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Germany Invades Poland
One of the first things Hitler did after coming to power was forming a nonaggression pact with Poland in 1934. He only did this to prevent the French-Polish military alliance against Germany. Later on, France and Britain formed a foreign policy of appeasement limiting things from Germany. Hitler was furious about this, invading Poland soon after on Sept 1. The polish army was defeated within a couple of weeks and had it occupied it up to the end of the war in 1945. -
Blitzkrieg in Poland
The Blitzkrieg, also known as the "lighting war", was one of Hitler's tactic in a form of speed and surprise. The Blitzkrieg's target was to attack, penetrate, and encircle Poland. The Germans mostly struck at night. Once Poland figured this out, they had everyone turn off every light in their house, on the streets, ect. They wanted to make it impossible for Germany to fly over Poland and see the lights. Sadly, that tactic didn't work for Poland and by the end of September, Poland surrendered. -
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was an air battle between the Germans and Great Britain. Since Great Britain was Germany's one major enemy they had not taken over, they decided to quickly take over Great Britain. Well, they thought it would be quickly. They started targeting aircrafts and soon after used bombing strategies. Great Britain stayed strong during all this and fought back. Unfortunately, for Germany, they lost leaving Great Britian winning the Battle of Britain. -
Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor
Japan wanted to continue the expanison of Asia, but when the US put an embargo on against the Japanese, they were not too happy about it. So on December 7, 1941, a surprise air attack was launched by the Japanese at the US Naval Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. They had planned this weeks ahead, and although the US knew at some point an attack would soon occur, they had no idea it would come to a place like Pearl Harbor. As a result, 2,402 were killed, 4 ships sunk, and 188 aircraft destroyed. -
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway was fought near the Central Pacific island of Midway. It was considered to be the most important sea battle of World War II. The Japanese put almost their entire fleet into the battle. As the battle started, it was almost all in the air, but soon it developed into the sea level, bombing many ships back and forth. Luckily, the US intercepted the Japanese code, and knew about the attack. US ambushed the Japanese fleet and fought hard against them leading US in victory! -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the major battles of the war and was thought to be the turning point of WWII. The first target that the German Allies sent to was the Volga River. By the end of October, Germans had taken over 90% of the city. Soon after, the Soviets strike back and eventually capture the German field marshal Paulus, leaving Germany to surrender soon after. Overall, the battle cost the lives of 1,168,741 and wounded about 650,000, one of the most worst battles of history. -
D-Day
D-Day, also known as the Battle of Normandy, was fought between the German forces and the Allied nations. Even today, it remains as the largest sea invasion in history. The first day of the invasion, over 156,000 American, Canadian, and British forces landed on a 50-mile stretch of the coast of France-Normandy region. Over the next couple of months, supplies were constantly brought from Utah and the Allies had outnumbered them in both people & artillary. In the end, the Allies took victory. -
Liberation of Auschwitz
The largest concentration camp that the Germans started was called Auschwitz. About 1.3 million Jews were sent to Auschwitz. Later, the Soviet forces forced 60,000 Jews to march to the city of Wodzislaw. During the march, the Soviet soldiers would shoot anyone that was close to dying and/or falling a little behind, resulting in the 15,000 deaths from the march. On January 27, 1945, the Soviets went back to Auschwitz and liberated the remaining 7,000 Jews that survived. -
Surrendering of German Forces and Hitler Commits Suicide
In December, President Churchill and Roosevelt agreed that in order to end the war, they had to defeat Germany first. They started an invasion in France which soon went to the Invasion of Normandy, also known as Operation Overload. Germany fought back but victory came through for the Allies and Germany soon surrendered. On April 30, Hitler and his wife commited suicide and requested their bodies to be burned so there would be no humiliation if the other countries found their bodies. -
Hiroshima Bombing
August 6, 1945, American airmen dropped the atomic bomb "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima. By the end of the war, almost all of Japan's major cities had been destroyed by the US. Two reasons the US chose Hiroshima was because the US wanted a way to make Japan finally surrender & Hiroshima had a high concentration of troops and military forces. They didn't surrender so they dropped a 2nd bomb on Nagasaki. Over the years, all the people that didn't die from it died from radiation later on.
