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Paris Peace Conference and Treaty of Versailles
Generals and the Cabinet met at Berlin to listen to Hitler give out his proclamations. He mentioned that he decided that Germany was going to get an army with 36 divisions, which would be a total of 550,000 men. This was going against Part V of the Treaty of Versailles.
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Nine Power Treaty
The Secretary of State had invited the Great powers to a conference held in Washington, DC. This conference was held to make sure that Japan, the US, Britain, and also France would not disrespect each others dependencies on the Pacific island. This caused a little controversy between countries.
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~Mussolini Takes Over Italy
Mussolini, former revolutionary socialist, took power of Italy, he was already the leading proponent of Facism. He allied himself with HItler and became dictator. Mussolini always had a thirst for great power and this was his big break. He wanted to Re-create the Roman Empire. He took over many countires, and won some battles as well while he was in this high position. He even took over Rome, helped Nationalists win the Spanish Civil War, and took over Ethiopia.
He died in 1945.
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Beer Hall Putsch
This was a Nazi led takeover of the Bavarian government in Germany. The takeover was a complete fail and ended up getting Hitler convicted of treason and was sent to jail for five years! The reason behind this failed takeover was that he was unhappy with the treaty of Versailles and wanted more German pride, along with more anti-Semitism laws.
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Kellogg- Briand Pact
Agreement to outlaw war signed on August 27, 1928. It was also called Pact of Paris. It had little effect on preventing a second World War.
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U.S. Stock Marcket Crash
Worst finactial scare that America has ever seen. October 3rd, the stock prices fell rapidly and people were very scared because of this. No one truly knew what had just happend then.
$25 billion dollars was lost. This event also caused skyrocketing unemployment rates.
Borrowed money had a part in this.
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Japan Invades Manchuria
This was a very bloody event. Japan invaded Manchuria and killed thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians. The League of Nations did nothing to stop this, because they really couldn't do anything.
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Nazi's reach a political majority in Germany
Hitler was chancellor before he ruled over various countries. He started off as chancellor and climbed up the ladder quickly with the help of his thousands of followers. Hitler’s Nazi party was growing every day and quickly rose to the highest political majority in Germany.
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Hitler Becomes Germany's Chancellor
Due to Hitler's growing popularity, his party began getting bigger and this caused him to become chancellor. The SA didn't want him to become chancellor, so they refused that. Nazis had won 230 seats in the government. People convinced Paul von Hindenburg to let Hitler become chancellor.
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Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations
This was a very surprising event for the world. Japan announced to the world out of the blue one day that they would be leaving and wouldn’t be coming back. Everyone was confused and surprised at this action. Some worried what they were up to as well.
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First Anti-Semitic Law is passed in Germany
This rule was created by Nazi leaders. The rule went against Jews from Germany. This law would affect the Jews the most as well. It was the first of the 400 decrees that went against their private and personal lives.It was issued by German administration.
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The Night of The Long Knives (Rohm Purge)
This event was a big killing spree that was formed by Adolf Hitler. It was meant to purge the leadership of Nazi self-militarized formation. Nazi leaders took this and ran with it. They used it as an excuse to kill political enemies. This let Hitler name himself: Führer of National Socialist Germany. He also claimed total power.
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Hitler openly announces to his cabinet he will defy the Treatry of Versailles
This started with Hitler telling everyone he will create a new army in Germany, made up of 36 divisions. That would be a total of over 550,000 men. He also staed he was going to march them into the Rhineland.
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Creation of the Nuremberg Laws
These laws were all anti-Jewish made by Hitler and Germany. This was a big step to “cleansing” Germany and other countries from all Jews and other imperfect peoples that didn’t fit Hitler's standards of blue eyes, white skin, and blonde hair.
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Italy Invades Ethiopia
This was an armed conflict. Halle Selassie apealed to the Leagut of Nations to stop Italy from Invading his country. The League chose appeasement and did nothing to actually stop them.
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Rome-Berlin Axis
This was a cooperation between two groups. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Hitler wanted balanced power between his group and Fascist Italy. This alliance was something Hitler had wanted since the early 20's.
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Japan Takes Nanking
Other names for this is "The Rape of Nanking", "Battle of Nanking", and also "Nanking Massacre".
The reason behind the names is terrible. Japanese soldiers stormed Nanking, China and killed 300,000 civilians. They beheaded people, lined people up against a wall and shot them down, they rgang-raped over 20,000 woman and children, and pregnant woman would have their bellies slit open so someone could tear the baby out, Soldiers would stand by the bodies with smiling faces for pictures.
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Germany Annexes Austria
This was when German troops marched into Austria and annexed the German-speaking parts. They did this for the Third Reich. Hitler came with them. Many crowds of excited people met the troops and Hitler.
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Einstein's letter to FDR, "The Manhattan Project"
Einstein found out about Germans could succeed at making an uranium bomb, he quickly wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt to tell him why he thought it was a bad idea to let them do this. This letter helped the U.S. start the effort to build an atomic bomb to use against enemies.
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Hitler Demands the Sudentenland from Czechoslovakia
Hitler had invaded Austria before this in March of 1938 and he made it very clear he was going to attempt to do the same thing in Sudetenland. Sudetenland was right on the border of what Germany was in 1938. If Germany captured this, they'd get more land. Germany's Sudeten party demanded they's make a union with Germany. Britain and France later gave Sudetenland to Hitler by creating a Pact with him.
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Munich Confrence
At this conference, Hitler gained total domination of Central Europe. This was caused by Chamberlain giving up to Hitler right away instead of fighting for what was his. This mistake lead to Hitler gaining control of the entire Central Europe. If you’ve ever heard the saying “Don’t be a Chamberlain” this event is where it comes from.
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Kristallnacht
The name means “Night of Crystal”. The reason it was named this was because of what happened that night. Nazi party members and officials, along with SA members, had people destroy Jewish synagogues, homes and stores. Glass lined the streets, giving the night the name it received. This was reportedly caused by the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, German embassy official.
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Franco Becomes Spain's Ruler
Francisco Franco led a rebel Nationalist government in Spain. His group defeated the Republican group and became the ruler of Spain.
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Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
This was a non-aggression treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union. It was signed for the reason that it would divide most of Europe into Soviet and German control.
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Nazi Invasion of Poland
Adolf Hitler signed a non-agression pact with the country of Poland in January 1934. Many Germans did not like this even if they supported Hitler. The reason Hitler did this was to neutralize a possibility of the French-Polish military to go against him as an alliance before Germany got to take reign,
Five years later Germany invaded poland. The Polish military couldn't defeat the opposing group. They had to surrender Warsaw to the Germans.
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Evacuation of Dunkirk
This evacuation was formed because the Germans were attacking the Netherlands. The evacuation saved 140,000 French and Belgian troops, and 198,000 British troops as well.
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Battle of Britain
This battle was mainly an airstrike. It was formed so that Germans could get superiority over RAF. They failed horribly at this. That was the big turning point of the war. Germany began to lose various times after this.
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The Tripartite Pact
The Axis Powers were formed by signing this pact. This was mainly a warning to America, who was not involved with the war, not to join the Allies. The pact would make it so that if one nation got attacked, the other nations would pitch in to help.
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Lend Lease Act
This Act was to make sure to provide U.S. military help to other nations. This also meant that the president was allowed to make transfer defense machinery and such. The act allowed the U.S. to be part of the war in a very small way, so they could still be considered to be not truly a part of it.
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Operation Barbarbossa
Hitler launched armies of his to the Soviet Union. This massive invasion was fueled by Hitler’s 3 million soldiers, 150 divisions, and the 3 thousand tanks. This invasion was from the North Cape to the Black Sea. Eve though the Germans seemed to have a huge advantage, they actually lost!
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Bombing of Pearl Harbor
This bombing took place at American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours. The event was terrible and killed more than 2,000 soldiers, and it injured over 1,000 soldiers as well.
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Create of the United Nations
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issue a declaration, signed by representatives of 26 countries, called the “United Nations.” The signatories of the declaration vowed to create an international postwar peacekeeping organization.
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Wannsee Confrence
On this day, fifteen high-ranking Nazi members and German officials met at a villa in Berlin suburb called Wannsee. They discussed the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." This meant that they would discuss how they's get rid of Jews forever. They decided to make extermination and concentration camps to keep them or kill them.
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Bataan Death March
Filipino and American forces who surrendered against Japan after a surprise air raid, were lined up and marched 60 miles in blazing heat, and many died form either getting shot, heat exhaustion, or disese.
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Doolittle Raid
First Air raid from the U.S. This was against Japan. Only operation in which U.S. Army Air Forces bombers were launched from an aircraft carrier into combat.
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Battle of Midway
Considered to be one of the most decisive battles of WWII, it destroyed Japan’s naval strength, and Americans destroyed 4 of their aircrafts. They never completely recovered from this attack.
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Battle of Stalingrad
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Operation Torch
This was the first time British and Americans worked together on an invasion. The plan was to invade Sicily and then the mainland of Italy and move to the “soft underbelly” of Europe. They also planned to invade Algeria and Morocco. This was a dangerous trip because 60,000 troops for the French were in Morocco. They didn’t fight the French, but won their cooperation instead. This was a victory.
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D-Day & Operation Overload
D-Day was a battle that Americans, Canadian, and British soldiers fought together. It was along France’s northern coast. This was against Germany. The weather for this battle was so bad they had to delay it 24 hours. The weather the day of was better. around 156.000 allied troops had stormed Normandy’s beaches. Over 4,000 of the troops lost their lives. it was a success.
Operation Overload was the allied invasion of France. It happened right after D-Day. Not as many casualties.
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Discovery of Majdanek
Majanek was a concentration camp that was left unnoticed for years. It was found and surprized everyone at the terrible sight. Thousands of dead Jews were found laying around in rooms and outside. There were Jews that were alive, most barely alive.
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Operation Valkyrie Fails
This was an attemt to kill Hitler. High German officials decided to kill Hitler bcause of his bad descisions and over power over countries. A man took the chance to assassinate him and put a bomb in a suitcase. Hitler narrowly escaped the attack.
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Battle of the Bulge
Hitler tried splitting the Allies in NW Europe so he did a surprise blitzkrieg like he had done in other events. The Americans fought the battles to stem the German advance at other places. The casualties of this battle were great on each side. The germans had put more force with their troops at the Ardennes. This was the deadliest battle of the entire war. The battle was also the costliest action ever by the U.S Army. We suffered over 100,000 casualties during this.
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V-J Day
This day was the official victory over Japan. Its also known as “Victoryover Japan Day”. Japan’s formal surrender happened on the U.S.S. Missouri, in Tokyo Bay. The news came from the president, Harry S. Truman, at the White House. After hearing the news, people celebrated in the streets, cheered, and partied there as well.
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Hitler Commits Suicide
Hitler, while in he was in his air-raid bunker, decides to take a cyanide capsule and shoot himself in the head with a pistol. The reason he did this was because he found out that Russians were going to take over Berchtesgaden, where Hitler owned a house. He decided he and and his wife would take a cyanide capsule. The bunker survivors cremated them in the garden.
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V-E Day
This day is when Germans surrendered. Since Hitler committed suicide, it was left to grand Admiral Doenitz to surrender. He went to General Eisenhower’s HQ (at Reims, France) and surrendered to Western and Russian demands. British people quickly began to celebrate. The next day, people gathered at London, England to listen to Churchill over a radio broadcast. This was almost the end of WWII.
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Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagaski
This was when American B-29 bomber plane droppped the first atomic bomb. They dropped it onto the city of Hiroshima in Japan. The explosion killed 80,000 people, wiped out 90% of the entire city, and killed thousands later from the exposure to radiation. Three days later they dropped another bomb onto the cuty of Nagasaki, killing a mass of about 40,000 people. After this, Japan surrendered.
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Japenese War Crime Trials
Tokyo, Japan, the International Military Tribunals hear that Japan did war crimes during WWII. These trials ended on November 4, 1948. 25 of the 28 Japenese defendants would be found guilty and two of the three defendants not found guilty would die.
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