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On This Day - 1941 - In response to domestic discontent, Adolf Hitler orders a stop to his policy of exterminating the mentally ill. Since the beginning of the war, more than 70,000 such people have died at the hands of the Nazis. The policy will be continued in a decentralized manner, with another 100,000 dying by May 1945. Thousands also will be killed in Nazi German-occupied areas.

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On This Day - 1941 - Nazi troops reached the outskirts of Leningrad during World War II.

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On This Day - 1942 - Guadalcanal. Japanese Colonel Ichiki believes only a few Americans defend Henderson Aitfield along the Tenaru River. At 1h30 he sends 100 troops across the Tenaru River, supported by machine guns and mortars, but 2500 Marines mow them down with machine gun- and anti tanks.

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On This Day - 1942 - German forces were getting ready to attack Stalingrad. The Russians, already devastated by the power of the Blitzkrieg during Operation Barbarossa, had to make a stand especially as the city was named after the Russian leader, Joseph Stalin.

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On This Day - 1942 - US Army Air Force planes see action for the first time in North Africa, bombing German military positions from their base in Egypt.

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On This Day - 1940 - The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, has spent the last few days in a top-secret meetings with the American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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On This Day - 1940 - 13th The Luftwaffe launched "Adler Tag" or "Eagle Day", the start of intended mass attacks which would knock out the RAF.

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On This Day - 1945 - In Tokyo, the Japanese government at last accepts the inevitable and surrenders to the Allies unconditionally. President Truman declares that "This is the day we've been waiting for since Pearl Harbor". Emperor Hirohito makes an emotional broadcast to the Japanese nation saying that they had to surrender to keep the country from being destroyed by "a new and most cruel bomb". The surrender is formally made to General MacArthur at a ceremony abroad the U.S. battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

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On This Day - 1942 - Japanese counter attack U.S. Marines on Guadalcanal.

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On This Day - 1942 - U.S. 1st Marine Division begins Operation Watchtower, the first U.S. offensive of the war, by landing on Guadalcanal, one of the Solomon Islands.

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On This Day - 1945 - The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

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On This Day - 1944 - Polish insurgents liberated a German labour camp in Warsaw. 348 Jewish prisoners were freed.

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On This Day - 1944 - Nazi police raided a house in Amsterdam and arrested 8 people. Anne Frank, a teenager at the time, was one of the people arrested. Her dairy would be published after her death. The last entry in the dairy was on this day.

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On This Day - 1936, Adolf Hitler presided over the Olympic Games as they opened in Berlin.

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On This Day - 1945 Pierre Laval of France surrender to the Americans in Austria.

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On This Day - 1942 - Heavy fighting continues all around the perimeter of the Stalingrad Kessel, while the decimated and starving troops of the German 6th Army receive their last rations of horse meat, the 12,000 horses in the pocket having now all been slaughtered.

On the same day - 1944 - Fighting continues in the "Battle of the Bulge", while in the southern portion of the German attack, surrounded US troops continue to hold out against repeated German attempts to take vital road junction at Bastogne.

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On This Day - 1943 - In the Ukrane, the Red Army launches an offensive in the Kiev-Shitomir area, capturing Berdichev.

General Dwight D. Eisenhauer is appointed supreme commander of the Allied forces preparing for the invasion of Europe.

On the same day - 1944 - The German U-Boat U-486 sinks the Allied troop carrier SS Leopldville with the loss of 763 men of the US 6th Infantry Division. All the news and information on this incident was suppressed by the orders of SHAEF headquarters.

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On This Day - 1939 - Russian troops were in retreat in Karelian Isthmus, in Petsamo region, and were also in the Salla sector, where the Finns were again in command of the Kemi River valley, an important strategic position.

Russian earoplanes bombed towns on the southern coast of Finland, and dropped leaflets over Helsinki with a message from the puppet Prime Minister.

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On This Day - 1944 - The allies report that the Germans have penetrated up to 40 miles in the Ardennes. The American defenders of Bastogne receive the German surrender ultimatum which Brigadier General McAulife, answers with a single word, "Nuts" ! The U.S. 3rd Army begins an offensive to relieve Bastogne.

On the same day - 1941 - The Japanese begin their invasion of the Philippines by landing 43,000 troops of General Homma's 14th Army in Lingayen Gulf, Luzon, 150 miles north of Manila.

On This Day

On This Day - 1939 - Between 07h25 and 10h16, German submarine U-21 sank two neutral Swedish ships Mars and SS Carl Henckel with one torpedo each. The Geramn submarine did not pick up any survivors. Only 8 out of 36 floating in the water survived until when help arrived the next day.

On This same day, Russia celebrated Joseph Stalin's 60th official birthday. His actual birthday was 18 December 1878 but was changed to 21 December 1879 after he came to power in 1922.