On This Day: VE Day

May 8, 1945: Britons exploded with joy as they celebrated victory over Germany in World War II.

VE – or Victory in Europe – Day was met by a then unusual outpouring of emotion after the surrender of Germany marked the end of almost six years fighting the Nazis.

A British Pathé newsreel shows a family seated around a radio and – with the typical British reserve of yesteryear - shaking hands after hearing the news.

[Related: George Oughton: The War Hero In My Family]

Also filmed are office staff cheering, factory workers stringing up an effigy of Hitler and people crowding round newspapers bearing the headline: ‘Germany Surrender’.

The video also shows children building and burning bonfires on a bombed site while a drunken man in an overcoat staggers along a street waving a Union Jack.

In London, huge crowds sang Land of Hope and Glory on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral after the victory bells rang out.

Masses of people also gathered outside Buckingham Palace to be greeted by the Royal Family. King George VI, Queen Mary, Princesses Margaret and Elizabeth, the current monarch, went on to the balcony seven times that day to wave to joyous crowds.

Later, the report shows people climbing lampposts and partying into the night in Trafalgar Square.

Also filmed reading out the announcement of the surrender and later greeting crowds at Buckingham Palace was Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

[Related: On This Day: HG Wells predicts outbreak of World War Two]

Despite leading his country to a victory that in 1940 – following the fall of France - seemed improbable, the Tory leader lost the July election after a Labour landslide.

After the long years of the war and the Great Depression of the 1930, people were hungry for social change.

Meanwhile, World War II continued until the surrender of Japan in August 1945.