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VE Day
Victory in Europe Day, 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's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. -
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German Blitxkieg
Germany's strategy was to defeat its opponents in a series of short campaigns one of which is Blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg tactics required the concentration of offensive weapons along a narrow front. These forces would drive a breach in enemy defenses, permitting armored tank divisions to penetrate rapidly and roam freely behind enemy lines, causing shock and disorganization among the enemy defenses. -
Germany's Invasion of Poland
The Invasion of Poland was a invasion of Poland by Germany. German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. With more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes the Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. -
Fall of Paris
The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries during World War Two. -
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, that was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. -
D-Day
The Battle of Normandy (D-Day), which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany's control. -
Battle of the Buge
The last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in eastern Belgium, northeast France, and Luxembourg, towards the end of World War II. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. -
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Marine and Army forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. -
Liberation of Concentration Camps
Soviet soldiers were the first to liberate concentration camp prisoners in the final stages of the war. Although the Germans had attempted to empty the camps of surviving prisoners and hide all evidence of their crimes, the Allied soldiers came upon thousands of dead bodies "stacked up like cordwood," according to one American soldier. The prisoners who were still alive were living skeletons. -
VJ Day
Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as “Victoryover Japan Day,” or simply “V-J Day.” -
Dropping of the Atomic Bombs
The American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A blast equivalent to the power of 15,000 tons of TNT reduced four square miles of the city to ruins and immediately killed 80,000 people.