Woodrow Wilson issued Germany an ultimatum in the third and final letter related to the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in May, warning any subsequent sinkings would be perceived by the United States as "deliberately unfriendly".
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A refinery strike at Bayonne became increasingly violent.
Voters in Alberta voted for prohibition.
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April 29, 2025.
Canada
The result is a stunning reversal in fortune. The party's fortunes just several months ago made it appear that it was doomed to defeat, but Donald Trump's assisinne ramblings about annexing Canada as s state revived its fortunes as it's last premier, Justin Trudeau, resisted such calls and insults, and the current one, Mark Carney, stepped out aggressively against them and American tariffs.
May 3, 2025
Australia
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Australia's center-left government dramatically increased its majority after the conservative Liberal-National coalition suffered a major defeat.
Conservatives noted that Donald Trump's spastic bizarre example of the far right in the US helped boost the fortunes of the left, making this the second election in an English speaking country where that has occurred.
July 21, 2015
Japan
Japan's Liberal Democrats a minority party in both houses of Parliament, while two new nationalist parties gained. Whether it can remain in power as a minority government, which it has vowed to do, is not yet known.
The result is at least partially a Japanese reaction to be bullied by Donald Trump.
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Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published.
The press was covering the Skopes trial, and lampooning the characters in it.
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Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov left Russian for Germany and self imposed exile.
It was the last day of the 1900 Summer Olympics.
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Eisenhower announced the closure of SHAEF.
Eisenhower also eased the fraternization rules between Allied troops and German civilians allowing Allied soldiers to chat and speak to German civilians.
By September nearly all of the rules would be removed.
Fraternization in this context does not mean what people commonly assume it does, but it is more in line with the etymology of the word's origins, from Latin through French: "to sympathize as brothers". Eisenhower, who was first of all an administrator, and highly intelligent, recognized that contact between the Western Allies, and with Americans in particular, would help have a corrosive impact on Prussianized and Nazified German culture. Bans on contacts had already been lifted as to contacts with children, which were impossible to prevent between oversupplied American troops and German children anyhow. The British, contrary to what is often reported in regard to the development in policy, followed suit.
There was really no danger that French troops were going to fraternize to any significant degree with Germans, nor those of any country the Germans had overrun. And of course in Russian controlled territory, where Eisenhower's orders didn't apply rapine Red Army troops simply terrorize and brutalized civilians, and not only Germans.
Be that as it may, the inevitable problem that existed with American troops in particular fraternizing in the wider sense was already there. It had been a problem after World War One during which the American Army had taken steps to stop friendly contacts between Germans and Americans with limited success. At that time, Americans already were noting in letters home that Germany looked more like the US than France did, in that it was more technologically advanced and cleaner. By the end of World War Two this was much more the case, with Americans being shocked by what they deemed the primitive conditions the French and Italians lived in, and impressed with the more advanced state of German municipalities. While its often little noted, a non insignificant number of GIs found themselves not really liking the French and outright horrified by the conditions Italians lived in.
With things being the way they are, even before the end of the war the U.S. Army had trouble keeping soldiers away from German women, which is not to say that all such contacts had only one thing in mind. Having said that, the conditions that followed the havoc of the Eastern Front and the war in general were having a massive impact on German culture even without Eisenhower seeking to step in and direct it. The German military had been huge with a very large number of German men in it. Many of them were killed during the war and many were simply missing by 1945.
A vast number of German men were held as prisoners of war as well. The Western Allies held over 3,150,000 by April 30, 1945. By the end of the war that number was over 7,614,790,with the 425,000 German POWs in 511 main and branch camps. The Soviet Union also held at least 2,733,739, fewer than a person might suspect, actually, reflecting the nature of the combat in the east.
The Western Allies did not, and could not have, repatriated German POWS immediately. The US held German prisoners until 1946 in the US, with it notably being the case that many went from disciplined Nazi soldiers to actually enjoying the last year of their captivity. Reeducation proved unnecessary as they rapidly evolved into democratic Germans in the last months of their captivity.
The point, however, is that with over 10,000,000 German men in captivity, and with millions of German men killed during the war, and with the German citizenry in the east put to flight, nature began to play a role in things very quickly. Hundreds of thousands of German women were left without support in a country that had largely resisted imposing female labor on its citizenry during the war. Man young women knew at an instinctive level that the normal path of finding a lifelong mate had been destroyed. And the collapse of the Nazi system proved to be a bit like tearing a scab off a wound as even the Nazifield population proved capable of abandoning Nazi propaganda pretty rapidly, even if only superficially in some instance.
Added to this, the war itself had damaged domestic life globally. This has been noted in the context of World War Two marriages in the US on this site already. While the German situation was different, it was found that after the war an appreciable number of Germans, both male and female, simply changed identities up to and including abandoning a spouse, missing or not. In some instances German women became outright disgusted with German men and blamed them for the war and the fate they'd suffered, something that was also the case with Japanese women.
By June of 1944, Life magazine was noting:
There’s one blonde Fräulein with braided hair who always walked past two MPs every day on her way to do shopping, swinging her hips from side to side even more noticeably than usual. As she passed she would look slyly at the MPs, tap one hip and utter the word, ‘Verboten.’ […]
In Germany fraternization is officially a matter of high policy. But for the GI it is not a case of policy or of politics or of going out with girls who used to go out with the guys who killed your buddies. You don’t talk politics when you fraternize. It’s more a matter of bicycles and skirts waving in the breeze and a lonesome, combat-weary solder looking warily around the corner to see if a policeman is in sight.”
Ultimately somewhere between 14,000 to 20,000 German women would marry American soldiers after the war, something that stands in remarkable contrast to the French, as only 6,500 French women married US soldiers. Between 10,000 and 100,000 Italian women married U.S. soldiers. 70,000 English women did the same.
If all of this seems a bit odd, it's probably a lot more human than people might suppose. Germany had been heavily propagandized during the Nazi era, but the era was a lot shorter than people like to recall, which is frightening in that Germany descended into madness so quickly. Be that as it may, DNA tends to rule at the end of the day and the Japanese and German examples tend to show that, with the German one perhaps being the most consequential. Nazi Germany had very distinct concepts of what women were to do, which were more than a little perverse. Germany itself was, of course, a Christian nation which the anti Christian Nazi party was seeking to transform into something else, and which it was surprisingly successful in doing in its short period of rule.
The Nazis were heavily invested in an exaggerated martial concept of manliness which failed. By late 1944 the Allies were on Germany's doorstep. Fairly soon German soldiers in the East would outright be fighting to the last man to try to protect German civilians from the Red Army, which is much of the reason that the fighting in 1945 was so much worse in the East than at any time prior to that. German troops did in fact go down fighting in many instances to attempt to give German civilians, including women, the chance to get away, but to a large degree they failed. German men, in other words, were unable to protect German women from rape and death in the East.
In the West, the German military failure had less severe physical consequences, but German manhood failed there too. Cities were destroyed and lives wrecked. The irony, however, was that in the West, the Allies themselves became the protector, and indeed the liberator, of German women. By making them temporarily Verboten, they gave them independence in a way that they had not had since 1932, if ever.
Italy declared war on Japan.
The French flag was formally unfurled at the summit of the Victory Column in Berlin.
The monument celebrated the German victory over France in the Franco Prussian War.
Japanese destroyer Tachibana was sunk in Hakodate Bay by aircraft of the U.S. Navy. The battleships South Dakota, Indiana and Massachusetts, plus two heavy cruisers and 4 destroyers, bombarded the Kamaishi steel works in the first naval gunfire directed against the Japanese home islands.
The Simla Conference ended without a positive result.
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A quarantine was declared in Nome, Alaska, due to a measles outbreak in the Native American community. Mortality rates in some communities reached 100%.
Let that sink in. 100%. Up to 2,000 people died.
And now, you have this:
Wyoming reports first measles case since 2010
Wyoming reports first measles case since 2010: Infected child may have exposed people in Casper hospital’s ER waiting room to highly contagious virus.
Of course, you can vaccinate for measles, but with the current anti scientific atmosphere, and somebody like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in charge of HHS, well. . .
The LZ1 Zeppelin, the first rigid airship, flew from the Manzell district of Friedrichshafen, Germany, near Lake Constance for 3.75 miles (6.04 km) in 18 minutes before being forced to land due to a broken part.
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Today in World War II History—July 1, 1940 & 1945: 85 Years Ago—July 1, 1940: Germans occupy Jersey and Guernsey in the British Channel Islands. 80 Years Ago—July 1, 1945: Australians land at Balikpapan, Borneo.US occupation forces arrive in Berlin.Col. Benjamin O. Davis Jr. (former commander of the Tuskegee Airmen) assumes command of Godman Field, KY, the first Black officer to command a major US air base.US resumes production of cars, with the first rolling off the assembly line on August 30.
From Sarah Sundin's blog.
The Australian and Dutch (mostly Australian) landing at Balikpapan was a major one, which had been preceded by an Allied naval bombardment that lasted for days.
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The Inner German Border was established and the British withdrew from Magdeburg which was part of the Soviet zone.
German Gen. Willibald Borowietz, 51, committed suicide at the Camp Clinton, Mississippi POW camp. He had been a POW since 1943, having surrendered with the Afrika Korps. His wife, Eva Ledien, was of Jewish decent and had killed herself in 1938 so that their children could be Aryanized. Her sister, Käthe (Ledien) Bosse, was killed in Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944.
Debbie Harry (Angela Trimble), lead singer of Blondie, was born in Miami, Florida. She was given up for adoption by her parents and adopted by parents of the lsat name of Harry, who renamed her. Her birth mother, whom she later located, was a pianist, but who chose not to reunite with her.
When I was in high school I was a big fan of Blondie. I have all of their lps.
Harry started off as a folk singer. She became a New Wave trend setter with Blondie at age 33, late for a pop musician.
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"Battling Bob" La Follette, Socialist Senator from Wisconsin, died at age 70. He'd been ill since 1923.
The German Reichsgericht, struck down a law confiscating of all the demesne lands of the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to widespread public dissatisfaction.
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The Australian 9th Infantry Division captured Brunei.
Japanese resistance on Okinawa's Oruku peninsula came to an end. Marines took 169 Japanese POWs and found 200 dead, a surprising figure given Japanese unwillingness to surrender.
Admiral Minoru Ōta, age 54, killed himself on Okinawa.
U.S. Army ordnance experts claimed that German plans to attack the United States with rockets, Projekt Amerika, might have been realized by November 1945.
The German design, a development of the V-2 but significantly different, actually would have required a pilot, as existing guidance systems were regarded as inadequate.
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The Berlin Declaration was signed by the United States, USSR, Britain and France, confirming the complete legal dissolution of the German state.
Declaration regarding the defeat of Germany and the assumption of supreme authority with respect to Germany by the Governments of the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom and the Provisional Government of the French Republic.
The German armed forces on land, at sea and in the air have been completely defeated and have surrendered unconditionally and Germany, which bears responsibility for the war, is no longer capable of resisting the will of the victorious Powers. The unconditional surrender of Germany has thereby been effected, and Germany has become subject to such requirements as may now or hereafter be imposed upon her.
There is no central Government or authority in Germany capable of accepting responsibility for the maintenance of order, the administration of the country and compliance with the requirements of the victorious Powers.
It is in these circumstances necessary, without prejudice to any subsequent decisions that may be taken respecting Germany, to make provision for the cessation of any further hostilities on the part of the German armed forces, for the maintenance of order in Germany and for the administration of the country, and to announce the immediate requirements with which Germany must comply.
The Representatives of the Supreme Commands of the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom and the French Republic, hereinafter called the "Allied Representatives," acting by authority of their respective Governments and in the interests of the United Nations, accordingly make the following Declaration:
The Governments of the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United Kingdom, and the Provisional Government of the French Republic, hereby assume supreme authority with respect to Germany, including all the powers possessed by the German Government, the High Command and any state, municipal, or local government or authority. The assumption, for the purposes stated above, of the said authority and powers does not affect the annexation of Germany.
The Governments of the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United Kingdom, and the Provisional Government of the French Republic, will hereafter determine the boundaries of Germany or any part thereof and the status of Germany or of any area at present being part of German territory.
In virtue of the supreme authority and powers thus assumed by the four Governments, the Allied Representatives announce the following requirements arising from the complete defeat and unconditional surrender of Germany with which Germany must comply:
ARTICLE 1
Germany, and all German military, naval and air authorities and all forces under German control shall immediately cease hostilities in all theatres of war against the forces of the United Nations on land, at sea and in the air.
ARTICLE 2
(a) All armed forces of Germany or under German control, wherever they may be situated, including land, air, anti-aircraft and naval forces, the S.S., S.A. and Gestapo, and all other forces of auxiliary organisations equipped with weapons, shall be completely disarmed, handing over their weapons and equipment to local Allied Commanders or to officers designated by the Allied Representatives
(b) The personnel of the formations and units of all the forces referred to in paragraph (a) above shall, at the discretion of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Allied State concerned, be declared to be prisoners of war, pending further decisions, and shall be subject to such conditions and directions as may be prescribed by the respective Allied Representatives.
(c) All forces referred to in paragraph (a) above, wherever they may be, will remain in their present positions pending instructions from the Allied Representatives.
(d) Evacuation by the said forces of all territories outside the frontiers of Germany as they existed on the 31st December, 1937, will proceed according to instructions to be given by the Allied Representatives.
(e) Detachments of civil police to be armed with small arms only, for the maintenance of order and for guard duties, will be designated by the Allied Representatives.
ARTICLE 3
(a) All aircraft of any kind or nationality in Germany or German-occupied or controlled territories or waters, military, naval or civil, other than aircraft in the service of the Allies, will remain on the ground, on the water or aboard ships pending further instructions.
(b) All German or German-controlled aircraft in or over territories or waters not occupied or controlled by Germany will proceed to Germany or to such other place or places as may be specified by the Allied Representatives.
ARTICLE 4
(a) All German or German-controlled naval vessels, surface and submarine, auxiliary naval craft, and merchant and other shipping, wherever such vessels may be at the time of this Declaration, and all other merchant ships of whatever nationality in German ports, will remain in or proceed immediately to ports and bases as specified by the Allied Representatives. The crews of such vessels will remain on board pending further instructions.
(b) All ships and vessels of the United Nations, whether or not title has been transferred as the result of prize court or other proceedings, which are at the disposal of Germany or under German control at the time of this Declaration, will proceed at the dates and to the ports or bases specified by the Allied Representatives.
ARTICLE 5
(a) All or any of the following articles in the possession of the German armed forces or under German control or at German disposal will be held intact and in good condition at the disposal of the Allied Representatives, for such purposes and at such times and places as they may prescribe:
(i) all arms, ammunition, explosives, military equipment, stores and supplies and other implements of war of all kinds and all other war materials;
(ii) all naval vessels of all classes, both surface and submarine, auxiliary naval craft and all merchant shipping, whether afloat, under repair or construction, built or building;
(iii) all aircraft of all kinds, aviation and anti-aircraft equipment and devices;
(iv) all transportation and communications facilities and equipment, by land, water or air;
(v) all military installations and establishments, including airfields, seaplane bases, ports and naval bases, storage depots, permanent and temporary land and coast fortifications, fortresses and other fortified areas, together with plans and drawings of all such fortifications, installations and establishments;
(vi) all factories, plants, shops, research institutions, laboratories, testing stations, technical data, patents, plans, drawings and inventions, designed or intended to produce or to facilitate the production or use of the articles, materials, and facilities referred to in sub-paragraphs (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) and (v) above or otherwise to further the conduct of war.
(b) At the demand of the Allied Representatives the following will be furnished:
(i) the labour, services and plant required for the maintenance or operation of any of the six categories mentioned in paragraph (a) above; and
(ii) any information or records that may be required by the Allied Representatives in connection with the same.
(c) At the demand of the Allied Representatives all facilities will be provided for the movement of Allied troops and agencies, their equipment and supplies, on the railways, roads and other land communications or by sea, river or air. All means of transportation will be maintained in good order and repair, and the labour, services and plant necessary therefor will be furnished.
ARTICLE 6
(a) The German authorities will release to the Allied Representatives, in accordance with the procedure to be laid down by them, all prisoners of war at present in their power, belonging to the forces of the United Nations, and will furnish full lists of these persons, indicating the places of their detention in Germany or territory occupied by Germany. Pending the release of such prisoners of war, the German authorities and people will protect them in their persons and property and provide them with adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical attention and money in accordance with their rank or official position.
(b) The German authorities and people will in like manner provide for and release all other nationals of the United Nations who are confined, interned or otherwise under restraint, and all other persons who may be confined, interned or otherwise under restraint for political reasons or as a result of any Nazi action, law or regulation which discriminates on the ground of race, colour, creed or political belief.
(c) The German authorities will, at the demand of the Allied Representatives, hand over control of places of detention to such officers as may be designated for the purpose by the Allied Representatives.
ARTICLE 7
The German authorities concerned will furnish to the Allied Representatives:
(a) full information regarding the forces referred to in Article 2 (a), and, in particular, will furnish forthwith all information which the Allied Representatives may require concerning the numbers, locations and dispositions of such forces, whether located inside or outside Germany;
(b) complete and detailed information concerning mines, minefields and other obstacles to movement by land, sea or air, and the safety lanes in connection therewith. All such safety lanes will be kept open and clearly marked; all mines, minefields and other dangerous obstacles will as far as possible be rendered safe, and all aids to navigation will be reinstated. Unarmed German military and civilian personnel with the necessary equipment will be made available and utilized for the above purposes and for the removal of mines, minefields and other obstacles as directed by the Allied Representatives.
ARTICLE 8
There shall be no destruction, removal, concealment, transfer or scuttling of, or damage to, any military, naval, air, shipping, port, industrial and other like property and facilities and all records and archives, wherever they may be situated, except as may be directed by the Allied Representatives.
ARTICLE 9
Pending the institution of control by the Allied Representatives over all means of communication, all radio and telecommunication installations and other forms of wire or wireless communications, whether ashore or afloat, under German control, will cease transmission except as directed by the Allied Representatives.
ARTICLE 10
The forces, ships, aircraft, military equipment, and other property in Germany or in German control or service or at German disposal, of any other country at war with any of the Allies, will be subject to the provisions of this Declaration and of any proclamations, orders, ordinances or instructions issued thereunder.
ARTICLE 11
(a) The principal Nazi leaders as specified by the Allied Representatives, and all persons from time to time named or designated by rank, office or employment by the Allied Representatives as being suspected of having committed, ordered or abetted war crimes or analogous offences, will be apprehended and surrendered to the Allied Representatives.
(b) The same will apply in the case of any national of any of the United Nations who is alleged to have committed an offence against his national law, and who may at any time be named or designated by rank, office or employment by the Allied Representatives.
(c) The German authorities and people will comply with any instructions given by the Allied Representatives for the apprehension and surrender of such persons.
ARTICLE 12
The Allied Representatives will station forces and civil agencies in any or all parts of Germany as they may determine.
ARTICLE 13
(a) In the exercise of the supreme authority with respect to Germany assumed by the Governments of the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United Kingdom, and the Provisional Government of the French Republic, the four Allied Governments will take such steps, including the complete disarmament and demilitarization of Germany, as they deem requisite for future peace and security.
(b) The Allied Representatives will impose on Germany additional political, administrative, economic, financial, military and other requirements arising from the complete defeat of Germany. The Allied Representatives, or persons or agencies duly designated to act on their authority, will issue proclamations, orders, ordinances and instructions for the purpose of laying down such additional requirements, and of giving effect to the other provisions of this Declaration. All German authorities and the German people shall carry out unconditionally the requirements of the Allied Representatives, and shall fully comply with all such proclamations, orders, ordinances and instructions.
ARTICLE 14
This Declaration enters into force and effect at the date and hour set forth below. In the event of failure on the part of the German authorities or people promptly and completely to fulfill their obligations hereby or hereafter imposed, the Allied Representatives will take whatever action may be deemed by them to be appropriate under the circumstances.
ARTICLE 15
This Declaration is drawn up in the English, Russian, French and German languages. The English, Russian and French are the only authentic texts.
BERLIN, GERMANY, June 5, 1945.
Signed at 1800 hours, Berlin time, by
Dwight D. Eisenhower,
General of the Army USA;
Zhukov,
Marshal of the Soviet Union;
B. L. Montgomery,
Field Marshal, Great Britain;
De Lattre de Tassisny,
French Provisional Government.
The U.S. Army Air Force dropped 3,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Kobe, Japan.
The 37th Infantry Division occupied Aritao on Luzon.
More hard fighting on Okinawa occurred and a sudden typhoon damaged 4 battleships, 8 aircraft carriers, 7 cruisers, 14 destroyers, 2 tankers, and and ammunition transport ship, of the US 3rd Fleet.
A Kamikaze attack crippled the USS Mississippi and the heavy cruiser USS Louisville.
Esquire magazines second class mailing privileges were restored by a US appellate court after having been suspended due to the feature of Vargas Girl pinups, which foreshadowed Playboy Playmates. The decision was appealed to the United States Supreme Court which upheld the decision, unfortunately, in 1946.
This demonstrates that the widespread public acceptance of pornography was already occurring in advance of the 1953 introduction of Playboy, so the trend we've discussed here in other threads was already underway with the Courts frustrating efforts to restrict the development. This also, we'd note, runs a bit counter to the heavy attribution we've attached to Hefner's rag, because, as noted, the trend was underway, although Esquire's depictions were illustrations, rather than photographs. To a certain degree, the U.S. Army publication Yank had headed in the same direction, with its centerfolds, although they were always full clothed.
It wasn't a good trend.
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