By: History.com Editors

1944

Warsaw Uprising ends

History.com Editors

This Day In History: Warsaw Uprising ends

Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Published: February 09, 2010

Last Updated: January 24, 2025

The Warsaw Uprising ends on October 2, 1944, with the surrender of the surviving Polish rebels to German forces.

Two months earlier, the approach of the Red Army to Warsaw prompted Polish resistance forces to launch a rebellion against the Nazi occupation. The rebels, who supported the democratic Polish government-in-exile in London, hoped to gain control of the city before the Soviets “liberated” it. The Poles feared that if they failed to take the city the Soviet conquerors would forcibly set up a pro-Soviet communist regime in Poland.

Henryk Ross: Photographs from a Nazi Ghetto

During the Holocaust, Jewish photographer Henryk Ross used his camera as a tool of resistance against the Nazi regime by documenting the harsh realities inside the ghetto of Lodz, Poland.

The poorly supplied Poles made early gains against the Germans, but Nazi leader Adolf Hitler sent reinforcements. In brutal street fighting, the Poles were gradually overcome by superior German weaponry. Meanwhile, the Red Army occupied a suburb of Warsaw but made no efforts to aid the Polish rebels. The Soviets also rejected a request by the British to use Soviet air bases to airlift supplies to the beleaguered Poles.

After 63 days, the Poles—out of arms, supplies, food, and water—were forced to surrender. In the aftermath, the Nazis deported much of Warsaw’s population and destroyed the city. With protestors in Warsaw out of the way, the Soviets faced little organized opposition in establishing a communist government in Poland.

Timeline

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1780

Benedict Arnold accomplice hanged

Thirty-year-old British Major John Andre is hanged as a spy by U.S. military forces in Tappan, New York, on October 2, 1780. Andre, an accomplice of Benedict Arnold, had been captured by Patriots John Paulding, David Williams and Isaac Van Wart on September 23 after they found incriminating papers in his boot. The papers revealed […]

1835

First shots of the Texas Revolution fired in the Battle of Gonzales

On October 2, 1835, the growing tensions between Mexico and Texas erupt into violence when Mexican soldiers attempt to disarm the people of Gonzales, sparking the Texan war for independence. Texas—or Tejas as the Mexicans called it—had been a part of the Spanish empire since the 17th century. However, even as late as the 1820s, […]

1919

Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke

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1941

Operation Typhoon is launched

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1944

General Eisenhower warns of the risk of “shell shock”

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1958

Guinea gains its independence, exploits Cold War tensions

The former French colony of Guinea declares its independence on October 2, 1958, with Sekou Toure as the new nation’s first leader. Guinea was the sole French West African colony to opt for complete independence, rather than membership in the French Community, and soon thereafter France withdrew all aid to the new republic. It soon […]

1965

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1967

Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first Black Supreme Court justice

Chief Justice Earl Warren swears in Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. As chief counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1940s and ’50s, Marshall was the architect and executor of the legal strategy that ended the era of official racial segregation. The […]

1985

Hollywood icon Rock Hudson dies of AIDS

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2006

Gunman kills five students at Amish school

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2020

President Trump announces he and the first lady tested positive for COVID-19

Amid a resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump announces that he and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for COVID-19 in an early-morning tweet on October 2, 2020.  Coming a week after a White House gathering celebrating his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and 48 hours after his […]

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Citation Information

Article title
Warsaw Uprising ends
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
March 26, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 24, 2025
Original Published Date
February 09, 2010

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