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Germany Invades Poland
At dawn on September 1st 1939 a massive German army rolled across the 1,250 miles of the Polish border. Almost immediately after the invasion of Poland began the British and French ambassadors in Berlin delivered identical messages to the German Foreign Ministry Stating that if Germany did not withdraw their troops from Poland Britain and France would "fulfil their obligations to Poland without hesitation".(France had a military agreement with Poland since 1921 and Britain had pledged their ass -
Peace in U.S.
Thousands of persons of all faiths, attending the county fair, joined in a peace demonstration as Great Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. -
Hitler Commits Suicide
In his last will and testament, Hitler appointed Admiral Karl Donitz as head of state and Goebbels as chancellor. He then retired to his private quarters with Braun, where he and Braun poisoned themselves and their dogs, before Hitler then also shot himself with his service pistol. -
Industrialism
Industrial leaders met with public officials to plan mobilization of Pittsburgh district resources for the nation's $5,000,000,000 defense program. This helped for the war effort. -
France Surrenders To Germany
Hitler unleashes his new tactic called blitzkreig. It works successfully and France surrenders to Germany after Germans kept firing without resistance to the French capital of Paris. -
Hospitals
Preparations were made to raze old Allegheny General Hospital and 25 other buildings in a congested North Side section, site of a huge new Sears, Roebuck and Company store and parking lot. This would help later for the soldiers coming back from the war. -
Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor
The surprise was complete. The attacking planes came in two waves; the first hit its target at 7:53 AM, the second at 8:55. By 9:55 it was all over. By 1:00 PM the carriers that launched the planes from 274 miles off the coast of Oahu were heading back to Japan. -
Shocked
Piuttsburgh was shocked at te bombing of Pearl Harbor. After a little, over 2,000 men enlisted into the army. -
Dedication
An estimated 300,000 persons assembled in the Downtown area to watch 35,000 marchers in an Army Day demonstration of loyalty and patriotism. Most of which were mothers of the boys in the Army. -
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway, fought over and near the tiny U.S. mid-Pacific base at Midway atoll, represents the strategic high water mark of Japan's Pacific Ocean war. Prior to this action, Japan possessed general naval superiority over the United States and could usually choose where and when to attack. After Midway, the two opposing fleets were essentially equals, and the United States soon took the offensive. -
Hospital For Incoming Soldiers
Western State Psychiatric Hospital, a 17-story building started in 1938 and built at a cost of $2,500,000, was dedicated by Governor Arthur H. James. Later used during the rehabilitation of soldiers coming home from war. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad is considered by many historians to have been the turning point in World War Two in Europe. The battle at Stalingrad bled the German army dry in Russia and after this defeat, the Germany Army was in full retreat. One of the ironies of the war, is that the German Sixth Army need not have got entangled in Stanlingrad. Army Groups A and B were well on their way to the Caucasus in south-west Russia, when Hitler ordered an attack on Stalingrad. -
D-Day
June 6, 1944, 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end on June 6, the Allies gained a foot- hold in Normandy. -
U.S Unites
In a mass rally outside the East Pittsburgh plant, 20,000 employees of Westinghouse reaffirmed a no-strike pledge for duration of the war. This united the whole working indusrty to work harder than the ever worked before. -
Allies Liberate Paris
In August 1944, when the Americans finally broke out of the Norman hedgerows and were on the move, many inhabitants who had left the capital hurried back to the city. The Americans had been bogged down far from Paris for far too long–ages, it seemed. Now they were on their way and the Parisians hastened to return. They did not want to miss the gladness of welcoming their liberators and the glorious spectacle of seeing the Germans go. -
War Contracts
A survey showed that war contracts completed to date or underway in Pittsburgh district plants totaled $903,398,644, with $322,000,000 of it delivered to the front lines. -
Snowwall
Thousands of Monday night Christmas shoppers were stranded Downtown by a 15-inch snowfall; all hotels were filled to capacity and lobbies were pressed into service as shelter; mills, schools, and many other activities were forced to suspend for two days. -
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge started on December 16th 1944. Hitler had convinced himself that the alliance between Britain, France and America in the western sector of Europe was not strong and that a major attack and defeat would break up the alliance. Therefore, he ordered a massive attack against what were primarily American forces. The attack is strictly known as the Ardennes Offensive but because the initial attack by the Germans created a bulge in the Allied front line, it has become more commo -
War Production
Park H. Martin, who, as chief engineer of the County Works Department, started building more tanks. Even though they weren't needed to complete the war. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima is a very small Pacific island – just over 4.5 miles long and 2.5 miles wide which lies at the foot of the Bonin chain of islands, south of the main Japanese island of Honshu.The first day of the landings was February 19th, 1945. The Marines took heavy casualties, as the American bombings had not been effective. What it had done was to churn up the beaches and the immediate hinterland and had given the Japanese far more opportunities to find hiding-holes for snipers. -
Pittsburgh
"The city marked the 100th anniversary of its great fire of 1845 with a parade and pageantry." -
FDR Dies, Truman Becomes President
It was April 1945. The end of the war in Europe was in sight as the allied armies pressed their invasion into the German heartland. In Washington, President Roosevelt's health had noticeably deteriorated. His ashen-grey complexion and FDR's casket approaches the Capitol after arriving in Washington, DC physical weakness raised concerns for his health among friends, family and associates. -
War Artifacts
On April 24th, 1945, State Museum and State Archives were given artifacts used in WWI. Some of these were also used in WWII. These artifacts included flamethrowers and pictures/modles of U-Boats. -
VE Day
German collapse came after the meeting (Apr. 25) of the Western and Russian armies at Torgau in Saxony, and after Hitler's death amid the ruins of Berlin, which was falling to the Russians under marshals Zhukov and Konev. The unconditional surrender of Germany was signed at Reims on May 7 and ratified at Berlin on May 8. -
Pittsburgh
"Councilman George E. Evan, chairman of the Pittsburgh Housing Authority and a pioneer in slum-clearance planning, died at the age of 69." -
Atomic Bomb Dropped on Hiroshima
At approximately 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima time the Enola Gay released "Little Boy," its 9,700-pound uranium bomb, over the city. Tibbets immediately dove away to avoid the anticipated shock wave. Forty-three seconds later, a huge explosion lit the morning sky as Little Boy detonated 1,900 feet above the city, directly over a parade field where soldiers of the Japanese Second Army were doing calisthenics. -
Atomic Bomb Dropped on Nagasaki
It was a cloudy day over Nagasaki. They took off with Fat Man, the bomb, at 3:42 a.m. At 11:02 a.m., at an altitude of 1,650 feet, Fat Man exploded over Nagasaki. The size of the explosion was later estimated at 21 kilotons, 40 percent greater than that of the Hiroshima bomb. -
Pittsburgh
"Russian labor leaders arrived to tour the district's steel mills." -
VJ Day
Victory over Japan day is a name chosen for the day on which the Surrender of Japan occurred, effectively ending World War II, and subsequent anniversaries of that event. The term has been applied to both the day on which the initial announcement of Japan's surrender was made in the afternoon of August 15, 1945, in Japan, and because of time zone differences, to August 14, 1945,