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On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland, kicking off World War II in Europe. On September 3rd, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany. The German invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, launched the war between the Soviet Union and Germany on June 22, 1941. -
The effective defence of Great Britain against unrelenting and damaging air assaults by the German air force (Luftwaffe) from July to September 1940, following the fall of France, was known as the Battle of Britain. If the Luftwaffe had won the air combat, Great Britain would have been vulnerable to invasion by the German army, which was in possession of the ports of France only a few miles across the English Channel at the time. -
The top surviving German officials were tried after the war for Nazi Germany's atrocities, notably the Holocaust. Their trial took place at Nuremberg, Germany, before an International Military Tribunal (IMT). The trial of 22 senior Nazi criminals was presided over by judges from the Allied powers—the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. -
During World War II, Operation Barbarossa was the code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941, under the original name of Operation Fritz. The failure of German troops to overcome Soviet forces during the campaign marked a pivotal moment in the conflict. -
At 7.48 a.m. local time on December 7, 1941, 177 Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft attacked the US Naval facility at Pearl Harbour on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Their goal was to destroy and damage as much of the US Pacific Fleet as possible before it could respond to Japanese operations in Southeast Asia on the same day. -
Meanwhile, on February 8 and 9, three Japanese divisions landed on Singapore Island, and on February 15, they drove Lieutenant General A.E. Percival's 90,000-strong British, Australian, and Indian garrison to surrender. Due to its powerful seaward defences, Singapore was considered an untouchable British outpost in the Pacific. -
Allied and Soviet soldiers visited detention camps, mass graves, and other sites of Nazi crimes as they advanced across Europe against Nazi Germany in 1944 and 1945. The horrific conditions in which the liberators found themselves shed light on the full scale of Nazi atrocities. -
Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva committed suicide in their Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945. Both swallowed cyanide pills, and he shot himself in the head for good measure, according to testimonies. Outside the bunker, their bodies were burned in the Reich Chancellery garden. Many additional high-ranking Nazis surrendered to police. -
On may the 8th, 1945, the world war 2 ended. Truman declared the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II. The news immediately spread, and jubilation erupted across the country. On September 2, 1945, aboard the USS Missouri, formal capitulation documents were signed, recognising the day as Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day). -
On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, the majority of whom were civilians, and they are still the only time nuclear weapons have been used in a war.