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Mussolini organized veterans and other discontented Italians into the Fascist party. His supporters,"Black Shirts" were organized into combat squads and they broke up socialist rallies, smashed leftist presses, and attacked farmers’ cooperatives.
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Fearing civil war, King Victor Emmanuel III asked Mussolini to form a government as prime minister. Mussolini thus obtained a legal appointment from the king to lead Italy.
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www.history.comLenin died in January 1924. Stalin turned the Soviet Union into a totalitarian state controlled by a powerful and complex bureaucracy.
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While in prison, Hitler wrote www.hitler.org (“My Struggle”). It would later become the basic book of Nazi goals and ideology. (extreme nationalism, racism, and anti-Semitism)
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www.britannica.com
A group of Japanese officers blew up a segment of a Japanese-owned railroad. The officers blamed the Chinese. -
Without consulting the Japanese government, the army immediately began to invade China. Japan captured Manchuria and set up Manzhouguo.
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The League condemned Japan's aggression toward China; in turn Japan withdrew, shocking the world.
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Although the Ethiopians resisted bravely, their outdated weapons were no match for Mussolini’s tanks, machine guns, poison gas, and airplanes. The Ethiopian king Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations for help. The League voted sanctions against Italy for violating international law; agreeing to stop selling weapons or other war materials to Italy.
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Hitler built up the German military in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles. Then, he sent troops into the “demilitarized” Rhineland
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www.britannica.comCommunists and others on the left demanded more radical reforms. Conservatives and the military rejected the changes. Anti-Nazi Germans and anti-Fascist Italians joined the Loyalist cause as well. The conservatives won, following Francisco Franco, who created a fascist dictatorship similar to the dictatorships of Hitler and Mussolini.
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The union of Austria and Germany. Hitler forcefully took Austria, against the terms in the Treaty of Versailles, causing a war scare.
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British and French leaders caved in to Hitler’s demands and then persuaded the Czechs to surrender the Sudetenland without a fight. In exchange, Hitler assured Britain and France that he had no further plans to expand his territory.
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www.ushmm.orgA young German Jew whose parents had been deported to their native Poland shot and wounded a German diplomat in Paris. Hitler used the incident as an excuse to stage an attack on all Jews.
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www.history.comA week after the Nazi-Soviet Pact bound Hitler and Stalin to peaceful relations, Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany; World War II had begun.
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www.britannica.comIn Berlin, Germany, officials from Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan sign the ten-year Tripartite Pact (the Three-Power Agreement), a military alliance.
