World War 2

Day 184 in the Gregorian Decalendar is the first day of Season 2 by meteorological reckoning and also the anniversary of the start of the World War 2. On 1939+184, World War 2 started with the German invasion of Poland. On 1939+200, sixteen days after the start of the war, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East. Germany and the Soviet Union split Poland according to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed on 1939+175. The map below shows the German and Soviet invasions of Poland on Days 184 and 200, respectively, of Year 1939, as well as other military movements over the course of the subsequent 1.83 years before Germany ended the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on 1941+113 with its invasion of the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarossa.

On the map, exact dates on the map are in the year+day format and approximate dates are decimal years. For more information on these date formats, take a look at date page in the Measurement section of my site. Briefly, the day in year+day counts the days since Day 0 and can be divided by the number of days in the year to obtain the fractional part of the decimal year. In the legend, there is a date range in the start:stop format, which is inspired by the slice syntax in the Python programming language.

Map of military movements in Europe from 1939 to 1941

World War 2 officially ended on 1945+185, 6 years and 1 day after it began, when Japan surrendered. The German surrender on 1945+068 is commemorated with Victory in Europe Day, typically on Day 68 in the West. In contrast, many countries in Russia’s sphere of influence commemorate Victory Day on Day 69. The chosen commemoration date can therefore be viewed as having political significance. On Day 69, the European Union celebrates the anniversary of the 1950 Schuman Declaration with a holiday called Europe Day. The Schuman Declaration aimed at normalizing relations and promoting political integration in Europe. Today, many countries that were opponents in World War 2 are now close allies, notably Germany, France, and Poland and the US and Japan.