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Vichy France begins
This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic. The Government officially called itself the French State -
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Battle for Britain
The Battle of Britain took place between July and October 1940. After the success of Blitzkrieg, the evacuation of Dunkirk and the surrender of France, Britain was by herself. The Battle of Britain remains one of the most famous battles of World War Two. -
Hitler breaks Non-Aggression agreement and invades the Soviet Union
German chancellor Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) used the pact to make sure Germany was able to invade Poland unopposed. The pact also contained a secret agreement in which the Soviets and Germans agreed how they would later divide up Eastern Europe. The German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact fell apart in June 1941, when Nazi forces invaded the Soviet Union. -
Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on the morning of December 7, 194 -
Germany and Italy declare war on US
Dec. 11, 1941. Germany and Italy declare war on the US The US reciprocates and declares war on Germany and Italy. -
Bataan death march
The 60 mi (97 km) march occurred after the three-month Battle of Bataan, part of the Battle of the Philippines (1941–42), during World War II. -
Battle of Coral Sea
The Battle of Coral Sea took place in May 1942. If the Japanese had succeeded at Coral Sea, the way would have been open for the Japanese to have captured New Guinea and leave Australia isolated from Allied help and more open to a Japanese attack. The Battle of Coral Sea was fought entirely by planes – no ship on either side made any visual contact with any enemy ship. -
Battle of Midway
The Japanese threw almost the entire Imperial Fleet into the battle. The Americans had cracked the Japanese code and knew something was up. The thin American defense consisted of three aircraft carriers eight cruisers, fourteen destroyers, and the aircraft stationed on Midway itself. The Yorktown, mauled in the Battle of the Coral Sea, limped into battle after after band-aid repairs at Pearl Harbor. -
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Guadalcanal
In the six months between August 1942 and February 1943, the United States and its Pacific Allies fought a brutally hard air-sea-land campaign against the Japanese for possession of the previously-obscure island of Guadalcanal. The Allies' first major offensive action of the Pacific War, the contest began as a risky enterprise since Japan still maintained a significant naval superiority in the Pacific ocean. -
General Eisenhower and his forces land in North Africa
Operation Torch was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started 8 November 1942. -
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Sicily falls
The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis. -
Rome falls
On July 19, 1943, Rome was bombed again, more heavily, by 521 Allied planes, with three targets, causing thousands of civilian casualties -
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.9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded -
Kamikaze attacks begin
The Kamikaze were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible. -
MacArthur promises to return to the Philippines
On October 20, 1944, a few hours after his troops landed, MacArthur waded ashore onto the Philippine island of Leyte. That day, he made a radio broadcast in which he declared, "People of the Philippines, I have returned!" In January 1945, his forces invaded the main Philippine island of Luzon. In February, Japanese forces at Bataan were cut off, and Corregidor was captured. Manila, the Philippine capital, fell in March, and in June MacArthur announced his offensive operations on Luzon to be at a -
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The Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, fought over the winter months of 1944 – 1945, was the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies in World War Two. The battle was a last ditch attempt by Hitler to split the Allies in two in their drive towards Germany and destroy their ability to supply themselves. -
US flag raised on Mt. Suribachi
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is an historic photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It depicts five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. -
Truman becomes president
President Roosevelt dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at Warm Springs in Georgia. Vice-President Truman becomes President. Truman has so far had limited involvement in the work of the Roosevelt administration (he was a surprising choice as running mate in 1944) and among the subjects on which he receives his first briefing in the next few days in the atomic weapons project. -
Hitler commits suicide
On this day in 1945, holed up in a bunker under his headquarters in Berlin, Adolf Hitler commits suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule and shooting himself in the head. -
V-E Day
Victory in Europe Day commemorates May 8, 1945, the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. -
Nagasaki
During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. -
Hiroshima
the detonation of "Fat Man" over Nagasaki on August 9. -
V- J Day
The day on which the Allies announced the surrender of Japanese forces during World War II. -
formal surrender of Japan
In the morning of 2 September 1945, more that two weeks after acceping the Allies terms, Japan formally surrendered. The ceremonies, less than half an hour long, took place on board the battleship USS Missouri, anchored with other United States' and British ships in Tokyo Bay. -
End of Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad -
Okinawa taken
The Battle of Okinawa started in April 1945. The capture of Okinawa was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the Far East. Okinawa was to prove a bloody battle even by the standards of the war in the Far East but it was to be one of the major battles of World War Two.
