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The Invasion of Poland, known in Poland as the September Campaign or the 1939 Defensive War, and in Germany as the Poland Campaign, was an invasion of Poland by Germany that marked the beginning of World War II.
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The Phoney War (French: Drôle de guerre; German: Sitzkrieg) was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germany's Saar district.
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The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries during the Second World War.
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Battle of Britain is the name commonly given to the effort by the Luftwaffe to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), before a planned sea and airborne invasion of Britain during the Second World War
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America First Committee, influential political pressure group in the United States (1940–41) that opposed aid to the Allies in World War II because it feared direct American military involvement in the conflict.
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In the Destroyers for Bases Agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom on September 2, 1940, fifty Caldwell, Wickes, and Clemson class US Navy destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy from the United States Navy in exchange for land rights on British possessions.
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The 1940 law instituted conscription in peacetime, requiring the registration of all men between 21 and 35, with selection for one year's service by a national lottery.
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Proposed in late 1940 and passed in March 1941, the Lend-Lease Act was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II
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Roosevelt insisted that people in all nations of the world shared Americans' entitlement to four freedoms: the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom to worship God in his own way, freedom from want and freedom from fear
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USS Kearny (DD-432), a Benson-Livermore-class destroyer, was a United States Navy warship during World War II. She was noted for being torpedoed by a German U-boat in October 1941, before the U.S. had entered the war.
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USS Reuben James (DD-245)—a post-World War I, four-funnel Clemson-class destroyer—was the first United States Navy ship sunk by hostile action in the European theater of World War II and the first named for Boatswain's Mate Reuben James, who distinguished himself fighting in the First Barbary War.
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Pearl Harbor attack, (December 7, 1941), surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island, Hawaii, by the Japanese that precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II.
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The Second Battle of El Alamein was a battle of the Second World War that took place near the Egyptian railway halt of El Alamein. The First Battle of El Alamein and the Battle of Alam el Halfa had prevented the Axis from advancing further into Egyp
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The Battle of Bataan ended on April 9, 1942, when Army Major General Edward P. King surrendered to Japanese General Masaharu Homma
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The Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000–80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war from Saysain Point, Bagac, Bataan and Mariveles to Camp O'Donnell, Capas, Tarlac, via San Fernando, Pampanga, where the prisoners were loaded onto trains.
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The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces from the United States and Australia, taking place in the Pacific Theatre of World War II.
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The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea.
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The Battle of Stalingrad was a brutal military campaign between Russian forces and those of Nazi Germany and the Axis powers during World War II
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The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada.
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The Casablanca Conference was held at the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, French Morocco, from January 14 to 24, 1943, to plan the Allied European strategy for the next phase of World War II. In attendance were United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill
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The Tehran Conference was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embassy in Tehran, Iran
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Leapfrogging, also known as island hopping, was a military strategy employed by the Allies in the Pacific War against Japan and the Axis powers during World War II.
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The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II.
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On October 20, 1944, a few hours after his troops landed, MacArthur waded ashore onto the Philippine island of Leyte.
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In December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp.
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This was the first and only time a president has been inaugurated for a fourth term. (The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1951, limits the number of times a person can be elected president to two.) Roosevelt died 82 days into this term, and Truman succeeded to the presidency
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Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day or simply V Day, was celebrated on 8 May 1945 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces
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Potsdam Conference, (July 17–August 2, 1945), Allied conference of World War II held at Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin.
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This silent footage, in both color and black and white, shows the preparation of the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” atomic bombs on Tinian Island. It includes the takeoff and return of the Enola Gay, which dropped "Little Boy" on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The footage also depicts the mushroom cloud above Nagasaki
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The Yalta Conference, also known as the Crimea Conference and code-named the Argonaut Conference, held from 4 to 11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States
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The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.
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The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Marine and Army forces against the Imperial Japanese Army
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FDR dies. On this day in 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passes away after four momentous terms in office, leaving Vice President Harry S. Truman in charge of a country still fighting the Second World War and in possession of a weapon of unprecedented and terrifying power.
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"Fat Man" was the codename for the nuclear bomb that was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki by the United States on 9 August 1945. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare,
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Victory over Japan Day is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end.
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Nürnberg trials, Nürnberg also spelled Nuremberg, series of trials held in Nürnberg, Germany, in 1945–46, in which former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals by the International Military Tribunal
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In Tokyo, Japan, the International Military Tribunals for the Far East begins hearing the case against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II.
