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Japan invades Manchuria.
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Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, directed against the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement.
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Japan invades China, initiating World War II in the Pacific.
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Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich agreement which forces the Czechoslovak Republic to cede the Sudetenland, including the key Czechoslovak military defense positions, to Nazi Germany.
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Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression agreement and a secret codicil dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence.
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Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe.
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May 10, 1940–June 22, 1940
Germany attacks western Europe—France and the neutral Low Countries. Luxembourg is occupied on May 10; the Netherlands surrenders on May 14; and Belgium surrenders on May 28. On June 22, France signs an armistice agreement by which the Germans occupy the northern half of the country and the entire Atlantic coastline. In southern France, a collaborationist regime with its capital in Vichy is established. -
Slovakia (November 23), Hungary (November 20), and Romania (November 22) join the Axis.
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Nazi Germany and its Axis partners invade the Soviet Union. Finland, seeking redress for the territorial losses in the armistice concluding the Winter War, joins the Axis just before the invasion. The Germans quickly overrun the Baltic States and, joined by the Finns, lay siege to Leningrad by September. In the center, the Germans capture Smolensk in early August and drive on Moscow by October.
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Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. The United States declares war on Japan, entering World War II.
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Germany and her Axis partners launch a new offensive in the Soviet Union. German troops fight their way into Stalingrad on the Volga River by mid-September and penetrate deep into the Caucasus after securing the Crimean Peninsula.
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The Fascist Grand Council deposes Benito Mussolini, enabling Italian marshall Pietro Badoglio to form a new government.
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Allied troops reach Paris. Free French forces, supported by Allied troops, enter the French capital. By September, the Allies reach the German border; by December, virtually all of France, most of Belgium, and part of the southern Netherlands are liberated.
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Hitler commits suicide.
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The United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
The United States drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. -
Having agreed in principle to unconditional surrender on August 14, 1945, Japan formally surrenders, ending World War II.
