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Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the Nazi Party
It grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany through totalitarian. -
Benito Mussolini appointed Prime Minister of Italy
Rose to power in the wake of World War I as a leading proponent of Fascism. -
Josef Stalin sole dictator of the Soviet Union (USSR)
The Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. -
Japan’s Army seizes Manchuria, China
Just one week before Japan invaded Manchuria, Viscount Cecil, Britain’s chief representative at the League of Nations, said in a speech to the League. -
Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany
Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The supposed one thousand year Reich had started. -
Italian Army invades Ethiopia in Africa
The League of Nations was faced with another crucial test. Benito Mussolini, the Fascist leader of Italy, had adopted Adolf Hitler's plans to expand German territories by acquiring all territories it considered German. -
Neutrality Acts passed by US Congress
Prohibiting the export of arms, ammunition, and implements of war from the United States to foreign nations at war and requiring arms manufacturers. -
Militarist take control of Japanese Government
The extreme nationalism fostered by the Meiji and Showa Imperial governments combined with traditional Japanese militarism to make life increasingly difficult, and often dangerous, for moderates in the imperial government. -
Hitler sends troops into Rhineland of Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty
France signed a treaty of friendship and mutual support with the USSR. Germany claimed the treaty was hostile. -
Japan’s army pillages Nanjing, China; massacre a quarter of a million people
Mass murder committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing, then the capital of the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. -
Nazis begin rounding up Jews for labor camps
A widespread Nazi German World War II military tactic used in occupied countries. -
Munich Pact signed giving the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany
The agreement averted the outbreak of war but gave Czechoslovakia away to German conquest. -
Nazis invade Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany
Response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany. -
Nazi-Soviet Pact signed by Hitler and Stalin
Broke out in Europe–enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the german soviet nonaggression pact. -
Nazis invade Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium – take control
Spanish civil war had ended in March, 1939, after killing about one million people. Franco's forces began a bloodbath against targeted opponents, while Franco also began programs to rebuild war-damaged communities. -
Battle of Britain begins – Royal Air Force defeats German Air Force to prevent invasion of their island
The primary objective of the Nazi German forces was to compel Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement. In July 1940, the air and sea blockade began with the Luftwaffe mainly targeting coastal shipping convoys, ports and shipping centres, such as Portsmouth. -
22 Germany invades France and forces it to surrender
German plan for the invasion of France consisted of two main operations. In Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes and then along the Somme valley, cutting off and surrounding the Allied units that had advanced into Belgium, to meet the expected German invasion. -
First time Peacetime Draft in US
Was the first peacetime conscription in United States history. This Selective Service Act required that men who had reached their 21st birthday but had not yet reached their 36th birthday register with local draft boards. -
Japanese invade French Indochina (Viet. Laos, Cambodia)
France was swiftly defeated by Nazi Germany, and colonial administration of French Indochina, modern-day Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, passed to the Vichy French government, a Puppet state of Nazi Germany. -
Hitler breaks Pact with Stalin’s Russia and invades - USSR which now joins England in fighting the Germans
Aftermath of the First World War. -
Churchill and FDR issue the Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration released by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on August 14, 1941 following a meeting of the two heads of state in Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter provided a broad statement of U.S. and British war aims. -
Pearl Harbor in Hawaii attacked by Japanese Naval and Air forces, US declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy declare war on the US - Dec. 9
Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions they planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. -
Philippines fall to Japanese – Bataan Death March
U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II. -
Russians stop Nazi advance at Stalingrad save Moscow
Second World War centers on how—or if—the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, code-named Operation Barbarossa, could have achieved a quick victory. -
Japanese Americans interned in isolated camps
United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in camps in the interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese. -
Battle of Midway, turning point of war in the Pacific
It was a turning point in the Pacific War. Before the Battle of the Coral Sea. -
Zoot Suit Riots – Los Angeles, CA
Conflict between American servicemen stationed in Southern California and Mexican-American youths. -
British and US forces defeat German and Italian armies in North Africa
The campaign was fought between the Allies and Axis powers, many of whom had colonial interests in Africa dating from the late 19th century. -
Italy surrenders, Mussolini dismissed as Prime Min.
Mussolini was expelled from the PSI for withdrawing his support for the party's stance on neutrality in World War I. He served in the Royal Italian Army during the war until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. -
D-Day invasion of France at Normandy by Allies
Eisenhower gives the go-ahead for the largest amphibious military operation in history. -
Paris retaken by Allies Forces
The liberation began when the French Forces of the Interior—the military structure of the French Resistance—staged an uprising against the German garrison upon the approach of the US Third Army, led by General George Patton. -
Battle of the Bulge – last offensive of German Forces
Was the last major German offensive campaign of World War II. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg, on the Western Front, towards the end of World War II, in the European theatre. -
US forces return to recapture the Philippines
Was the American and Filipino campaign to defeat and expel the Imperial Japanese forces occupying the Philippines, during World War II. The Japanese Army overran all of the Philippines during the first half of 1942. -
FDR dies, Harry S. Truman becomes President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt 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. -
V-E Day, war ends in Europe
Generally known as V-E Day, VE Day or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany. -
V-J Day, Japan surrenders to Allied Forces
The surrender of Imperial Japan was announced on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close. -
First Atomic Bombs dropped
Warned by some of his advisers that any attempt to invade Japan would result in horrific American casualties, ordered that the new weapon be used to bring the war to a speedy end. -
War Crimes Trials held in Nuremberg, Germany; Manila, Philippines and Tokyo, Japan.
Twenty-eight Japanese military and political leaders were charged with waging aggressive war and with responsibility for conventional war crimes. More than 5,700 lower-ranking personnel were charged with conventional war crimes in separate trials convened by Australia, China, France, The Netherlands, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States.