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Germany signs an unconditional surrender.
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The Red Army enters Prague and liberates it from the German occupation.
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President Beneš and his government return to Prague after seven years in exile.
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Japan surrenders, officially ending World War II.
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The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) wins the elections and Klement Gottwald becomes Prime Minister, while Beneš remains President.
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Rigged parliamentary elections, which followed years of manipulation of the judiciary and electoral system, result in the win of the Polish Workers United Party.
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The Czechoslovak government announces their plans to reverse their decision to participate in the Marshall Plan because of Soviet pressure.
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Despite losing the general election, the Communist Party falsifies the results and assumes power in Hungary regardless.
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Twelve non-communist Czechoslovak ministers, including Jan Masarýk, resign in the hopes that the government paralysis would force Gottwald and other communists to resign too.
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Beneš allows the formation of a new government in accordance with the KSČ’s demands.
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Jan Masarýk is found dead at the Foreign Ministry.
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Beneš refuses to sign the new Consitution that proposed to refer to the country as a “people's republic”.
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Beneš finally resigns as President.
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Gottwald officially becomes Beneš’s successor, after being elected President in the elections of May 30.
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Stalinists strat persecuting and holding show trials against those deemed enemies of the State, resulting in the execution of around 180 politicians.
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Milada Horáková, a former member of the National Assembly and open opposer of the Communist regime, was executed after being sentenced to death in a show trial alongside several other politicians.
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Gottwald dies shortly after Stalin and is succeeded by Antonín Zápotocký.
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Workers in the Czechoslovak city of Plzeň (liberated by the US American troops in WWII) revolted in violent protest.
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The government implements administrative sanctions that stop the practice of show trials.
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Creation of the Warsaw Pact, the collective defense treaty that served as the Eastern Bloc and Soviet alternative to NATO.
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A countrywide revolution ignited by university students against the Communist regime, known as the Hungarian Uprising.