-
Invasion of Poland Marks Beginning of WWII
On this day in 1939, German forces bombard Poland on land and from the air, as Adolf Hitler seeks to regain lost territory and ultimately rule Poland. -
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. -
Germany Invades USSR Opening Eastern Front
Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union: three great army groups with over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks smashed across the frontier into Soviet territory. -
Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor and FDR Declares War
President Franklin Roosevelt called the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor a “date which will live in infamy,” in a famous address to the nation delivered after Japan's deadly strike against U.S. naval and military forces in Hawaii. -
Bataan Death March and Japan takes Philippines
After April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II (1939-45), the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. -
Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Russia, U.S.S.R., during World War II. ... It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies. -
D-Day
The D-Day invasion was officially called Operation Overlord and involved landing 21 American divisions and 26 Polish, British, and Canadian divisions on a 50-mile stretch of beaches in Normandy, France. -
Allies Drive Germans out of North Africa
The British had been fighting the Germans and Italians in North Africa since 1940. Forcing Germany out of North Africa would provide the Allies with an opportunity to invade Italy. -
Atomic Bomb Dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Three Days Later
After relentlessly bombing Japan, they would still not surrender. Truman decided to use the atomic bomb to spare the American lives that would have been lost should we have chosen to invade Japan on foot. -
Victory in Europe Day
Hitler's "thousand-year Reich" or the third Reich ended, lasting only 12 years. On May 7, Germany surrendered in a French schoolhouse that had acted as Eisenhower's headquarters.