February 2

German 6th Army Surrenders at Stalingrad

Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered the remnants of Germany's 6th Army at Stalingrad after five months of brutal urban combat and a six-week Soviet encirclement. Of 300,000 men who entered the city, fewer than 91,000 surrendered — most would die in Soviet captivity.

Stalingrad was the turning point of World War II's Eastern Front; it destroyed the myth of German invincibility and marked the beginning of the long Soviet advance to Berlin.