Timeline By catrose25 Sep 29, 1937 Nazis and Soviets divide Poland Mar 28, 1939 Spanish Civil War ended Sep 1, 1939 Nazis invade Poland Sep 5, 1939 US declares neutrality Jun 22, 1940 France signs an armistice with the Germans Sep 27, 1940 Tripartite (Axis) Pact signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan Dec 31, 1940 Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives permission to his troops to withdraw from Guadalcanal after five months of bloody fighting against U.S. Forces Mar 11, 1941 President Roosevelt signs the Lend Lease Act Apr 17, 1941 Yugoslavia surrenders to the Nazis Jul 26, 1941 Roosevelt freezes Japanese assets in United States and suspends relations Dec 7, 1941 Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor 1942 Mass murder of Jews by gassing begins at Auschwitz Jan 27, 1942 First Japanese warship sunk by US Feb 8, 1942 Japanese invade Singapore Mar 24, 1942 Chester Nimitz appointed Commander and Chief of the US Pacific theater Apr 10, 1942 Bataan Death March begins Jul 22, 1942 First deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto to concentration camps; Treblinka extermination camp Aug 21, 1942 U.S. Marines repulse first major Japanese ground attack on Guadalcanal Feb 2, 1943 Germans surrender at Stalingrad in the first big defeat of Hitler’s armies May 7, 1943 Allies take Tunisia Jun 6, 1943 D-Day Landings Jun 11, 1943 Himmler orders the liquidation of all Jewish ghettos in Poland May 7, 1944 Unconditional surrender of the Germans to the Allied forces Oct 24, 1944 United Nations is officially born