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The Rape of Nanking was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing. 300,000 people were killed over the course. Commanders encouraged their soldiers to be as brutal as possible. -
Paris fell to Nazi Germany one month after the German Wehrmacht stormed into France. Eight days later, France signed an armistice with the Germans, and a puppet French state was set up with its capital at Vichy. The Fall of France gave the Germans dominance in Continental Europe with no significant allied forces to contest them for two years. Another outcome was that Germany was able to isolate Great Britain from the rest of Europe. -
Germany quickly overran much of Europe and was victorious for more than two years by relying on this new military tactic of "Blitzkrieg." Blitzkrieg tactics required the concentration of offensive weapons (such as tanks, planes, and artillery) along a narrow front. More than 40,000 civilians were killed by Luftwaffe bombing during the war, almost half of them in the capital, where more than a million houses were destroyed or damaged. -
On Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day, Germany unconditionally surrendered its military forces to the Allies, including the United States. On May 8, 1945 - known as Victory in Europe Day or V-E Day - celebrations erupted around the world to mark the end of World War II in Europe. -
The German armies eventually captured some five million Soviet Red Army troops. The Nazis deliberately starved to death or otherwise killed 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, and millions of civilians, as the "Hunger Plan" worked to solve German food shortages and exterminate the Slavic population through starvation. -
In the space of just over an hour, the Japanese had sunk or damaged 18 American warships, including hits to all eight of the fleet's battleships. They destroyed 188 aircraft and severely damaged the base's infrastructure.bThe attack killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, including 68 civilians, and destroyed or damaged 19 U.S. Navy ships, including 8 battleships. -
The Wannsee Conference, held on January 20, 1942 was called to coordinate the "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem". As a result, a network of extermination camps was established in which 1.7 million Jews were murdered in 1942-1943. Many scholars believe that such an order was never issued in writing: instead, it was given orally, by Hitler -
They suffered from starvation, having to sleep in the harsh conditions of the Philippines. The prisoners unable to make it through the march were beaten, killed, and sometimes beheaded. The Bataan Death March has a devastating legacy, with Filipinos suffering disproportionately compared to US troops. -
On September 3, Montgomery's 8th Army began its invasion of the Italian mainland and the Italian government agreed to surrender to the Allies. By the terms of the agreement, the Italians would be treated with leniency if they aided the Allies in expelling the Germans from Italy. -
By June 30, over 850,000 men, 148,000 vehicles, and 570,000 tons of supplies had landed on the Normandy shores. Fighting by the brave soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the allied forces western front, and Russian forces on the eastern front. Finally led to the defeat of German Nazi forces. -
As Allied troops moved across Europe in a series of offensives on Germany, they began to encounter and liberate concentration camp prisoners, many of whom had survived death marches into the interior of Germany. Soviet forces were the first to approach a major Nazi camp, reaching the Majdanek camp near Lublin, Poland. -
The Battle of the Bulge was the US Army's greatest struggle to deny Adolf Hitler's last chance for victory. As 1944 was drawing to a close, the Allied forces could look back on a year of great strides towards victory over the Axis powers. -
n thirty-six days of fighting on the island, nearly 7,000 U.S. Marines were killed. Another 20,000 were wounded. Marines captured 216 Japanese soldiers; the rest were killed in action. The island was finally declared secured on March 26, 1945. -
On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict -
Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day) would officially be celebrated in the United States on the day formal surrender documents were signed aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay: September 2, 1945. But as welcome as victory over Japan was, the day was bittersweet in light of the war's destructiveness.