50 Fun Facts About 1945

Which team's World Series, its last for 71 years, saw a tavern owner's goat ejected from Wrigley Field?

The Chicago Cubs lost that series to the Detroit Tigers and did not win a pennant again until 2016, when the 'Curse of the Billy Goat' supposedly laid by William Sianis finally lifted.

Which New York skyscraper was hit by a B-25 bomber lost in thick fog on 28 July, killing fourteen people?

The Empire State Building was struck on its north side by a pilot who, disoriented in the fog, turned right instead of left after passing dangerously close to the Chrysler Building; eleven of the dead were inside.

Which two royals were allowed out of Buckingham Palace incognito on VE night to join the celebrating crowds?

Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret wandered among the crowds unrecognised, an escapade the 2015 film A Royal Night Out stretched into a whole evening of adventures.

Which David Lean film, shot at Carnforth station with Celia Johnson as a suburban wife, reached cinemas in November?

Brief Encounter runs its doomed romance to Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, and Carnforth station in Lancashire still keeps its period features and draws fans on pilgrimage.

Which guitarist, born in Ripley, Surrey, on 30 March, grew up believing his mother was his older sister?

Eric Clapton was raised by his grandmother Rose and her second husband Jack Clapp as their own; his real mother Patricia was 16 when she had him by a Canadian soldier.

Which actress, born Ilyena Mironoff in Hammersmith on 26 July, later won an Oscar for playing Elizabeth II?

Helen Mirren's father Vasily Mironoff came from exiled Russian nobility and played viola in the London Philharmonic before the war; her Academy Award came for The Queen.

Which reggae star was born on 6 February at his grandfather's farm in Nine Mile, Jamaica, to a white Jamaican father?

Bob Marley's father Norval, of Welsh ancestry, styled himself 'Captain' despite having been only a private in the British Army; at 12 the boy moved with his mother to Trenchtown in Kingston.

Which Astrid Lindgren heroine won a publisher's competition and came out in November, illustrated by Ingrid Vang Nyman?

Pippi Longstocking placed first in the Rabén and Sjögren contest after the manuscript arrived in May, and was followed by Pippi Goes on Board and Pippi in the South Seas by 1948.

Which Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, opened in April, gave Liverpool FC its anthem 'You'll Never Walk Alone'?

Carousel moved Ferenc Molnár's Budapest play Liliom to the Maine coast; Gerry and the Pacemakers' 1963 number one made the song a fixture before Liverpool home matches.

Which actress, absent from the screen for nearly two years, made her comeback in Mildred Pierce and won Best Actress?

Joan Crawford's win was greeted by Pauline Kael with the jibe that her 'heavy breathing was certified as acting'; the film added a murder plot absent from James M. Cain's novel.

Which Norwegian collaborator, his surname already a word for traitor, was shot at Akershus Fortress on 24 October?

Vidkun Quisling's name was turned into a common noun by The Times, whose 15 April 1940 leader was headed 'Quislings everywhere'; the firing squad did its work at 02:40.

Which SS chief, caught in disguise by the British, bit a cyanide capsule during a medical check on 23 May?

Heinrich Himmler had been shuttled between several camps before a doctor examined him at Second Army headquarters; his body went into an unmarked grave near Lüneburg.

Which Argentine colonel, freed from jail by a rally in the Plaza de Mayo, married actress Eva Duarte days later?

Juan Perón married Eva on 22 October, five days after the workers' demonstration that Argentina still commemorates as Loyalty Day; he won the presidency the following February.

Who proclaimed Vietnam's independence in Hanoi on 2 September, quoting the American Declaration of Independence?

Ho Chi Minh had read a draft to American OSS officers in late August, who found it strikingly close to the 1776 text; France refused to recognise the new republic and war followed.

Which British territory, occupied by Germany since 1940, was liberated by HMS Bulldog on 9 May, the day after VE Day?

The Channel Islands' German garrison surrendered unconditionally aboard HMS Bulldog at dawn off St Peter Port, Guernsey, ending an occupation that had begun on 30 June 1940.

Which former prime minister, the last Liberal to hold the office, died on 26 March, weeks after being made an earl?

David Lloyd George was created Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor on 12 February but never lived to take his seat in the Lords; he died of cancer at 82 with his wife Frances and daughter Megan at his side.

In which year did Britain finally repay the $3.75 billion loan it negotiated from the United States in December 1945?

The loan was settled in 2006 with a last instalment of about $83 million, having been negotiated by John Maynard Keynes at 2 per cent interest; Canada lent a further $1.19 billion.

Which clergyman's The Three Railway Engines, out on 12 May, began the series that produced Thomas the Tank Engine?

Wilbert Awdry's engines first ran in 1945 but Thomas himself only arrived in the second book, in 1946; Awdry wrote 26 books before retiring in 1972 and his son Christopher added 16 more.

What did Britons call the temporary bungalows, designed to last ten years, that went up on bomb sites from 1945?

Prefabs went up astonishingly fast: an AIROH aluminium type was erected on a bombed site in Oxford Street in four hours, and 156,623 were built before the programme ended in 1951.

Which surrealist painter designed the dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, starring Ingrid Bergman?

Salvador Dalí's designs ran so long and complicated once filmed that producer David O. Selznick had most of the footage cut; Miklós Rózsa's theremin-laced score won the Oscar.

In Anchors Aweigh, Gene Kelly dances with which animated character, borrowed from MGM's own cartoon unit?

Jerry Mouse, voiced by Sara Berner, plays a mouse king who has outlawed singing and dancing in his kingdom until Kelly's sailor cheers him up.

Which Billy Wilder film, with Ray Milland as a writer on a four-day binge, won Best Picture for 1945?

The Lost Weekend also shared the Grand Prix at the first Cannes Film Festival in 1946, a double not repeated until Marty in 1955 and then not again until Parasite in 2019.

Which film, with Bing Crosby as a priest and Ingrid Bergman as a nun, was 1945's top-grossing US release?

The Bells of St. Mary's took $8 million in North America and turns up on the Bedford Falls cinema marquee in It's a Wonderful Life, which shares its co-star Henry Travers.

Which cartoon ghost who would rather make friends than scare people debuted in a 1945 Paramount Noveltoon?

Casper went on to star in 55 theatrical cartoons up to 1959, then television series, comics and a 1995 live-action film.

What made the Japanese emperor's 15 August radio broadcast announcing surrender unprecedented for ordinary listeners?

They had never heard his voice because no emperor had ever spoken on radio; rebel officers spent the night before ransacking the palace for the recording and never found it.

In which city were the bodies of Mussolini and Clara Petacci dumped in the Piazzale Loreto for a crowd to abuse?

Milan's Piazzale Loreto was where fifteen partisans had been shot in August 1944, prompting Mussolini's remark that 'for the blood of Piazzale Loreto, we shall pay dearly'.

Which camp near Munich, the first the Nazis opened in 1933, was liberated by American troops on 29 April?

Dachau opened on 22 March 1933 and was the longest-running of all the camps; so many units reached its sub-camps that several US divisions are officially credited as liberators.

Who read Indonesia's two-sentence proclamation of independence in Jakarta on 17 August, days after Japan's surrender?

Sukarno read it with Mohammad Hatta at his side before the red-and-white flag was raised; the Netherlands only recognised 17 August 1945 as the date of independence in 2023.

Which Pulitzer-winning war correspondent, the GI's favourite, was killed by enemy fire on Ie Shima on 18 April?

Ernie Pyle was buried on the island between an infantry private and a combat engineer, still wearing his helmet; his 1944 Pulitzer honoured columns written from the 'dogface' soldier's view.

Which science-fiction author proposed geostationary communications satellites in Wireless World in October?

Arthur C. Clarke's paper 'Extra-Terrestrial Relays' earned the 36,000-kilometre geostationary orbit its official name from the International Astronomical Union: the Clarke Orbit.

Which Michigan city became the first in the world to add fluoride to its drinking water, on 25 January?

Grand Rapids was paired with nearby Muskegon, which kept untreated water as the control group in a long study comparing the two cities' children's tooth decay.

Whose July essay 'As We May Think' described the memex, a microfilm desk that anticipated hypertext?

Vannevar Bush's memex ran on microfilm reels, multiple screens and electromechanical controls; Life magazine reprinted the piece in September with fanciful drawings of the machine.

Which Dutch doctor's artificial kidney, built from juice cans and sausage casings, saved its first patient?

Willem Kolff had treated his first patient in 1943 in occupied Kampen, but the 1945 case, a 67-year-old woman, was the first life saved by haemodialysis; he later worked on artificial hearts in America.

Which Austrian physicist, nominated by Einstein, won the Nobel Prize for his exclusion principle on electrons?

Wolfgang Pauli was so notorious for experiments failing when he walked in that colleagues named the 'Pauli effect' after him, a reputation he relished.

Which Ealing horror anthology, starring Michael Redgrave, inspired Fred Hoyle's steady-state theory of the universe?

Dead of Night's circular plot, which ends where it began, gave Hoyle the idea of a universe with no beginning or end; his 1948 theory was later eclipsed by the Big Bang.

Which Austrian composer, outside smoking in Mittersill on 15 September, was shot dead by an American soldier?

Anton Webern walked into a black-market sting aimed at his son-in-law; the soldier, Raymond Bell, claimed self-defence and later drank himself to death haunted by guilt.

Which Benjamin Britten opera about a Suffolk fisherman reopened Sadler's Wells on 7 June, a month after VE Day?

Peter Grimes was conducted by Reginald Goodall, with Kenneth Green's naturalistic sets modelled on Aldeburgh, and was an immediate critical and popular success.

Whose Ninth Symphony, meant to hail the victory, premiered in Leningrad in November as 26 minutes of 'light and air'?

Dmitri Shostakovich predicted that 'musicians will like to play it, and critics will delight in blasting it'; a 1946 article duly dismissed it as 'playful, filigree-trimmed trifles'.

Which Evelyn Waugh novel is told by Captain Charles Ryder, billeted with his unit at a requisitioned stately home?

Brideshead Revisited is framed by a prologue and epilogue set in the war's final years, and its subtitle, 'The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder', names the narrator.

Which golfer won 11 consecutive PGA tournaments and 18 in one year, a streak nobody has approached since?

Byron Nelson was nicknamed 'Lord Byron' after the poet by an Atlanta sportswriter for his gentlemanly conduct, and his 64 professional wins include five majors.

Which Soviet club's unbeaten November tour of Britain provoked George Orwell's essay 'The Sporting Spirit'?

Dynamo Moscow drew 2–2 with Rangers to finish the tour unbeaten, and Orwell concluded that serious sport was 'war minus the shooting'.

Which Australian pilot, later a Test all-rounder, hit 185 in 165 minutes for the Dominions at Lord's in August?

Keith Miller added 91 runs in 35 minutes with Learie Constantine that day, and later told Michael Parkinson that 'pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse, playing cricket is not'.

Which Burmese leader, born in Rangoon on 19 June, was two when her independence-hero father was assassinated?

Aung San Suu Kyi's father founded the modern Burmese army and negotiated independence from Britain in 1947, only to be killed by rivals that same year; she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

Which one-armed outfielder played 77 games for the St. Louis Browns, batting .218 in his only big-league season?

Pete Gray had lost his right arm in a boyhood wagon accident; the Browns bought his contract from Memphis for $20,000 and paid him $4,000 for the year.

Which Soviet cipher clerk left the Ottawa embassy on 5 September with 109 documents exposing a spy ring?

Igor Gouzenko was at first turned away by Canada's Department of Justice and only given asylum against the prime minister's wishes; he later appeared on television with a hood over his head.

Whom did Hitler marry in the Berlin bunker on 29 April, a day before they killed themselves together?

Eva Braun was 33 and Hitler 56; the same day his cyanide capsules were tested on his German Shepherd Blondi, which died.

Which London landmark was lit up again on 30 April, after more than five years of wartime blackout?

Big Ben's dials were relit on the day Hitler killed himself; full street lighting had been allowed earlier that April after years of 'dim-out'.

What was the free civilian outfit issued to discharged British servicemen called, with Burtons a main supplier?

The demob suit's supplier Montague Burton is one claimed origin of the phrase 'the full monty', meaning everything or a complete set.

Which car maker's Wolfsburg plant did British Army Major Ivan Hirst get running again in the months after VE Day?

Volkswagen was revived under the REME, whose detachment first used the plant to repair captured vehicles; Hirst found a pre-war prototype in the outbuildings.

Which RAF airlift dropped 7,000 tonnes of food on the starving occupied Netherlands from 29 April to 7 May?

Operation Manna sent Lancasters in at very low altitude with German guns trained on them; the American follow-up was Operation Chowhound, and about 20,000 Dutch had already starved.