At Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill declares that an "iron curtain" has descended across Europe, a symbolic marker of the early Cold War.
ENIAC, the first programmable general-purpose electronic digital computer, is unveiled to the public at the University of Pennsylvania.
Under the Treaty of Manila, the United States recognises the independence of the Republic of the Philippines.
War between the Việt Minh and France breaks out in Hanoi and lasts until the Geneva Accords of 1954.
The Red Army liberates the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, where about 1.1 million people were murdered; the date is now International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin meet at Yalta to discuss the post-war reorganisation of Europe and the world.
One of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific War, causing heavy losses among soldiers and Okinawan civilians.