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 1945 - 1949 (3 years)
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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1945 | - 4 Feb 1945: Yalta Conference between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin
- 29 Mar 1945: Last V1 flying bomb attack
- 25 Apr 1945: Berlin surrounded by Russian troops
- 30 Apr 1945: Hitler commits suicide
- 8 May 1945: VE Day (Victory in Europe)
- 9 May 1945: Channel Islands liberated
- 26 Jun 1945: UN Charter signed in San Francisco
- 16 Jul 1945: First ever atomic bomb exploded in a test in New Mexico (although there were
other forms of atomic device before that, such as the Pile at Stagg Field, first critical on
2nd Dec 1942)
- 26 Jul 1945: Labour win UK General Election – Churchill out of office
- 29 Jul 1945: BBC Light Programme starts
- 6 Aug 1945: Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
- 9 Aug 1945: Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki
- 15 Aug 1945: VJ Day (Victory in Japan)
- 2 Sep 1945: Japanese surrender signed aboard USS Missouri
- 24 Oct 1945: United Nations Organisation comes into existence
- 4 Nov 1945: UNESCO founded
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| 2 | 1946 | - 1946: Transition to National Health Service starts in Britain (came into being 5th July 1948)
- 1946: Alistair Cooke starts his regular 'Letter from America' on BBC radio – until 2004
- 1 Jan 1946: First civillian flight from Heathrow Airport
- 1 Mar 1946: Bank of England nationalised
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| 3 | 1947 | - 1947: Most severe winter in Britain for 53 years at start of the year – heavy snow and much
flooding later
- 1947: First British nuclear reactor developed
- 1 Jan 1947: Coal Mines nationalised
- 23 Feb 1947: International Organization for Standardization (ISO) founded
- 1 Mar 1947: International Monetary Fund begins financial operations
- 1 Apr 1947: School leaving age raised to 15 in Britain
- 26 Oct 1947: British military occupation ends in Iraq
- 20 Nov 1947: Marriage of Princess Elizabeth (later Elizabeth II) and Philip Mountbatten in
Westminster Abbey
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| 4 | 1948 | - 1948: British Citizenship Act : all Commonwealth citizens qualify for British passports
- 1948: Transistor radio invented
- 1948: Long-playing record (LP) invented by Goldmark
- 1 Jan 1948: British Railways nationalised
- 5 Jul 1948: National Health Service (NHS) begins in Britain
- 29 Jul 1948: London Olympics begin
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| 5 | 1949 | - 1949: Maiden flight of the Bristol Brabazon (broken up in 1953 for scrap)
- 1949: De Haviland produces the Comet – first jet airliner
- 15 Mar 1949: Clothes rationing ends in Britain
- 4 Apr 1949: Twelve nations sign The North Atlantic Treaty creating NATO
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