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1943 BCE
Zoot Suit Riots – Los Angeles, CA
Conflict between American servicemen stationed in Southern California and Mexican-American youths -
1942 BCE
Japanese Americans interned in isolated camps
The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in camps in the interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast -
1942 BCE
Russians stop Nazi advance at Stalingrad save Moscow
The German Army never fully recovered from the beating it took in Russia around Moscow and elsewhere during the winter of 1941-42 when it suffered over a million casualties. For a time, the entire Eastern Front had teetered on the verge of collapse as division upon division of well-equipped Russians materialized seemingly out of nowhere and attacked. -
1921, Jan. 30 Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the Nazi Party
he took over the leadership of the party, by then renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), and, less than 12 years later, it had become the largest party in Germany and Hitler was Reich Chancellor. -
Benito Mussolini appointed Prime Minister of Italy
ose to power in the wake of World War I as a leading proponent of Facism. Originally a revolutionary Socialist, he forged the paramilitary Fascist movement in 1919 and became prime minister in 1922. -
Josef Stalin sole dictator of the Soviet Union (USSR)
was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. -
Japan’s Army seizes Manchuria, China
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on September 18, 1931, when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria immediately following the Mukden Incident. The Japanese established a puppet state called Manchukuo, and their occupation lasted until the end of World War II. -
Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany
President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader or fÜhrer of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), as chancellor of Germany. -
Neutrality Acts passed by US Congress
Congress passed the first Neutrality Act prohibiting the export of “arms, ammunition, and implements of war” from the United States to foreign nations at war and requiring arms manufacturers in the United States to apply for an export license.
The Neutrality Acts, 1930. -
Italian Army invades Ethiopia in Africa
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a colonial war that started in October 1935, after a battle on 5 December 1934, and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire (also known at the time as Abyssinia). The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia. -
Hitler sends troops into Rhineland of Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty
France signed a treaty of friendship and mutual support with the USSR. Germany claimed the treaty was hostile to them and Hitler used this as an excuse to send German troops into the Rhineland in March 1936, contrary to the terms of the treaties of Versailles and Locarno. -
Hitler sends troops into Rhineland of Germany in violation of the Versailles
France signed a treaty of friendship and mutual support with the USSR. Germany claimed the treaty was hostile to them and Hitler used this as an excuse to send German troops into the Rhineland in March 1936, contrary to the terms of the treaties of Versailles and Locarno. -
Militarist take control of Japanese Government
Following the German victory in the Franco-Prussian War, the Army Staff College and the Japanese General Staff paid close attention to Major Jakob Meckel's views on the superiority of the German military model over the French system as the reason for German victory. In response to a Japanese request, -
Japan’s army pillages Nanjing, China; massacre a quarter of a million people.
The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanking then spelled Nanking, then the capital of the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War -
Nazis begin rounding up Jews for labor camps
was a widespread Nazi German World War II military tactic used in occupied countries, especially in German-occupied Poland, whereby the SS, Wehrmacht and RSHA ambushed at random thousands of civilians on the streets of subjugated cities for enforced deportation -
Munich Pact signed giving the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany
The Munich Agreement was a settlement permitting Nazi Germany's annexation of portions of Czechoslovakia along the country's borders mainly inhabited by German speakers, for which a new territorial designation "Sudetenland" was coined. The agreement was signed in the early hours of 30 September 1938 (but dated 29 September) after being negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe, excluding the Soviet Union. -
Nazi-Soviet Pact signed by Hitler and Stalin
shortly before World War II (1939-45) broke out in Europe–enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years. -
Nazis invade Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany
in response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany. -
Nazis invade Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium – take control
The Spanish civil war had ended in March, 1939, after killing about one million people. Franco's forces began a bloodbath against targeted opponents, while Franco also began programs to rebuild war-damaged communities. The German and Italian military men in Spain returned home. And in September, when Germany attacked Catholic Poland, Catholic Spain was disconcerted, and Franco declared Spain to be neutral. -
Battle of Britain begins – Royal Air Force defeats German Air Force to prevent invasion of their island
was a combat of the Second World War, when the Royal Air Force (RAF) defended the United Kingdom (UK) against the German Air Force -
Germany invades France and forces it to surrender
The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries in 1940 during the Second World War. In six weeks from 10 May 1940, German forces defeated Allied forces by mobile operations and conquered France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, bringing land operations on the Western Front to an end until 6 June 1944. Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940 and attempted an invasion of France. -
First time Peacetime Draft in US
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, also known as the Burke-Wadsworth Act, enacted September 16, 1940,[ was the first peacetime conscription in United States history. This Selective Service Act required that men who had reached their 21st birthday but had not yet reached their 36th birthday register with local draft boards. -
Churchill and FDR issue the Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a pivotal policy statement issued on 14 August 1941, that defined the Allied goals for the post-war world. The leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States drafted the work and all the Allies of World War II later confirmed it. -
Hitler breaks Pact with Stalin’s Russia and invades - USSR which now joins England in fighting the Germans
the Second World War are more controversial and ideologically loaded than the issue of the policies of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin towards Nazi Germany between the Nazi seizure of power and the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941. -
Japanese invade French Indochina
the Japanese invaded Vichy French Indochina o prevent the Republic of China from importing arms and fuel through French Indochina along the Sino-Vietnamese Railway, from the port of Haiphong through Hanoi to Kunming in Yunnan. -
Pearl Harbor in Hawaii attacked by Japanese Naval and Air forces, US declares war on Japan,Germany and Italy declare war on the US - Dec. 9
Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions they planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines -
Philippines fall to Japanese – Bataan Death March
U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II, the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. -
Battle of Midway, turning point of war in the Pacific
The Battle of Midway was a turning point in the Pacific War. Before the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7-8 May 1942, the Imperial Navy of Japan had swept aside all of its enemies from the Pacific and Indian oceans. -
British and US forces defeat German and Italian armies in North Africa
The campaign was fought between the Allies and Axis powers, many of whom had colonial interests in Africa dating from the late 19th century. The Allied war effort was dominated by the British Commonwealth and exiles from German-occupied Europe. The United States entered the war in December 1941 and began direct military assistance in North Africa on 11 May 1942. -
Italy surrenders, Mussolini dismissed as Prime Min.
He ruled constitutionally until 1925, when he dropped all pretense of democracy and set up a legal dictatorship. -
D-Day invasion of France at Normandy by Allies
Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the go-ahead for the largest amphibious military operation in history: Operation Overlord, code named D-Day, the Allied invasion of northern France. -
Paris retaken by Allies Forces
vwas a military action that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. Paris had been ruled by Nazi Germany since the signing of the Second Compiègne Armistice on 22 June 1940 -
Battle of the Bulge – last offensive of German Forces
was the last major German offensive campaign of World War II. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg, on the Western Front, towards the end of World War II, in the European theatre. -
US forces return to recapture the Philippines
was the American and Filipino campaign to defeat and expel the Imperial Japanese forces occupying the Philippines, during World War II. The Japanese Army overran all of the Philippines during the first half of 1942. The Liberation of the Philippines commenced with amphibious landings on the eastern Philippine island of Leyte on October 20, 1944 -
FDR dies, Harry S. Truman becomes President
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. -
V-E Day, war ends in Europe
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day or simply V Day was the public holiday 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. It thus marked the end of World War II in Europe. -
V-J Day, Japan surrenders to Allied Forces
The surrender of Imperial Japan was announced on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. -
First Atomic Bombs dropped
President Harry S. Truman, warned by some of his advisers that any attempt to invade Japan would result in horrific American casualties, ordered that the new weapon be used to bring the war to a speedy end. On August 6, 1945, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. -
War Crimes Trials held in Nuremberg, Germany; Manila, Philippines and Tokyo, Japan.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trials or the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was convened on April 29, 1946, to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of war crimes. "Class A"; "Class B"
