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Despite the assurances given by Hitler in the Treaty of Munich, he marched into Czechoslovakia and occupied the country.
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Germany invades Poland, World War II has started
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Britain and France declared war on Germany. Neville Chamberlain broadcast the announcement that the country was at war.
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Hitler launched his blitzkrieg (lightning war) against Holland and Belgium. Rotterdam was bombed almost to extinction. Both countries were occupied.
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Neville Chamberlain resigned after pressure from Labour members for a more active prosecution of the war and Winston Churchill became the new head of the wartime coalition government. Chamberlain gave Churchill his unreserved support. Ernest Bevin was made minister of labour and recruited workers for the factories and stepped up coal production. Lord Beaverbrook, minister of Aircraft Production increased production of fighter aircraft.
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The British commander-in-chief, General Gort, had been forced to retreat to the coast at Dunkirk. The troops waited, under merciless fire, to be taken off the beaches. A call went out to all owners of sea-worthy vessels to travel to Dunkirk to take the troops off the beaches of Dunkirk. More than 338,000 men were rescued, among them some 140,000 French who would form the nucleus of the Free French army under a little known general, Charles de Gaulle.
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Italy entered the war on the side of the Axis powers.
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The French, Marshall Petain, signed an armistice with Germany taking France
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This pact of mutual alliance was signed by Germany, Italy and Japan.
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Hitler sent 3 million soldiers and 3,500 tanks into Russia. The Russians were taken by surprise as they had signed a treaty with Germany in 1939. Stalin immediately signed a mutual assistance treaty with Britain and launched an Eastern front battle that would claim 20 million casualties. The USA, which had been supplying arms to Britain under a 'Lend-Lease' agreement, offered similar aid to USSR.
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Japan attacks Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, U.S. declares war.
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Britain and the United States declared war on Japan.
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Montgomery attacked the German-Italian army in North Africa with a massive bombardment followed by an armoured attack. He then proceeded to chase the routed enemy some 1500 miles across the desert.
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The British and American forces managed to defeat the Axis forces in North Africa
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Mussolini had been thrown out of office and the new government of Italy surrendered to the British and the USA. They then agreed to join the allies. The Germans took control of the Italian army, freed Mussolini from imprisonment and set him up as head of a puppet government in Northern Italy. This blocked any further allied advance through Italy.
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The allies launched an attack on Germany's forces in Normandy, Western France. Thousands of transports carried an invasion army under the supreme command of general Eisenhower to the Normandy beaches. The Germans who had been fed false information about a landing near Calais, rushed troops to the area but were unable to prevent the allies from forming a solid bridgehead. For the allies it was essential to first capture a port.
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The French capital of Paris was liberated from the Germans.
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Victory in Europe was celebrated.
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The Japanese generals refused to surrender. The US dropped an atomic bomb on the island of Hiroshima.
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US General, Douglas MacArthur, accepted Japan's surrender thus formally ending the second world war.
