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Mussolini Takes Controll of Italy
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism. -
U.S. Stock Market Crashes
Also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States. -
Japan Siezes Manchuria
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on September 19, 1931, when Manchuria was invaded by the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan immediately following the Mukden Incident. The Japanese established a puppet state, called Manchukoku, and their occupation lasted until the end of World War II. -
Japan Invades China
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the war merged into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front. -
Hitler Defies the Treaty of Versailles
In March 1936, Hitler took what for him was a huge gamble - he ordered that his troops should openly re-enter the Rhineland thus breaking the terms of Versailles once again. He did order his generals that the military should retreat out of the Rhineland if the French showed the slightest hint of making a military stand against him. This did not occur. Over 32,000 soldiers and armed policemen crossed into the Rhineland -
FDR Elected President
The 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war. -
Hitler Named Chancelor of Germany
After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His avowed aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe. -
France Militrizes the Rhineland
In 1920, under massive French pressure, the Saar was separated from the Rhine Province and administered by the League of Nations until a plebiscite in 1935, when the region was returned to the German Reich. It wasnt untill 1935 that the French began to once again build up fortifications in preperation of German advancements. -
U.S. Neutrality Act
The Neutrality Acts were laws that were passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in the US following its costly involvement in World War I, and sought to ensure that the US would not become entangled again in foreign conflicts. -
Italy Invades Ethiopia
The invasion was known as The Second Italo–Abyssinian War .The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire. The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia and its annexation into the newly created colony of Italian East Africa. -
Civil War in Spain
A group of right-wing generals under the leadership of José Sanjurjo against the Government of the Second Spanish Republic, at the time under the leadership of President Manuel Azaña. The rebel coup was supported by a number of conservative groups including the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right, monarchists such as the religious conservative Carlists, and the Fascist Falange. -
Anschluss
The Anschluss was also known as the Anschluss Österreichs. It was the occupation and annexation of the German Republic Austria into Nazi Germany. -
Munich Conference
The Munich Pact put into effect at the Munich Conference. It was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without the presence of Czechoslovakia. -
Kristallnacht
A series of co-ordinated attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria, carried out by SA stormtroopers and civilians. -
Nazi-Soviet Pact
Publicly, this agreement stated that the two countries - Germany and the Soviet Union - would not attack each other. If there were ever a problem between the two countries, it was to be handled amicably. The pact was supposed to last for ten years; it lasted for less than two. -
Germany Invades Poland
This was one of the first steps that Hitler took to building up his new Reich and one of the most devestating. -
Phony War
This was the time period before the fighting actually began between both sides and noone one thought that there was going to be any fighting going on, but they were terribly wrong for this would be one of the bloodiest wars of all time, -
Churchill Elected Prime Minister of England
Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century, he served as Prime Minister twice. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British prime minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an Honorary Citizen of the United States. -
Miracle at Dunkirk
The evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, France, between 26 May and the early hours of 3 June 1940, because the British, French and Belgian troops were cut off by the German army during the Battle of Dunkirk in the Second World War. -
Frane Surrenders
France surrenered at the Battle of France. It was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb, German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and surround the Allied units that had advanced into Belgium. During the fighting, the British Expeditionary Force and many French soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. -
Japan Siezes French Indocina
The Japanese Invasion of French Indochina , also known as the Vietnam Expedition, was a move by the Empire of Japan in September 1940, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, to prevent China from importing arms and fuel through French Indochina, via the Sino-Vietnamese Railway from the port of Haiphong through Hanoi to Kunming in Yunnan. Japan occupied northern Indochina, which tightened the blockade of China, and made continuation of the drawn out Battle of South Guangx -
Lend-Lease Act
This act was passed by FDR to give the US permission to create the weapons and artillary to give to England so that they could fight the war against Germany, instead of the U.S. -
Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a pivotal policy statement first issued in August 1941 that early in World War II defined the Allied goals for the post-war world. It was drafted by Britain and the United States, and later agreed to by all the Allies. The Charter stated the ideal goals of the war: no territorial aggrandizement; no territorial changes made against the wishes of the people; restoration of self-government to those deprived of it; and free access to raw materials. -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941.
