The exact dates of the 1945 lunar year
The Wood Rooster year ran from February 13, 1945 to February 1, 1946. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1945, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1945 new year fell 19 days later in the Gregorian year than the 1944 one, February 13, 1945 against January 25, 1944. Why the 1945 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Wood Rooster pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1945 is Yi and the branch is the Rooster, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1945 that branch is taken to mean someone exact and outspoken, noticing detail and reporting it. Wood, the element attached to 1945, adds growth, flexibility and the willingness to keep extending.
1945 is a yin year, the inward half of the Wood pair: 1944 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1945 is described as the rooster temperament working through growth.
Born in January or early February 1945
From 1 January 1945 to February 12, 1945 the animal in force was still the Monkey, not the Rooster — 43 days of 1945 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1945 is a Monkey.
The first Rooster of 1945 is anyone born on February 13, 1945 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 1, 1946. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 13, 1945 is at the later end.
Where 1945 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1945 is position 22 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Yi stem against the Rooster branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Wood Rooster year was 1885 and the next is 2005.
Someone born in 1885 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1945, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1945 meets the pairing again in 2005.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Rooster of 1945 is grouped with the Ox and the Snake, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1941 and 1949. Its opposition is the Rabbit, six years on from 1945 in 1951.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1945 was measured to produce them; 1945 stands four years from 1941 and six from 1951, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1945
Because the 1945 lunar year opened on February 13, 1945, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 1, 1946, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1945 stays the Rooster.
Handbooks equate the Rooster of 1945 with Virgo, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1945 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1945 Wood Rooster as a year-long version of Virgo flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1945 Chinese new year start?
February 13, 1945, and the year ran on to February 1, 1946 — 354 days.
What animal is 1945?
The Rooster, in its Wood form, from February 13, 1945 onward; a birth earlier in 1945 is a Monkey.
Was 1945 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1945 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1945 — which animal am I?
The Monkey, unless you were born on February 13, 1945 or later, which is when the 1945 year began.