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"To break the spirit of Chinese resistance Japanese General Matsui Iwane ordered that the city of Nanking be destroyed. Much of the city was burned, and Japanese troops launched a campaign of atrocities against civilians. In what became known as the Rape of Nanking the Japanese butchered an estimated 150,000 male war prisoners, massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed in the process." (history.com) -
"In 1937Japanese and Chinese troops on the frontier led to what became known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. This sparked a the Second Japanese War. The Chinese Nationalists and the agreed to fight against Japan. China received aid from western democracies, where public opinion was strongly anti-Japanese. Britain, France and the US all sent aid. China also received aid from Nazi Germany for a short period, until Hitler decided to make an alliance with Japan in 1938." (History.com) -
"On September 1, 1939, German forces under the control of Adolf Hitler bombard Poland on land and air. World War II had begun. Germany invaded Poland to regain lost territory and ultimately rule their neighbor to the east. The German invasion of Poland was a primer on how Hitler intended to wage war what would become the “blitzkrieg” strategy. Germany's approach was characterized by extensive bombing early on to destroy the enemy’s air capacity, railroads, communication lines". (history.com). -
German forces employed some tactics associated with blitzkrieg in the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the invasion of Poland in 1939. Including combined air-ground attacks and Panzer tank divisions to quickly crush the poorly equipped Polish troops. Then in April 1940, Germany invaded neutral Norway, seizing the capital, Oslo, and the country’s main ports with a series of surprise attacks.
In May 1940 Germany used the combined force of tanks, mobile infantry and artillery troops. (history.com). -
"On August 22, 1939, German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop flew from Berlin to Moscow. He was soon face-to-face with Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov who had been working with von Ribbentrop to negotiate an agreement. The proposal also stipulated that neither country would aid any third party that attacked either signatory. The Soviet Union would acquire the eastern half of Poland, along with Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia." (history.com) -
"Paris is liberated by the French 2nd Armored Division and the U.S. 4th Infantry Division. German resistance was light, and General Dietrich von Choltitz, commander of the German garrison, defied an order by Adolf Hitler to blow up Paris’ landmarks and burn the city to the ground before its liberation. Choltitz signed a formal surrender that afternoon, and on August 26, Free French General Charles de Gaulle led a joyous liberation march down the Champs d’Elysees." (history.com) -
"On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler launched his armies in a massive invasion of the three great army groups with over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks smashed across the frontier into Soviet territory. The invasion covered from the North Cape to the Black Sea, a distance of two thousand miles. Barbarossa was the crucial turning point in World War II, for failed to forced Nazi Germany to fight a two-front war". (history.com) -
"Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, was the scene of a surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. Just before 8 a.m. on that Sunday morning hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on the base. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan." (history.com). -
"Nazi officials meet to discuss the details of the “Final Solution” of the “Jewish question.” In July 1941, Hermann Goering, writing under instructions from Hitler, had ordered Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and Heinrich Himmler’s number-two man, to submit “as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative, material, and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.” (History.com). -
"After the April 9, 1942 U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II (1939-45), the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March." (history.com) -
"The Battle of Midway was an epic clash between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy that played out six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy’s decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) and its successful defense of the major base located at Midway Island dashed Japan’s hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval power and effectively turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific." (history.com) -
"On July 24, 1943, British bombers raid Hamburg, Germany, by night. While Americans bomb it by day in its own “Blitz Week.” Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs in just a few hours. More than 1,500 German civilians were killed in that first British raid." (history.com). -
"the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. The battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest military assaults in history. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe." (history). -
"The Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes region of Belgium was Adolf Hitler’s last major offensive in World War II against the Western Front. The German troops’ failure to divide Britain, France and America with the Ardennes offensive paved the way to victory for the allies. Lasting six brutal weeks, from December 16, 1944, to January 25, 1945, the assault took place during frigid weather conditions across 85 miles of the densely wooded Ardennes Forest." (history.com). -
"On the evening of February 13, 1945, a series of Allied firebombing raids begins against the German city of Dresden, reducing the “Florence of the Elbe” to rubble and flames, and killing roughly 25,000 people. Despite the horrendous scale of destruction, it arguably accomplished little strategically, since the Germans were already on the verge of surrender." (history.com). -
"The Battle of Iwo Jima was an epic military campaign between U.S. Marines and the Imperial Army of Japan in early 1945. American forces invaded the island on February 19, 1945, and the ensuing Battle of Iwo Jima lasted for five weeks. In some of the bloodiest fighting of World War II, it’s believed that all but 200 or so of the 21,000 Japanese forces on the island were killed, as were almost 7,000 Marines." (history.com) -
"The Battle of Okinawa was the last major battle of World War II, and one of the bloodiest. On April 1, 1945 Easter Sunday, the Navy’s Fifth Fleet and more than 180,000 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps troops descended on the Pacific island of Okinawa for a final push towards Japan. The invasion was part of Operation Iceberg, a complex plan to invade and occupy the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa." (history.com) -
"On May 8, 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine during World War II.
The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany." (history.com). -
"On August 6, 1945, during World War II an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15" (history.com). -
"On August 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered to the Allies,ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as “Victoryover Japan Day,” or “V-J Day.” The term has also been used for September 2, 1945, when Japan’s formal surrender took place aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay. Japan’s capitulation in the Pacific brought six years of hostilities to a final and highly anticipated close." (history.com).