the world aware of the power of nuclear weapons.
Political Events
• January 20 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated to a fourth term.
• February 2 – Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill leave to meet with Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference.
• February 8 – The Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, championed by charismatic native leader Elizabeth Peratrovich.
• March 1 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives what will be his last address to a joint session of Congress.
• March 2 – Former Vice President Henry Agard Wallace starts his term of office as U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
• April 12 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies suddenly; Vice President Harry S. Truman becomes the 33rd president.
• July 8 – President Harry S. Truman is informed that Japan will talk peace if it can retain the Emperor.
• July 21 – President Harry S. Truman approves the order for atomic bombs to be used against Japan.
• August 8 – The United Nations Charter is ratified by the United States Senate.
• November 15 – Harry S. Truman, Clement Attlee, and Mackenzie King call for a U.N. Atomic Energy Commission.
National Events
• January 6 - Pepe Le Pew makes his debut as the first major Looney Tunes character, in "Odor-able Kitty"
• February 12 – A devastating tornado outbreak in Mississippi and Alabama kills 45 people and injures 427 others.
• March 24 – The cartoon character Sylvester the cat debuts in Life with Feathers.
• April 25 - Founding negotiations for the United Nations begin in San Francisco.
• June 26 – The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco.
• July 16 – The Trinity test detonates the world's first atomic bomb.
• July 28 – A U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building, killing 14 people, including all on board.
• October 5 – Hollywood Black Friday: A strike by the Set Decorator's Union in Hollywood results in a riot.
• October 29 – At Gimbel's Department Store in New York City, the first ballpoint pens go on sale at $12.50 each.
• December 4 – By a vote of 65–7, the United States Senate approves the entry of the United States into the United Nations.
Worldwide Events
• February 3 - United States forces capture Manila, Philippines from the Japanese Imperial Army.
• March 3 – United States and Filipino troops take Manila, Philippines.
• April 4 – The Holocaust: American troops liberate the concentration camp, Ohrdruf death camp in Germany.
• April 18 – The American war correspondent Ernie Pyle is killed on the island of Ie Shima off Okinawa.
• May 3 – Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and 120 members of his team surrender to U.S. forces.
• May 4 – The Holy Crown of Hungary is found in Mattsee, Austria, by the United States Army 86th Infantry Division.
• August 6 – A Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay drops a uranium-235 atomic bomb, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
• August 14 (August 15 in Japan) – Emperor Hirohito announces Japan's surrender on the radio.
• September 2 - World War II ends: The final official surrender of Japan is accepted by General Douglas MacArthur.
• November 28 - The 1945 Balochistan earthquake causes a tsunami and kills 4,000.