Het Achtste Gardeleger onder leiding van generaal Tsjoejkov had in 1943 meegeholpen om het Duitse leger uit Stalingrad te verjagen. Op 22 april 1945 brak Tsjoejkov door de Duitse verdedigingslinie bij Seelower Höhen en rukte op naar Berlijn. Zijn doel was het vliegveld Tempelhof, net buiten het centrum van de stad. Het vliegveld was niet alleen strategisch van belang, maar was ook de laatste ontsnappingsmogelijkheid voor de nazi-leiders in Berlijn. In ondergrondse bunkers stonden vliegtuigen klaar om hen uit de belegerde stad te evacueren. Had Tjoejkov eenmaal het vliegveld veroverd, dan waren ook de overgebleven nazi-kopstukken in handen van de Sovjets. De Duitse verdediging op het vliegveld bestond uit een mengelmoes van SS-eenheden, lokale luchtafweereenheden en het garnizoen van de vliegbasis. Ze boden urenlang hardnekkig weerstand tegen de Sovjet overmacht. Pas na een zwaar luchtbombardement en in allerijl aangevoerd artilleriegeschut werd Tempelhof op 26 april ingenomen.
 
Bron: liberationroute.nl

First observed in 1916 and commemorated as an official day of remembrance in 1921, Anzac Day commemorates the landing of the troops at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915. 100 years on a new generation reflects on the events that occurred at Gallipoli, and remembers all New Zealanders who have served their country during times of conflict and peace.
 
The intention of the Gallipoli campaign was to open the Dardanelles strait to the Allied fleets, giving them access to the Ottoman capital of Constantinople to possibly force a Turkish surrender. After nine months of conflict, the ultimately unsuccessful campaign came to an end and the peninsula remained in its defenders’ hands. The effects the Gallipoli campaign had on New Zealand and Australia were devastating. More than 8,700 Australians and more than 2,700 New Zealanders lost their lives fighting for King and Empire in this ambitious campaign. It was through this hardship that the Anzac spirit was born, a comradeship felt and remembered to this day with the annual observance of Anzac Day – 25 April.
 
The second issue in this special five-year stamp and coin programme, 1915 The Spirit of Anzac tells the story of New Zealand’s role in the First World War. Through the Anzac theme we look at the tale of Evelyn Brooke, a nursing matron from New Plymouth. Evelyn was one of more than 500 nurses from New Zealand who served overseas during the war, and the only New Zealand nurse to be awarded the Royal Red Cross and Bar for her services.
 
Bron: stamps.nzpost.co.nz

On April 22, 1915, the Germans launched their first and only offensive of the year. Known as the Second Battle of Ypres, the offensive began with the usual artillery bombardment of the enemy’s line. When the shelling died down, the Allied defenders waited for the first wave of German attack troops but instead were thrown into panic when chlorine gas wafted across no-man’s land and down into their trenches. The Germans targeted four miles of the front with the wind-blown poison gas and decimated two divisions of French and Algerian colonial troops. The Allied line was breached, but the Germans, perhaps as shocked as the Allies by the devastating effects of the poison gas, failed to take full advantage, and the Allies held most of their positions.

A second gas attack, against a Canadian division, on April 24, pushed the Allies further back, and by May they had retreated to the town of Ypres. The Second Battle of Ypres ended on May 25, with insignificant gains for the Germans. The introduction of poison gas, however, would have great significance in World War I.
 
Immediately after the German gas attack at Ypres, France and Britain began developing their own chemical weapons and gas masks. With the Germans taking the lead, an extensive number of projectiles filled with deadly substances polluted the trenches of World War I. Mustard gas, introduced by the Germans in 1917, blistered the skin, eyes, and lungs, and killed thousands. Military strategists defended the use of poison gas by saying it reduced the enemy’s ability to respond and thus saved lives in offensives. In reality, defenses against poison gas usually kept pace with offensive developments, and both sides employed sophisticated gas masks and protective clothing that essentially negated the strategic importance of chemical weapons.
 
Bron: history.com