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Benito Mussolini's so-called march on Rome took place in Italy. This moment was of global importance. It marked the first fascist takeover of power in the world, set in place a regime that would govern for 20 years, and inspired other far-right movements. -
Serving in the Russian Civil War before overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in 1922, Stalin assumed leadership over the country following Lenin's death in 1924. -
Mein Kampf (which means "My Struggle") promoted the key components of Nazism: rabid antisemitism, a racist worldview, and an aggressive foreign policy geared toward gaining living space in Eastern Europe. -
The first five year plan was created in order to initiate rapid and large-scale industrialization across the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Having begun on October 1st, 1928, the plan was already in its second year when Harry Byers first set foot in the Soviet Union. -
The Japanese butchered an estimated 150,000 male “war prisoners,” massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed in the process. FDR responded by freezing Japanese assets in the U.S. and imposing economic sanctions, including an oil embargo. -
Seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industries, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. By 1937 Japan controlled large sections of China, and war crimes against the Chinese became commonplace. -
Feeling threatened by Ukraine's strengthening cultural autonomy, Stalin took measures to destroy the Ukrainian peasantry and the Ukrainian intellectual and cultural elites to prevent them from seeking independence for Ukraine. -
The Nazi Party assumed control of the German state when German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler as Chancellor at the head of a coalition government. The Nazis and the German Nationalist People's Party are coalition members. -
In 1934, Stalin used the murder of Sergey Kirov as a pretext to launch the Great Purge, in which about a million people perished (see § Number of people executed). Some later historians came to believe that Stalin arranged the murder, or at least that there was sufficient evidence to reach such a conclusion. -
The Night of the Long Knives represented a triumph for Hitler and a turning point for the German government. It established Hitler as "the supreme leader of the German people", as he put it in his 13 July speech to the Reichstag. -
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression that was fought between Italy and Ethiopia from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia, it is often referred to simply as the Italian Invasion, and in Italy as the Ethiopian War. -
The Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. These laws embodied many of the racial theories underpinning Nazi ideology. They would provide the legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany. -
The Spanish Civil War of 1936 was the bloodiest conflict Western Europe had experienced since the end of World War I in 1918. It was the breeding ground for mass atrocities. About 200,000 people died as a result of systematic killings, mob violence, torture, or other brutalities. -
The Anti-Comintern Pact was an agreement between Germany, Italy, and Japan, that they would work together to stop the spread of Communism around the globe. This was aimed squarely at the USSR. Germany and Italy had worked well during the Spanish Civil War and had brought about a fascist victory over communism -
Nazi leaders unleashed a series of pogroms against the Jewish population in Germany and recently incorporated territories. This event came to be called Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) because of the shattered glass that littered the streets after the vandalism and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes.