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German invasion of Poland
One of Adolf Hitler's first major foreign policy initiatives after coming to power was to sign a nonaggression act with Poland in January 1934. Hitler used the attack in thoughts of neutralizing the French-Polish millitary alliance against Germany. Neither Britain nor France in 1938 was militarily prepared to fight a war against Nazi Germany. -
Japanese Invasion of China
The Japanese invasion on China was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. China fought Japan with the aid of German firepower on their side aswell. The Japanese fought many battles such as the battle of Shanghai. It accounted for the majority of civilian and military casualties between 10 and 25 million Chinese civilians and over 4 million Chinese and Japanese military personnel dying from war-related violence and famine. -
German Blitzkrieg
A German term for “lightning war,” blitzkrieg is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower. Its successful execution results in short military campaigns, which preserves human lives and limits the expenditure of artillery. German forces tried out the blitzkrieg in Poland in 1939 before successfully employing the tactic with invasions of Belgium, the Netherlands and France in 1940. -
Pearl Harbor
Japan and the United States had been edging toward war for decades. The United States was particularly unhappy with Japan’s increasingly belligerent attitude toward China, Japan thought the only way to resolve the issues with the country and the United States, was by an aerial attack on the millitary harbor of the United States. This then led to World War 2 with US and Japan. The plan of the Japanese involved: Destroy the Pacific Fleet. -
D-Day
With Hitler’s armies in control of most of mainland Europe, the Allies knew that a successful invasion of the continent was central to winning the war. Hitler knew this too, and was expecting an assault on northwestern Europe in the spring of 1944. He wanted to repel enemies with a strong counterattack that would stop future invasion attempts, giving him time to throw the majority of his forces into defeating the Soviet Union. -
Battle of the Bulge
n December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. The Allied line took on the appearance of a large bulge. Lieutenant General George S. Patton’s successful maneuvering of the Third Army to Bastogne proved vital to the Allied defense, leading to the neutralization of the German counteroffensive despite heavy casualties. -
VE Day
Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo, at Karlshorst, near Berlin, in northern Latvia, on the Channel Island of Sark, the German surrender was realized in a final battle. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany. -
Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki
The bombing by the US following Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. -
Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima
A five-ton bomb dropped over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A blast equivalent to the power of 15,000 tons of TNT reduced four square miles of the city to ruins and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more died in the following weeks from wounds and radiation poisoning. Three days later, another bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, killing nearly 40,000 more people. A few days later, Japan announced its surrender. -
VJ Day
In other words, 'VictoryOverJapan Day", when Japan’s formal surrender took place aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay. Coming several months after the surrender of Nazi Germany, Japan’s capitulation in the Pacific brought six years of hostilities to a final and highly anticipated close.
