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Japan invades China, initiating World War II in the Pacific.
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Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich agreement which forces the Czechoslovak Republic to cede the Sudetenland, including the key Czechoslovak military defense positions, to Nazi Germany.
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Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression agreement and a secret codicil dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence.
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Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe.
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Honoring their guarantee of Poland’s borders, Great Britain and France declare war on Germany
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The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east
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Italy invades outhern France on June 21
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Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact
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The Germans send the Afrika Korps to North Africa to reinforce the faltering Italians.
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Bulgaria joins the Axis
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Japan bombs Pearl Harbor
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Entering World War II. Japanese troops land in the Philippines, French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), and British Singapore. By April 1942, the Philippines, Indochina, and Singapore are under Japanese occupation.
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Bringing the war home to Germany for the first time. Over the next three years Anglo-American bombing reduces urban Germany to rubble.
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British troops defeat the Germans and Italians at El Alamein in Egypt, sending the Axis forces in chaotic retreat across Libya to the eastern border of Tunisia.
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The Germans launch a massive tank offensive near Kursk in the Soviet Union. The Soviets blunt the attack within a week and begin an offensive initiative of their own.
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Soviet troops liberate Kiev
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Opening a "Second Front" against the Germans.
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US troops land in the Philippines
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Germany surrender
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Japan formally surrenders, ending world war II
