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By 1921, Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party. He told Germans that they were the 'master race' and would rule over every other race and religion.
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Mussolini and his army threatened to overthrow Italy's government and in return, Italy's king appointed Mussolini as prime minister. Mussolini turned Italy into the world's first Fascist state.
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Josef Stalin turned the Soviet Union into a totalitarian state, ordering peasants to give crops, animals, and land to government run farms. Millions of people who didn't obey were sent to labor camps.
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Hoover declared that the United States no longer claimed the right to intervene in Latin American affairs.
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Acting without the approval of their government, the Japanese army seizes Manchuria in northeastern China. The League of Nations took no action.
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On August 31, 1935, Congress passed the Neutrality Act in attempts to keep America out of the war.
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Mussolini's army invaded Ethiopia sometime in October of 1935. The Ethiopians tried to fight them off, but their weapons were too outdated.
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Like Nazi Germany, Japanese militarists preached racism. The Japanese thought that they were superior to all other Asians as well as non-Asians.
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On March 7, 1936, Adolf Hitler sent his troops into the Rhineland with plans to unite Austria with Germany because he believed that they were one country.
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Japanese armies treated the Chinese brutally, attacking the Chinese village of Nanjing for six weeks.
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European leaders met in Munich, Germany in September 1938 because Hitler was threatening to invade Czechoslovakia. They were trying to put it to a stop.
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On the nights of November 9th and 10th, 1938, the Nazis went around Germany burning down synagogues and taking Jews into the streets and seriously injuring or flat out killing them. They also rounded up the first Jews on those nights.
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Despite attempts to stop him, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939.
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In August of 1939, Hitler and Stalin, two sworn enemies, signed a nonaggression pact that was supposed to last ten years, but was violated two years later when Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
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On September 1, 1939, Hitler sent his troops into Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany, starting World War 2.
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Stalin's armies took eastern Poland 16 days after Hitler's troops invaded.
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In April 1940, Hitler's armies moved north into Denmark and Norway.
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On June 22, 1940, France fell to Germany after a month of trying to fight them off.
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In September 1940, Congress passed a law that set up the first peacetime draft in American history because America could be pulled into the war at any time.
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On June 22, 1941, Hitler's troops marched into the Soviet Union, breaking Hitler's agreement with Stalin. The Union, in return, joined forces with Britain in fighting Germany.
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Events in Asia finally drew America into the war. Japan invaded the French colony of Indochina. Roosevelt, in return, banned American exports of iron and steel scrap to Japan.
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Roosevelt and Churchill agreed that their nations would not try to gain territory from the war and emphasized the right of people to choose their own government.
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Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, destroying naval, air, and ground forces on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.
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Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR started putting Japanese Americans into internment camps to isolate them. Nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were in these camps.
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The Japanese wanted to take Midway island by engaging the U.S. naval force that they greatly outnumbered. The U.S. had broken the Japanese naval code and was prepared for the attack when it happened. The U.S. won the battle and it was a turning point for us in the war on the Pacific.
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In July of 1943, Italy surrendered and Mussolini was dismissed as prime minister of Italy.
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On June 6th, 1944, American and British soldiers invaded collaborated France on the beach at Normandy. The invasion was successful, and started a chain of battles that eventually freed France.
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In August of 1944, France was retaken from Germany by Allied Forces.
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This was the last offensive battle of the German forces.
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On May 8th, 1945, Germany surrendered to Allied Forces and the war ended in Europe
