Timeline October 1945

Events in October 1945 7

• 1883 – 1945 Pierre Laval (1883-1945) Died 15 October 1945, aged 62 Laval served as Prime Minister of Vichy France and collaborated closely with Nazi Germany, including in the deportation of Jews. He was convicted of treason after the war and executed by firing squad. His trial was widely seen as a summary proceeding against wartime collaboration.
• 1887 – 1945 Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945) Died 24 October 1945, aged 58 Quisling led a Norwegian fascist party and headed a puppet government installed under German occupation. His name became a lasting synonym for a traitor who collaborates with an occupying power. He was convicted of treason after the war and executed by firing squad.
• 1887 – 1945 Vidkun Quisling The Traitor A collaborator who led a puppet regime under Nazi occupation; his name became a synonym for "traitor."
• 1945 Founds Les Temps Modernes A platform for engaged intellectual life In October 1945 Sartre co-founded the journal Les Temps Modernes with Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, creating an influential platform for existentialist philosophy, literary criticism, and left-wing political commentary. The journal became a central forum through which Sartre articulated his concept of littérature engagée, the idea that writers bear a responsibility to address the political conditions of their time. It continued publishing for decades and shaped postwar French intellectual life.
• 1945 – 1947 The ACE at the National Physical Laboratory A stored-program computer, on paper Turing joins the NPL and produces a complete design for the Automatic Computing Engine — the first detailed plan for a stored-program computer, including notions of subroutines and of software as a thing distinct from hardware. Institutional caution and secrecy stall it. Frustrated, he leaves, and a reduced Pilot ACE finally runs in 1950.
• 1945 – 1988 Divine (1945-1988) Died 7 March 1988, aged 42 Divine, born Harris Glenn Milstead, was an American actor and drag performer known for starring roles in John Waters films including Pink Flamingos and Hairspray. His flamboyant persona made him a countercultural icon. He died suddenly of an enlarged heart shortly after Hairspray's success.
• 1945 "Existentialism Is a Humanism" Lecture Popularizing existentialism to the public On 29 October 1945, Sartre delivered his famous public lecture "L'existentialisme est un humanisme" in Paris, defending existentialism against charges of nihilism and despair. The lecture, later published as a short book, became the most widely read introduction to his philosophy and brought existentialism to a broad popular audience beyond academic circles. It cemented Sartre's status as a public intellectual celebrity in postwar France.