Friday, Aug. 14 (PM) – This will be short, but I would be remiss if I didn’t stop and recognize this day. It was 70 years ago today, in 1945, that World War II ended. It was also the day that the Browns began in earnest. The All-America Football Conference, of which the Browns were set to be members, was organized in 1944, but it was not going to start play until the end of the war. So with Japan’s surrender – the Germans had surrended three months before – the league could begin laying the groundwork for its first season aq year later in 1946. Paul Brown, who served in the Navy, had already been hired as head coach and general manager. He had signed a few players, including kicker/left tackle Lou Groza from Martins Ferry, Ohio and Ohio State while he was sitting in a foxhole, and now he could concentrate fully on building what would turn out to be an all-star team, one filled with future Pro Football Hall of Famers. In that first Browns media guide – or press guide, as it was called then – in 1946, the players’ bios included almost as much about their service in World War II as it did their football exploits. And rightfully so, for as good as these players turned out to be for the Browns, they were even better as servicemen. Wide receiver Dante Lavelli of Hudson, Ohio and Ohio State had fought in the Battle of the Bulge, for instance. After having served in the war, playing football, even in clutch situations with the game on the line, was a breeze. As such, the Browns steamrolled their way through the AAFC, going 52-4-3 and winning all four league crowns, in effect putting the league out of business by making it non-competitive. It’s no fun when the same team wins all the time. The Browns had a 29-game unbeaten streak from midway through the 1947 season until midway through ’49, and finished a perfect 15-0 in 1948, beating the 1972 Miami Dolphins to the punch by 24 years, a fact Lavelli would never let anyone forget up until his dying day. Before any of that football stuff happened, though, World War II had to end, and it did so on this date in 1945.