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Joseph Stalin was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower.
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talian dictator Benito Mussolini rose to power in the wake of World War I as a leading proponent of Facism.
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It was a blueprint of his agenda for a Third Reich and a clear exposition of the nightmare that will envelope Europe from 1939 to 1945. The book sold a total of 9,473 copies in its first year.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt was in his second term as governor of New York when he was elected as the nation’s 32nd president in 1932.
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Adolf Hitler, already chancellor, is also elected president of Germany in an unprecedented consolidation of power in the short history of the republic.
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German troops march into Austria to annex the German
speaking nation for the Third Reich. -
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler violates the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact by sending German military forces into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone along the Rhine River in western Germany.
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German forces bombard Poland on land and from the air, as Adolf Hitler seeks to regain lost territory and ultimately rule Poland. World War II had begun.
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In response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany.
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Axis powers are formed as Germany, Italy, and Japan become allies with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Berlin.
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German and British air forces clashed in the skies over the United Kingdom, locked in the largest sustained bombing campaign to that date. A turning point of World War II
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-Last battle in North Africa
-Rommels Afrika Korps retreats to Tunisia just before annihilation
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Just before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. It lasted two hours, but it was devastating
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America’s Pacific fleet lay in ruins at Pearl Harbor, so President Franklin Roosevelt requests, and gets a declaration of war against Japan.
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Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States, bringing America, which had been neutral, into the European conflict.
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- America’s first battle of WW2 against the Germans
- Another Allied victory over the Afrika Korps that sent them into retreat
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Two months after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, U.S. President FDR signed Executive Order 9066 ordering all Japanese-Americans to evacuate the West Coast.
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the United States defeated Japan in one of the most decisive naval battles of World War II. Thanks in part to major advances in code breaking, the United States was able to preempt and counter Japan’s planned ambush of its few remaining aircraft carriers, inflicting permanent damage on the Japanese Navy. An important turning point.
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Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies.
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- first major offensive victory for the Allies in the Pacific Theater
- Air base was strategic in controlling lines of communication between U.S. and Australia
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the U.S. began its Central Pacific Campaign against Japan by seizing the heavily fortified, Japanese-held island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.
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Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region.
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Allied landing at the Philippine island of Leyte in October 1944. The Japanese sought to converge three naval forces on Leyte Gulf, and successfully diverted the U.S. Third Fleet with a decoy.
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Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. Caught off-guard, American units fought desperate battles to stem the German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and Bastogne.
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Soviet troops enter Auschwitz, Poland, freeing the survivors of the network of concentration camps, and finally revealing to the world the depth of the horror.
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Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops, who fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations. Despite the difficulty of the conditions, the marines wiped out the defending forces after a month of fighting, and the battle earned a place in American lore with the publication of a photograph showing the U.S. flag being raised in victory.
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-Last and biggest battle of the Pacific Islands
-Island provided air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan -
President FDR passes away after four momentous terms in office, leaving Vice President Harry S. Truman in charge of a country still fighting the Second World War.
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Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany, burrowed away in a refurbished air-raid shelter, consumes a cyanide capsule, then shoots himself with a pistol, as his “1,000-year” Reich collapses above him.
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German High Command, in the person of General Alfred Jodl, signs to surrender of all German forces.
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Both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, happy about the defeat of the Nazi.
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The United States becomes the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
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A second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan’s unconditional surrender.
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On August 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II.
