Events mark 80 years since end of World War Two in Europe

Newshour

BBC

News, Daily News

4.4 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

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Summary

Britain has held a service at Westminster Abbey in London to mark the eightieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. The King and Queen and Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer attended. Other European capitals are holding their own events.

Also in the programme: there's been two inconclusive votes by Cardinals this morning on who will succeed Pope Francis; India and Pakistan have accused each other of mounting drone attacks, including on targets far from the disputed region of Kashmir; and the American academic and policymaker Joseph Nye, who coined the phrase "soft power", has died aged 88.

(Picture: King Charles III speaks to a veteran at the end of the Service of Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey in London on the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Credit: Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.
0:07.0	We're coming to you live from London.
0:08.9	I'm James Menendez.
0:10.2	And coming up later in the programme.
0:14.4	Well, black smoke again.
0:17.2	There is black smoke coming out of the Sistine Chapel.
0:20.3	That means that the two votes this morning have been unsuccessful,
0:25.9	not finding somebody who commands a two-thirds majority.
0:32.1	So we are three votes now into the conclave,
0:36.6	and they've not yet got a Pope.
0:39.9	More from Mark Lowen in Rome in 15 minutes.
0:43.8	But we are going to begin today with events marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany
0:49.4	and the end of the Second World War in Europe.
0:52.4	After a conflagration that had lasted nearly six years
0:55.3	and cost the lives of perhaps 15 or 20 million people in Europe alone,
1:00.2	May the 8th, 1945 was a day of exhausted relief for the Allies and celebrations.
1:07.2	Here's the then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
1:09.8	with the news that everyone in Britain had been waiting for.
1:13.7	Yesterday morning at 2.41 a.m. at General Eisenhower's headquarters, General Jodl, the representative of the German High Command,
1:27.3	and of Grand Admiral Dernitz,
1:29.3	the designated head of the German state,
1:33.3	signed the act of unconditional surrender.
	...

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