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In 1919, he joined a struggling group called the National Socialist German Workers Party, better known as the Nazi Party. Nazism the German brand of fascism, was based on extreme nationalism.
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One of the Nazis aims, as Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, was "to secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth", even if this could be accomplished only by "the might of a victorious sword".
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By 1921, Mussolini had established the Fascist Party. Fascism stressed nationalism and placed the interests of the state above those of individuals.
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Ignoring the protests of more moderate Japanese officials, the militarists launched a suprise attack and seized control of the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931.
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Many men who were out of work joined Hitler's private army, the storm troopers (or Brown Shirts).
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In its place he established the Third Reich, or Third German Empire. According to Hitler, the Third Reich would be "a Thousand- Year Reich"- it would last a thousand years.
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In 1935, Hitler began a military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.
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By the fall of 1935, tens of thousands of Italian soldiers stood ready to advance on Ethiopia.
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Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland, a German region bodering France and Belgium that was demilitarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles.
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In 1936, a group of Spanish army officers led by General Francisco Franco, rebelled against the Spanish republic.
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Germany announced that its Anschluss, or "union", with Austria was complete.
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On September 30, 1938, they signed the Munich Agreement, which tuned the Sudetenlad over to Germany without a single shot being fired.
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This invasion was the first test of Germany's newest military strategy, the blitzkrieg, or lightning war.
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By 1939, Stalin had firmly established a totalitarian goverment that tried to extert complete control over its citizens. In a totalitarian state, individuals have no rights, and the goverment suppresses all opposotion.
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The war forged a close relationship between the German and Italian dictators, who signed a formal alliance known as the Rome- Berlin Axis.
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As tensions rose over Poland, Stalin surprised everyone by signikng the nonaggression pact with Hitler.
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On September 3, two days following the terror in Poland, Britian and France declared war on Germany.
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The blitzkrieg had given way to what tje Germans called the sitzkrieg ("sitting war"), and what some newpapers referred to as the phony war.
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Italy entered the war on the side of Germany and invaded France from the south as the Germans closed in on Paris from the north.
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On April 9,1940, Hitler launched a surprise invasion of Denmark and Norway in order "to protect [those countries] freedom and independence."
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Hitler turned against the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May.
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On June 22, 1940, at Compiegne, as William Shirer and the rest of the world watched, Hitler handed French officers his terms of surrender. Germans would occupy the northern part of France, and a Nazi- controlled puppet government, headed by Marshal Phillippe Petain, woulf be set up at VIchy, in southern France.
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In the summer of 1940, the Germans began to assemble an invasion fleet along the French coast.
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Early on a Sunday morning, a Japanese dive-bomber swooped low over Pearl- Harbor- the largbest U.S. naval base in the Pacific.
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After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler ordered submarine raids against ships along America's east coast.
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Convoys were groups of shipd traveling together for mutual protection, as they had done in the First World War.
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The Germany army approached Stalingrad in August 1942 and prepared the way with nightly bombing raids over the city.
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Instead, they launched Operation Torch, an invasion of Axis- controlled North Africa, commanded by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
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At a meeting, the two leaders agreed to accept only the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers.
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On of the hardest battles the Allies encountered was the "Bloody Anzio" lasted four months and left 25,000 Allied and 30,000 Axis casualties.
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The Allied invasion, code- named Operation Overlord, was originally set for June 5, but bad weather forced a delay. Banking on a forecast for clearing skies, Eisenhower gave the go- ahead for D-Day- June 6, 1944, the first day of the invasion.
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Tanks drove 60 miles into Allied territory, creating a bulge in the lines that gave this desperate last- ditch offensive its name, the Battle of the Bulge.
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Hitler shot himself while his wife drank poison. In accordance eith Hitlers orders, the two bodies were carried outside, soaked with gasoline, and burned.
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On May 8, 1945, the Allies celebrated V- E Day- VIctory in Europe Day.
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Vice President Harry S. truman became the nation's 33rd president.
