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At the beginning of Mussolini's March on Rome took place in Italy. This event was important. It marked the first fascist takeover of power in the world. The outcome of this so-called march was that Mussolini formed a new government. -
Stalin had continued to move up the party ladder, and in 1922 he became secretary general of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and after Lenin died in 1924, Stalin eventually outmaneuvered his rivals and won the power struggle for control of the Communist Party -
On July 18th, 1925, Hitler wrote a book called Mein Kampf, which translated to My Struggles which he wrote during prison for his failed attempt to overthrow Germany's government, The book sold a total of 9,473 copies in its first year of making. -
In 1928, Stalin launched his First Five-Year Plan to speed up the process of industrialization in the Soviet Union so that it could compete with output levels in developed capitalist economies. -
On September 18th, 1931, in violation of all its treaty obligations, Japan occupied Manchuria, in northeast China. Seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industries, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. By 1937 Japan controlled large sections of China, and war crimes against the Chinese became commonplace. -
The Holodomor, also known as the Terror-Famine or the Great Famine, was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The leadership of the Soviet Union committed it in order to suppress Ukrainians and ultimately eliminate Ukrainian resistance to the regime, including efforts to build an independent Ukrainian state. -
Hitler’s emergence as chancellor on January 30, 1933, marked a crucial turning point for Germany and, ultimately, for the world. His plan, embraced by much of the German population, was to do away with politics and make Germany a powerful, unified one-party state. From that moment on, Nazi Germany was off and running, and there was little Hindenburg or von Papen—or anyone—could do to stop it. -
The Night of the Long Knives was a purge in which Adolf Hitler and the regime of Nazi Germany targeted members of the Sturmabteilung. The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point for the German government. It established Hitler as the supreme administrator of justice of the German people. -
The professions of law and medicine were also withdrawn slowly as opportunities. “Jews Not Welcome” signs could be seen on shop and hotel windows, beer gardens. With the Nuremberg Laws, these discriminatory acts became embedded in the culture by fiat, making them even more far-reaching. Jews were forbidden to marry “Aryans” or engage in extramarital relations with them. Jews could not employ female Aryan servants if they were less than 35 years of age so Jews found it difficult to find food. -
Italo-Ethiopian War, an armed conflict that resulted in Ethiopia's subjection to Italian rule. A border incident between Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland that December gave Benito Mussolini an excuse to intervene. Italian victory Ethiopia occupied by Italy Haile Selassie goes into exile Continued armed resistance by Ethiopian Arbegnoch -
The Anti-Comintern Pact was an agreement between Germany, Italy and Japan, that they would work together to stop the spread of Communism around the globe. The Anti-Comintern Pact played an important role in the Nuremberg trials and was cited directly in the decision that convicted Joachim von Ribbentrop to death. -
The Spanish Civil War was a civil war in Spain fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. The purpose of Spanish Civil War was overthrowing the country's democratically elected republic. -
The Great Purge or the Great Terror was a purge in the Soviet Union from 1936 to 1938. Elimination of political opponents, consolidation of power. The political purge was primarily an effort by Stalin to eliminate challenge from past and potential opposition groups, including the left and right wings led by Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin. -
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. “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. -
Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung paramilitary and Schutzstaffel paramilitary forces. Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses, and murdered close to 100 Jews.