1921, Jan. 30 Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the Nazi Party
1922 Benito Mussolini appointed Prime Minister of Italy
1929 Josef Stalin sole dictator of the Soviet Union (USSR)
1931 Japan’s Army seizes Manchuria, China
1933, March 21 - Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany
1935 Neutrality Acts passed by US Congress
1935 Italian Army invades Ethiopia in Africa
1936 Militarist take control of Japanese Government
1936 Hitler sends troops into Rhineland of Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty
1937 Japan’s army pillages Nanjing, China; massacre a quarter of a million people.
1938 Munich Pact signed giving the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany
1938 Nazis begin rounding up Jews for labor camps
1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact signed by Hitler and Stalin
1939 Sept 1st - Nazis invade Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany
1940 Nazis invade Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium – take control
1940 Germany invades France and forces it to surrender
1940 Battle of Britain – Royal Air Force defeats German Air Force to prevent invasion of their island
1940 First time Peacetime Draft in US
1941 Hitler breaks Pact with Stalin’s Russia and invades - USSR which now joins England in fighting the Germans
1941 Churchill and FDR issue the Atlantic Charter
1941 Japanese invade French Indochina (Viet. Laos, Cambodia)
1941, Dec. 7 Pearl Harbor in Hawaii attacked by Japanese Naval and Air forces, US declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy declare war on the US - Dec. 9
1942 Philippines fall to Japanese – Bataan Death March
1942 Japanese Americans interned in isolated camps