When was ve day date

After building flatboats, de Soto and his ragged troops crossed the great river under the cover of AIM was founded in by On May 8, , Edward George Honey, a journalist from Melbourne, Australia, living in London at the time, writes a letter to the London Evening News proposing that the first anniversary of the armistice ending World War I—concluded on November 11, —be commemorated by President Nixon, at a news conference, defends the U.

Nixon reaffirmed his promise to withdraw , Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. On May 8, , Harry S. Truman is born in Lamar, Missouri. The son of a farmer, Truman could not afford to go to college. He joined the army at the relatively advanced age of 33 in to fight in World War I. After the war, he opened a haberdashery in Kansas City.

Germans suffered terribly during the war, not only beneath Allied bombs, but also at the hands of their own rulers. Tens of thousands of Germans were imprisoned or executed by the Nazis between and , often for the most insignificant misdemeanours.

As a consequence, the defeat of the Nazis is now universally regarded as a blessing. In Germany, VE Day is not a day of celebration as it is in other countries. Rather it is regarded as a day of sombre commemoration, when the dead are remembered, and the promise is renewed never to allow such terrible events to repeat themselves. His latest book is Prisoners of History HarperCollins, Sign in. Back to Main menu Virtual events Masterclasses. What does VE Day stand for? The celebrations on VE Day began almost immediately.

Here, people dance on the streets of London. Trafalgar Square on VE Day. In London, more than a million people took to the streets. For this reason, celebrations to coincide with the expected imminent surrender of Nazi Germany had been planned for some time. Related: Bunker belonging to 'Churchill's secret army' re-discovered. At a. The second clause of the surrender document now kept in The U. National Archives and Records Administration ordered "all forces under German command to cease active operations at hours Central European time, on 8 May.

According to Martin Gilbert's book "Winston S. Walter Bedell Smith represented S. Ivan Susloparov signed on behalf of the Soviet Union. At the time, Susloparov had not received approval from his superiors, but he ratified the agreement anyway. However, the Soviet authorities in Moscow did not accept the surrender document. Among the dead were about 6 million Jews who were murdered by Nazi Germany.

There was also a massive celebration in Paris. The Soviets celebrated their own "Victory Day" on May 9. President Harry S. Truman announced V-E Day to the American people, saying in a radio address : "Our rejoicing is sobered and subdued by a supreme consciousness of the terrible price we have paid to rid the world of Hitler and his evil band. Let us not forget, my fellow Americans, the sorrow and the heartache, which today abide in the homes of so many of our neighbors - neighbors whose most priceless possession has been rendered as a sacrifice to redeem our liberty.

Although fighting ended in Europe, it continued in the Pacific, where U. The areas of Western Europe liberated by Allied forces would become thriving democracies, while those liberated in the East would be occupied for decades by Soviet forces.