Word War II Era Timeline

By Krista Kostka

  • Hitler and the Nazi Party

    Hitler and the Nazi Party
    Hitler became leader of the Nazi Party.

  • Benito Mussolini becomes Prime Minister

    Benito Mussolini becomes Prime Minister

  • Stalin becomes dictator

    Stalin becomes dictator

  • Japan’s Army seizes Manchuria, China

  • Hitler became chancellor of Germany

    Hitler became chancellor of Germany

  • Italian Army invades Ethiopia in Africa

  • Neutrality Act passed by US Congress

  • Hitler sends troops into Rhineland of Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty

  • Militarist take control of Japanese Government

  • Japan’s army pillages Nanjing, China; massacre a quarter of a million people.

  • Nazis begin rounding up Jews for labor camps

    Nazis begin rounding up Jews for labor camps

  • Munich Pact signed giving the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany

  • Nazi-Soviet Pact signed by Hitler and Stalin

  • Nazis invade Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany

  • Nazis invade Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium – take control

  • Germany invades France and forces it to surrender

  • First time Peacetime Draft in US

  • Battle of Britain – Royal Air Force defeats German Air Force to prevent invasion of their island

  • Churchill and FDR issue the Atlantic Charter

  • Japanese invade French Indochina (Viet. Laos, Cambodia)

  • Hitler breaks Pact with Stalin’s Russia and invades -USSR now joins England in fighting the Germans

  • Pearl Harbor in Hawaii attacked by Japanese Naval and Air forces, US declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy declare war on the US

  • Japanese Americans interned in isolated camps

  • Philippines fall to Japanese – Bataan Death March

  • Battle of Midway, turning point of war in the Pacific

  • Russians stop Nazi advance at Stalingrad save Moscow

  • Zoot Suit Riots – Los Angeles, CA

  • British and US forces defeat German and Italian armies in North Africa

  • Italy surrenders, Mussolini dismissed as Prime Min.

  • D-Day invasion of France at Normandy by Allies

  • Paris retaken by Allies Forces

  • US forces return to recapture the Philippines

  • FDR dies, Harry S. Truman becomes President

  • V-E Day, war ends in Europe

  • First Atomic Bombs dropped

  • V-J Day, Japan surrenders to Allied Forces

  • Period: to

    Nuremberg Trials

    The war crime trials held in Nuremberg, Germany during this time.