World map in 1945

Border history

The interactive map lets you inspect named territories in 1945 and compare them to earlier or later snapshots on the timeline.

Biographical context

Meet figures alive in, or close to, 1945 and move from political geography to the people connected to the period.

Era-based reading

The related chronicles below provide long-form reading tied closely to the modern period.

1939 – 1945

World War II

Allied Powers vs Axis Powers

The deadliest conflict in human history — 70 million dead across six continents in a war that ended with mushroom clouds and the birth of the nuclear age.

Key battles and events: Stalingrad (1942–1943); Midway (1942)

1945 – 1949

Indonesian National Revolution

Indonesian Republic (Sukarno) vs Netherlands & Britain

After Japan's surrender, Indonesia declared independence, but the Netherlands attempted to reimpose colonial control. Four years of armed struggle and guerrilla warfare, combined with international pressure, forced the Dutch to recognise Indonesian sovereignty over the world's largest archipelago.

Key battles and events: Battle of Surabaya (1945); Dutch 'Police Actions' (1947, 1948)

1945

Soviet Invasion of Manchuria (Operation August Storm)

Soviet Union, Mongolia vs Japan, Manchukuo

Massive Soviet offensive against Japanese-held Manchuria in the final days of WWII. Over 1.5 million Soviet troops destroyed the 700,000-strong Kwantung Army in just 11 days. Considered alongside the atomic bombs as a decisive factor in Japan's surrender.

Key battles and events: Battle of Mutanchiang (1945); Capture of Harbin (1945)

1944 – 1945

Lapland War

Finland vs Nazi Germany

After Finland signed an armistice with the Soviet Union, it was required to expel German troops from Finnish Lapland. Germany's scorched-earth retreat devastated Finland's northernmost region, destroying 40% of all buildings and leaving 100,000 people homeless.

Key battles and events: Battle of Tornio (1944); Battle of Kemi (1944)

1941 – 1945

Yugoslav People's Liberation War

Yugoslav Partisans (Tito) vs Nazi Germany, Italy, Ustaše Croatia, Chetniks

Complex multi-sided conflict featuring the largest resistance movement in occupied Europe. Tito's communist Partisans grew to 800,000 fighters and liberated Yugoslavia largely without direct Allied ground support, while fighting Axis occupiers, fascist collaborators, and royalist Chetniks simultaneously.

Key battles and events: Battle of Sutjeska (1943); Battle of Neretva (1943)

1937 – 1945

Second Sino-Japanese War

Republic of China (Nationalists & Communists) vs Empire of Japan

Japan's full-scale invasion of China beginning at the Marco Polo Bridge, encompassing the Nanjing Massacre and eight years of brutal warfare. It merged into the Pacific theatre of World War II and cost over 20 million Chinese lives.

Key battles and events: Battle of Shanghai (1937); Battle of Nanjing (1937)

1927 – 1949

Chinese Civil War

Nationalists (Kuomintang) vs Communists (CPC)

A decades-long struggle between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and Mao Zedong's Communists — interrupted by WWII, then resumed until the Communists won in 1949, founding the People's Republic of China.

Key battles and events: Shanghai Massacre (1927); Long March (1934–1935)

Poland / United States

Abraham Joshua Heschel

1907 – 1972

Jewish theologian, philosopher, civil rights activist, prophetic voice of the twentieth century

Switzerland

Carl Jung

1875 – 1961

Analytical psychology, archetypes, collective unconscious, psychological types

France / Lithuania

Emmanuel Levinas

1906 – 1995

Philosopher, phenomenologist, ethicist, Talmudic scholar

British India / England / Burma / Spain

George Orwell

1903 – 1950

Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, anti-totalitarian essays, and the invention of Big Brother, doublethink, and Newspeak

United States

Henry Ford

1863 – 1947

Assembly line mass production, Model T automobile, $5 workday, Ford Motor Company

India / South Africa

Mahatma Gandhi

1869 – 1948

Nonviolent resistance, Indian independence, civil rights pioneer

Natural wonder · North America

Parícutin Volcano

Volcano that erupted from a Mexican cornfield in 1943, witnessed from birth

Built 1940 · Oceania

Te Whare Rūnanga (Waitangi)

Carved Māori meeting house at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds in the Bay of Islands, built to represent all iwi of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Built 1935 · Oceania

Church of the Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo

Small Anglican memorial church on the shores of Lake Tekapo, one of New Zealand's most photographed buildings, framing the Southern Alps beyond its altar window.

Built 1931 · South America

Christ the Redeemer

Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ overlooking Rio de Janeiro

Built 1926 · North America

Basilica of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre

Patronal shrine of Cuba in the hills above Santiago (built 1926, declared a basilica in 1977), housing the venerated Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre statue discovered by sailors in 1612

Built 1920 · Africa

Namugongo Martyrs' Shrine

Major Catholic and Anglican pilgrimage site honouring the Uganda Martyrs of 1886

Spain / France · Artist

Pablo Picasso

The Man Who Broke the Mirror

The life of the artist who shattered five centuries of Western painting and rebuilt it from the fragments — from Málaga to Mougins.

Poland / United States · Philosopher

Abraham Joshua Heschel

The Prophet of Radical Amazement

The Hasidic rabbi’s son from Warsaw who became the conscience of American Judaism and marched arm in arm with Martin Luther King Jr.

France / Lithuania · Philosopher

Emmanuel Levinas

The Philosopher of the Other

The Lithuanian Jewish philosopher who survived five years in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp, lost his entire family to the Holocaust, and rebuilt ethics from the ground up — told in his own words.

Switzerland · Thinker

Carl Jung

The Architect of the Unconscious

The Swiss psychiatrist who mapped the deepest layers of the human mind — archetypes, the shadow, the collective unconscious — and spent a lifetime proving that the psyche has a life of its own.