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Pearl Harbor
December 7, 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant. -
U.S. and Britain join forces
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, United States and Britain joined forces -
War Plans
Prime Minister Churchill arrived at the White House working out war plans with President Roosevelt and his advisors. Churchill convinced Roosevelt to strike first against Hitler because he believed that Germany and Italy posed a greater threat than Japan -
The battle of the Atlantic
The German aim in the Battle of the Atlantic was to prevent food and war materials from reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union. -
Doolittle's Raid
The April 1942 air attack on Japan, launched from the aircraft carrier Hornet and led by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, was the most daring operation yet undertaken by the United States in the young Pacific War. Though conceived as a diversion that would also boost American and allied morale, the raid generated strategic benefits that far outweighed its limited goals. -
Battle of the Coral Sea
The Battle of the Coral Sea from May 7-8 1942, fought in the waters southwest of the Solomon Islands and eastward from New Guinea, was the first of the Pacific War's six fights between opposing aircraft carrier forces. Though the Japanese could rightly claim a tactical victory on "points", it was an operational and strategic defeat for them, the first major check on the great offensive they had begun five months earlier at Pearl Harbor. The diversion of Japanese resources represented by the Cora -
The Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway, 4 - 6 June 1942, fought near the Central Pacific island of Midway, is considered the decisive battle of the war in the Pacific. Before this battle the Japanese were on the offensive, capturing territory throughout Asia and the Pacific. By their attack, the Japanese had planned to capture Midway to use as an advance base, as well as to entrap and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet. -
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The battle of Stalingrad
For weeks the Germans pressed in on Stalingrad, conquering it house by house in brutal hand-to-hand combat In defending Stalingrad, the Soviets lost a total of 1,100,000 soldiers. Despite the death toll, the Soviet victory marked a turning point in the war. From the point on, the Soviet army began to move westward toward Germany -
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North African Front
some 107,000 Allied troops landed in Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers in North Africa, From there they sped eastward, chasing the Afrika Korps led by General Erwin Rommel, After months of heavy fighting, the last of the Afrika Korps surrendered in May 1943 -
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The Italian Campaign
The Allies wanted to establish a position in Italy so they could attach the German territories and resources and relieve the Soviet Union from the German advance. The secondary purpose was to tie up German forces that might be used to resist the channel invasion -
D-Day
the day on which the Allies launched an invasion of the European mainland during World War II -
Liberation of Death Camps
The Soviets entered Majdanek and found a thousand starving prisoners barely alive and a storehouse containing 800,000 shoes -
Battle of the Bulge
the German army launched a counteroffensive that was intended to cut through the Allied forces in a manner that would turn the tide of the war in Hitler's favor -
Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima took place in February 1945. The capture of Iwo Jima was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the Far East. Iwo Jima is a very small Pacific island, which lies at the foot of the Bonin chain of islands, south of the main Japanese island of Honshu. -
Yalta Conference
Yalta Conference, meeting (Feb. 4–11, 1945), at Yalta, Crimea, USSR, of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. Most of the important decisions made remained secret until the end of World War II for military or political reasons; the complete text of all the agreements was not disclosed until 1947. -
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa started in April 1945. The capture of Okinawa was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the Far East.. Okinawa was to prove a bloody battle even by the standards of the war in the Far East but it was to be one of the major battles of WWII. -
Roosevelt's Death
the president had a stroke and died while posing for a portrait in Warm Springs, Georgia -
Unconditional Surrender
the allies celebrated V-E Day- Victory in Europe Day. The War in Europe was finally over -
The Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project is the code name for the US government's secret project that was established before World War II and culminated in the development of the nuclear bomb. The idea of forming a research team to create a nuclear weapon was endorsed in a letter than Einstein sent to Franklin Roosevelt, the president of America at the time. -
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay left the island of Tinian for Hiroshima, Japan. The uranium 235 gun-type bomb, named Little Boy, exploded at 8:16 a.m. In an instant 80,000 to 140,000 people were killed and 100,000 more were seriously injured. -
The Occupation of Japan
At the end of World War II, Japan was occupied by the Allied Powers, led by the United States with a contribution from the British Commonwealth Occupation Force. This foreign presence marked the first time in its history that the island nation had been occupied by a foreign power. -
Nuremberg Trials
No trial provides a better basis for understanding the nature and causes of evil than do the Nuremberg trials from 1947 to 1949. Those who come to the trials expecting to find sadistic monsters are generally disappointed. What is shocking about Nuremberg is the ordinariness of the defendants: men who may be good fathers, kind to animals, even unassuming--yet committed unspeakable crimes.
