-
German & Russian Non-Aggression Pact
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a ten-year nonaggression pact, in which each signatory promised not to attack the other. During the spring of 1941, Hitler initiated his eastern European allies into plans to invade the Soviet Union. -
Invasion of Poland
Germany invaded Poland and World War II began.German aircraft bombarded the Polish town of Wielun. Within days, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany and began mobilizing their armies and preparing their civilians. On September 17, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. Polish forces surrendered in early October after losing some 65,000 troops and many thousands of civilians. -
Evacuation at Dunkirk
Dunkirk, and the evacuation associated with the troops trapped on Dunkirk, was called a "miracle" by Winston Churchill. As the Wehrmacht swept through western Europe in the spring of 1940, using Blitzkrieg, both the French and British armies could not stop the onslaught. For the people in western Europe, World War Two was about to start for real. The "Phoney War" was now over. -
French Resistance
The French Resistance played a vital part in aiding the Allies to success in Western Europe - especially leading up to D-Day in June 1944. The French Resistance supplied the Allies with vital intelligence reports as well as doing a huge amount of work to disrupt the German supply and communication lines within France. -
Battle of Britain
The battle was waged in the skies over the English Channel and England's eastern and southern coast in 1940 and 1941. World War II had broken out in Europe, and Adolf Hitler was determined to subjugate England. The main combatants were the United Kingdom and Germany. The German plan was to unfold in several phases, but all efforts toward that end ultimately failed. The reasons for the failure are just as interesting as the battle itself. -
Lend LeaseAct
This act set up a system that would allow the United States to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the United States." The plan proposed by FDR was to "lend-lease or otherwise dispose of arms" and other supplies needed by any country whose security was vital to the defense of the United States. -
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the name given to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia on June 22nd 1941. Barbarossa the largest military attack of World War Two and was to have appalling consequences for the Russian people. Operation Barbarossa was based on a massive attack based on blitzkrieg. -
Pearl Harbor
The United States navy in the Pacific was anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Besides that, 20 warships were sunk or severely damaged, and approximately 150 airplanes were destroyed.The "surprise" attack lasted less than a few hours. In that time though, 2,400 Americans were killed, with 1,100 deaths solely from the battleship Arizona, and almost 1,200 were wounded -
US Enters World War 2
Japan suddenly pushed the United States into the struggle by attacking the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Four days later Hitler declared war on the United States. President Roosevelt called on Congress for immediate and massive expansion of the armed forces -
Battan Death March
The American and Filipino forces fought until surrendering to the Japanese on April 9. The Japanese began to march 12,000 Americans and 64,000 Filipinos northward into captivity along a route of death.Japanese butchery, disease, exposure to the blazing sun, lack of food, and lack of water took the lives of approximately 5,200 Americans along the way. Many prisoners were bayoneted, shot, beheaded or just left to die on the side of the road.The ordeal lasted five to twelve days. -
Doolittle's Raid
The Doolittle Raid of April 18, 1942 was the first U.S. air raid to strike the Japanese during WWII. It was the only operation in which U.S. Army Air Forces bombers were launched from an aircraft carrier into combat. The raid demonstrated how vulnerable the Japanese islands were to air attack just 4 months after their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Even though the damage was slight, the raid significantly boosted American morale while setting in motion Japanese disasters. -
Midway
The Battle of Midway, fought over and near the tiny U.S. mid-Pacific base at Midway atoll, represents the strategic high water mark of Japan's Pacific Ocean war. Prior to this action, Japan possessed general naval superiority over the United States and could usually choose where and when to attack. After Midway, the two opposing fleets were essentially equals, and the United States soon took the offensive. -
Stalingrad
Adolf Hitler began contemplating offensive plans for 1942. Angered by a perceived lack of progress, Hitler divided Army Group South into two separate units, Army Group A and Army Group B. Possessing the majority of the armor, Army Group A was tasked with capturing the oil fields, while Army Group B was ordered to take Stalingrad to protect the German flank. A key Soviet transportation hub on the Volga River. -
D-Day
During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. -
Battle of the Bulge
Hitler had convinced himself that the alliance between Britain, France and America in the western sector of Europe was not strong and that a major attack and defeat would break up the alliance. Therefore, he ordered a massive attack against what were primarily American forces. The attack is strictly known as the Ardennes Offensive but because the initial attack by the Germans created a bulge in the Allied front line, it has become more commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The American invasion of Iwo Jima was sparked by the desire for a place where B-29 bombers damaged over Japan could land without returning all the way to the Marianas, and for a base for escort fighters that would assist in the bombing campaign.The battle was marked by changes in Japanese defense tactics--troops no longer defended at the beach line but rather concentrated inland; consequently, the marines experienced initial success but then got bogged down in costly attritional warfare. -
VE Day
On Mar. 7 the Western Allies crossed the Rhine after having smashed through the strongly fortified Siegfried Line and overran W Germany. German collapse came after the meeting (Apr. 25) of the Western and Russian armies at Torgau in Saxony, and after Hitler's death amid the ruins of Berlin, which was falling to the Russians under marshals Zhukov and Konev. The unconditional surrender of Germany was signed at Reims on May 7 and ratified at Berlin on May 8. -
Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
At 2:45 a.m. on Monday, August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, took off from Tinian, a North Pacific island in the Marianas, 1,500 miles south of Japan. The first choice target, Hiroshima, The Enola Gay's door sprang open and dropped "Little Boy." The bomb exploded 1,900 feet above the city and only missed the target, the Aioi Bridge, by approximately 800 feet. At 11:02 a.m., the atomic bomb, "Fat Man," was dropped over Nagasaki. The atomic bomb exploded 1,650 feet above the city.
