📅 On this day
15 August
1945 · VJ Day — the Second World War finally ended
Japan's surrender was announced, and the war that had run for six years was over everywhere at last. VE Day in May had brought Europe's war to a close, but for families with men in Burma, Malaya and the Far East, this was the day that actually mattered.
There were street parties again, and bonfires, and in a great many houses a much quieter kind of relief — because the prisoners of war held in the Far East were still months from home, and not all of them came.
Your turn
What did your family tell you about the day the war ended?
Also on this day
- 1969 — The Woodstock Music Festival opens in Bethel, New York