April 2 » Dmitry Sipyagin, Minister of Interior of the Russian Empire, is assassinated in the Marie Palace, Saint Petersburg.
April 20 » Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.
May 20 » Cuba gains independence from the United States. Tomás Estrada Palma becomes the country's first President.
June 28 » The U.S. Congress passes the Spooner Act, authorizing President Theodore Roosevelt to acquire rights from Colombia for the Panama Canal.
August 9 » Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
December 10 » The opening of the reservoir of the Aswan Dam in Egypt.
Day of death October 20, 1945
The temperature on October 20, 1945 was between 4.5 °C and 17.5 °C and averaged 11.2 °C. There was 7.4 hours of sunshine (71%). The average windspeed was 3 Bft (moderate breeze) and was prevailing from the south-southeast. Source: KNMI
In The Netherlands , there was from July 27, 1941 to February 23, 1945 the cabinet Gerbrandy II, with Prof. dr. P.S. Gerbrandy (ARP) as prime minister.
In The Netherlands , there was from February 23, 1945 to June 24, 1945 the cabinet Gerbrandy III, with Prof. dr. P.S. Gerbrandy (ARP) as prime minister.
From June 24, 1945 till July 3, 1946 the Netherlands had a cabinet Schermerhorn - Drees with the prime ministers Prof. ir. W. Schermerhorn (VDB) and W. Drees (PvdA).
January 12 » World War II: The Red Army begins the Vistula–Oder Offensive.
January 25 » World War II: The Battle of the Bulge ends.
April 4 » World War II: American troops capture Kassel.
April 20 » World War II: U.S. troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to later cede the city to the Soviet Union.
April 26 » World War II: Filipino troops of the 66th Infantry Regiment, Philippine Commonwealth Army, USAFIP-NL and the American troops of the 33rd and 37th Infantry Division, United States Army are liberated in Baguio and they fight against the Japanese forces under General Tomoyuki Yamashita.
May 5 » World War II: Dönitz gives Löhr permission to seek an armistice with the Western Allies to preserve a communist free Austria and recognising first, from a German standpoint, the separation of Austria from Germany undoing the Anschluss.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Gert Esterhuizen, "Family tree Eric Esterhuizen", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/stamboom-eric-esterhuizen/I18006.php : accessed January 9, 2026), "Abraham Gert Willem PRETORIUS (1902-1945)".
Copy warning
Genealogical publications are copyright protected. Although data is often retrieved from public archives, the searching, interpreting, collecting, selecting and sorting of the data results in a unique product. Copyright protected work may not simply be copied or republished.
Please stick to the following rules
Request permission to copy data or at least inform the author, chances are that the author gives permission, often the contact also leads to more exchange of data.
Do not use this data until you have checked it, preferably at the source (the archives).
State from whom you have copied the data and ideally also his/her original source.