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The Battle of Britain
After the fall of France at the end of June of 1940, Nazi Germany had only one major enemy left in Western Europe, Great Britain. Overconfident and with little planning, Germany expected to quickly conquer Great Britain by first gaining domination over sirspace and then later sending in ground troops across the English Channel. -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
On the Morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise air attack on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. After just two hours of bombing, more than 2,400 Americans were dead, 21 ships had either been sunk or damaged, and more than 188 U.S. aircraft destroyed. -
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Beginning on April 19, 1943, Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland fought valiantly against the German soldiers who intended to round them up and send them to the Treblinka Death Camp. Despite overwhelming odds, the resistance fighters, known as the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa and led by Mordechai Chaim Anielewicz, used their small cache of weapons to resist the Nazis for 27 days. -
D-Day
In June 1944, the United States and the United Kingdom began the long-awaited attack from the west, the Normandy Invasion called "Operation Overlord". June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, was the very first day of this massive amphibious invasion, which brought thousands of ships, tanks, planes, and troops across the English Channel. -
Hitler Commits Suicide
With the end of World War II imminent and the Russians nearing his underground bunker under the Chancellery building in Berlin, Germany, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler shot himself in the head with his pistol, likely after swallowing cyanide, ending his own life just before 3:30 pm on April 30, 1945. In the same room with Hitler was his new wife, Eva Braun, who ended her life by swallowing a cyanide capsule. -
Winston Churchill Gives His "Iron Curtain" Speech
On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill spoke at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. This speech, commonly called the "Iron Curtain" speech but officially called "The Sinews of Peace," described the split of Europe into democratic and Communist spheres. -
"Dewey Defeats Truman" in the Newspaper
On the morning after the 1948 presidential election, the Chicago Daily Tribune's headline read "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN." That's what the Republicans, the polls, the newspapers, the political writers, and even many Democrats had expected. But in the largest political upset in U.S. history, Harry S. Truman surprised everyone when he, and not Thomas E. Dewey, won the 1948 election for President of the United States. -
U.S. President Truman Orders Construction of Hydrogen Bomb
On January 31st, 1950, Truman announced that he had directed the Atomic Agency Commission 'to continue with its work on all forms of atomic energy weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or super-bomb'. -
Senator Joseph McCarthy Begins Communist Witch Hunt
On February 9th, 1950, McCarthy came forth with a list of people in the State Department who were known members of the American Communist Party. The American public then went crazy over the thought of communists living within the United States, and urged for the investigation of the underground advocates. Some of the people on the list were in fact not communist. -
Korean War Begins
On June 25, 1950, the young Cold War suddenly turned hot, bloody and expensive. Within a few days, North Korea's invasion of South Korea brought about a United Nations' "police action" against the aggressors. That immediately produced heavy military and naval involvement by the United States. While there were no illusions that the task would be easy, nobody expected that this violent conflict would continue for more than three years. -
Truman Signs Peace Treaty With Japan, Officially Ending WWII
President harry S. Truman opened his speech before a conference in San Francisco to broadcast from coast to coast. The speech focused on Truman's acceptance on a treaty that officially ended America's post-World War 2 occupation of Japan. -
Soviet Satellite Sputnik Launches Space Age
On Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviet Union put the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, into the Earth’s orbit, signifying the birth of the Space Age. The spherical satellite, which was about the size of a beach ball and weighed 184 pounds, was able to orbit the Earth in 98 minutes. -
Laika Becomes the First Living Animal to Enter Orbit
The Soviet Union and the United States were in a very heated competition after World War II. Part of this competition was over control of space. As part of this "space race," the Soviets succeeded in putting up the first satellite into space in October 1957. Working hastily, the Soviets launched their second satelliteon November 3, 1957 with a living animal on board. Laika lived through the launch, but died in space since no return plan had been created for her. -
Chinese Leader Mao Zedong Launches the "Great Leap Forward"
The death toll amassed by Mao and his regime range from forty- to seventy-million, eclipsing the Jewish victims of Hitler’s Holocaust by a factor of six to eleven times. Nine years after seizing power, Mao instituted “The Great Leap Forward,” a socioeconomic plan designed to transform China’s agrarian socioeconomic culture towards an industrialized one. The program, which was grounded upon the Marxian prescription for the advancement of industrial technology, -
Soviets Launch First Man in Space
On board Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made history on April 12, 1961 when he became both the first person in the world to enter space and the first person to orbit the Earth. -
Berlin Wall Built
Just past midnight during the night of August 12-13, 1961, East German soldiers and construction workers headed to the border of West and East Berlin. While most Berliners were sleeping, the workers quickly constructed a barrier made of concrete posts and barbed wire along the border.
