British general Bernard Montgomery commands the Allied land forces in the Normandy Landing on D-day

Two pre-constructed harbours, known by the code name Mulberries, are towed across the Channel to Normandy

The first V-1 flying bombs (or doodlebugs) appear over London, numbering more than 2000 in two weeks

The first V-2 rocket lands on London, killing three people in Chiswick

The first of many thousands of war brides arrive in Canada, mainly from Great Britain

A by-election in the safe Conservative seat of Bromley, in London, enables Harold Macmillan to return to the House of Commons

English painter Francis Bacon creates a sensation with his Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion

English author Nancy Mitford has her first success with the novel The Pursuit of Love

Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes has its premiere in London, at the Sadler's Wells theatre

British chemist Dorothy Hodgkin describes the molecular structure of penicillin

Winston Churchill, losing the postwar general election in Britain, has to yield his seat at Potsdam in mid-conference to Clement Attlee

TheAllies celebrate V-J Day – victory over Japan and the end of the war

Evelyn Waugh publishes Brideshead Revisited, a novel about a rich Catholic family in England between the wars

In George Orwell's fable Animal Farm a ruthless pig, Napoleon, controls the farmyard using the techniques of Stalin

All Saints is used variously for worship by the Anglican and the Greek Orthodox Church, and as a recording studio

Sadler's Wells Ballet moves to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden (and is known from 1956 as the Royal Ballet)

The takeover of the Bank of England launches an extensive programme of nationalization by the Attlee government

Frederick Ashton choreographs Symphonic Variations, to music by César Franck

David Lean directs Trevor Howard and and Celia Johnson in Noel Coward's Brief Encounter

Benjamin Britten bases his Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra on a theme by Purcell

Rationing in Britain gets worse rather than better, with bread and potatoes now added to the list

Titus Groan begins British author Mervyn Peake's trilogy of gothic novels

British conductor Thomas Beecham founds the third orchestra of his career, calling it the Royal Philharmonic

Winston Churchill, in a speech in Fulton, Missouri, expresses the harsh truth that an iron curtain has descended across Europe

The Cassel Foundation (founded by Sir Ernest Cassel, grandfather of the Countess Mountbatten) establishes the Cassel Hospital for functional nervous disorders at Ham Common