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Germany Invades Poland
The Invasion of Poland was the catalyst for World War II. Rapidly souring relations between Germany and the Allies after several illegal takeovers of land that belonged to other countries, the Allies stated that if Germany touched Poland, there would be war. Germany invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939, and the Allies declared war on Germany. For the second time in history, the world was at war. -
British and French declaration of war on Germany
As a result of the Invasion of Poland, Britain and France, who had dropped the policy of appeasement, declared war on Germany. It was announced in Britain over the radio by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. The declaration was issued on the third of September 1939. -
Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Britain
After failing to secure ‘peace for our time’, and due to his inexperience at running a war, Neville Chamberlain was ousted by his own Conservative Party after Germany began to occupy Norway in April 1940. On the tenth of May, Hitler invaded Holland, Belgium and the Netherlands. This was the day that Chamberlain lost the confidence of the House of Commons. Churchill was appointed as the Prime Minister due to his exceptional military leadership. -
France signs Armistice with Germany
Germany rapidly moved through France in May 1940, pursuing the fleeing French. Paris was abandoned, allowing German forces to march in unopposed. The French Government formally called on the Germans to provide an armistice to end the fighting. The armistice transferred all ports on the English Channel and Atlantic Ocean to Germany, as well as additional land in Northern France. The remainder of France was supposedly ‘free to be governed by the French.’ -
Evacuation of Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo)
Operation Dynamo was the code name for a mass evacuation of Allied troops from Belgium, Britain and France from the beach and the harbour of Dunkirk in France. Because German forces had trapped the Allies against the northern coast of France, it was decided that a retreat through the English Channel was the only option. The evacuation was a success, with nearly 400,000 men being saved. -
Italy enters war on side of Axis
Italy entered the war on the tenth of June 1940. Mussolini felt the conflict would be over soon, so he declared war on Britain and France. His main reason was that he wanted to sit at the ‘inevitable peace conference’ as a ‘man who has fought’. -
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was a military campaign primarily fought between the British RAF and the German Luftwaffe. It was fought from the July 10 1940 and lasted until the thirty-first of July, when the Blitz began. The Battle of Britain is considered to be the first campaign fought by air. The aim of the Luftwaffe was to establish air superiority over Britain to allow a ground invasion of the island. Hitler sought to force Britain into signing an armistice similar to France. -
Operation Sea Lion (Unternehmen Seelöwe)
Operation Sea Lion (Unternehmen Seelöwe) was the name of a proposed invasion of Britain via the English Channel. Germany had acquired the French ports on the other side of the Channel and planned to use them to launch an invasion of the island nation of Britain. The invasion was only to take place if Britain did not seek a peace agreement as the Germans assumed they would after France fell. -
Tripartite Alliance
The Tripartite Alliance was a military agreement between Germany, Japan and Italy, signed on the 27th of September 1940. Later, other countries such as Hungary and Yugoslavia signed the agreement. -
Siege of Tobruk
The Siege of Tobruk was an Allied defensive effort against the combined strength of German and Italian forces. The German Operation Sonnenblume had forced British troops into retreat from their positions towards the Egyptian border. The Allies left behind troops in Tobruk the port. The Germans and Italians began a siege on the area, but the combined strength of British, Australian, Indian, Polish and Czech forces managed to push them back, preventing the port from being captured. -
Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa)
Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Despite signing a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, Hitler authorised an invasion of the country with the aim of totally destroying it and repopulating it with ethnic Germans. -
Bombing of Pearl Harbor
The Battle of Pearl Harbor (Operation AI) was a military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States naval base at Pearl Habor in Hawaii. The attack occurred in the morning of December 7th 1941. Three hundred and fifty-three Imperial fighter planes flew into range of the naval ships and proceeded to drop bombs on them. All eight ships targeted were damaged, and four were sunk. The Japanese had aimed to intimidate the US into staying out of the war, but this failed -
Britain and the United States declare war on the United States
As a result of the Pearl Harbor attacks, President Roosevelt of the United States declared war on the Empire of Japan, prompting Japan’s allies, Germany and Italy to declare war on the United States in return. Britain actually declared war on Japan nine hours before the US did, because of Churchill’s promise to declare war on Japan ‘within the hour’ of a Japanese attack on America. -
Japan takes Singapore
On the 15th February 1942, the Empire of Japan captured Singapore from Britain and its colonies. The fighting lasted from the 8th to the 15th, but previously there had been Allied efforts to stop the Japanese advance towards Singapore. The country was a very important part in the British defense network around the region because it was their main military base in Asia. Singapore was also the site of the largest surrender by British forces in history, with eighty-thousand British taken as POWs. -
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway is one of the more well-known engagements of World War II. It occurred between the 4th and 7th of June 1942. United States and Japanese naval forces engaged in combat around the Midway Islands in the middle of the Pacific. The result of the battle was the victory of the United States, enabling them to continue their Pacific advance towards Japan. -
First Battle of El Alamein
The first battle of El Alamein was an engagement which put German and Italian forces against British Imperial forces from England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India up against one another from the 1st to 27th of July 1942. The Axis were trying to push into Egypt to capture the port cities located there. The Germans and Italians mounted their offence at El Alamein, with the Allies defending from Alexandria. The Allies managed to defend the German-Italian assault, halting the Axis. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a battle on the Eastern Front of World War II that took place from the 23rd of August to the 2nd of February 1943. Nazi Germany, backed by Italy, Romania, Hungary and Croatia, took on the Soviet Union for control over the city of Stalingrad. This battle is seen to be the bloodiest battle in the history of warfare, with an estimated 7.2-2 million casualties as a result of the fighting. Both civilians and military personnel alike were affected in this battle. -
Second Battle of El Alamein
The Second Battle of El Alamein took place on the 23rd of October 1942 all the way to the 11th of November the following month. It took place near the Egyptian railway lines at El Alamein and once again managed to repel the German and Italian attackers, halting the Axis advance through Egypt. -
D-Day
D-Day was a term used to describe the planned beach invasion at Normandy by Allied forces. It was a part of Operation Overlord, which was an invasion of France. D-Day occurred on the 6th of June 1944. Forces from most Allied countries took part in the beach landings, which aimed to establish a command centre in France. D-Day is perhaps the most famous event of World War II, and has been the backdrop of many TV shows and movies, such as Saving Private Ryan. -
Battle of the Bulge (Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein)
The Battle of the Bulge (Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein) was the final German offensive in a last ditch effort to prevent the Allies from crossing the Rhine River into Germany. The battle got its name from the German defensive lines, which resembled a bulge. Historians consider the Battle of the Bulge to be the final nail in Germany’s coffin. From here, the Allies would race towards Berlin, eager to win the war. -
Mussolini dead
Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini was executed by Italian communists on the 18th April 1945. He was shot in the village of Guilino di Mezzegra and had his body hung up in the city of Milan. His corpse was spat on, struck and shot by anti-fascists. -
Hitler commits suicide
Adolf Hitler, the mastermind of the Nazi regime, ended his own life in the Führerbunker on the 30th April 1945 via a pistol shot to the head while simultaneously biting down on a cyanide pill. His wife, Eva Braun also committed suicide with a cyanide pill. After Hitler had learned what had become of Mussolini’s body, he was determined not to give his enemies the same opportunity, and so ordered his remains to be cremated. Some believe the Soviet Union held his remains until their collapse in '91 -
German Forces surrender
On the 7th May 1945, Generaloberst Alfred Jodl signed the surrender of all German forces on both fronts. Jodl attempted to limit the surrender solely to forces fighting on the Western Front but General Eisenhower demanded that the surrender apply to all German forces. Jodl would later be hanged at Nuremberg in 1946 for war crimes and crimes against humanity. -
V.E Day
V.E Day, known as ‘Victory in Europe Day’ marked the end of the war in Europe and the beginning of the Iron Curtain that would later dominate Eastern Europe for around forty-five years. Nazi Germany, then the sole remaining Axis Power in Europe, surrendered all its forces to the Allies. Germany was carved in half, with the American, French and British on Western Germany, and the Soviet Union holding the eastern half of the country. -
Atomic Bombs dropped on Japan
The atomic bomb was the achieved goal of the Allies after several years of research and development in a program called the Manhattan Project. Originally, the plan was to drop the resulting bombs on Germany, but since it had already surrendered, Japan was chosen as a target instead. On the 6th and 9th of August the United States gained the consent of the UK to drop the two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is the only instance in history where nuclear weapons have been used in warfare. -
Soviet Union declares war on Japan
The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on the 9th August 1945. The Soviets invaded Japan and took control of northern Korea, Manchukuo, Mengjiang, Karafuto and the Chishima Islands. After destroying the Japanese Kwangtung army, the Japanese were more partial to the option of surrender. -
Japanese surrender
Japanese forces entered an unconditional surrender to Allied forces on the 2nd of September 1945, four months after their German partners had been defeated. Upon the Japanese surrender, World War II was officially at an end. In the six years of global conflict, an estimated seventy million people lost their lives, making it the bloodiest war in human history. -
United Nations is born
After the war, the victorious Allied nations set up a council to replace the failed League of Nations called the United Nations, or UN. The United Nations was made to prevent another conflict like World War II from happening again by being more involved than its predecessor. At its founding, there were fifty-one members, today there are one hundred and ninety-three. The United Nations has five permanent members, China, the United States, Great Britain, France and Russia.
