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Invasion of Poland (marking the beginning of WW2)
Germany invaded Poland, and the Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border and ,moved on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack. Britain and France, standing by their guarantee of Poland's border, had declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005070 -
Battle of Britain
120 German bombers and fighters hit a British shipping convoy in a Channel, while 70 more bombers attacked dockyard installations in South Wales. The UK used radar to figure out where the Germans would attack from. While the UK lost 1,000 planes, the Germans lost 1,700. The Germans bombed everything they could, but ultimately radar saved the UK from falling to Germany. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-battle-of-britain-begins -
Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in two waves. The first wave was the main attack to take out ships and airfield. The second wave they would finish off whatever was left. The objective was to prevent US from influencing Japan's war effort in southeast Asia. This attack led to FDR asking congress to declare war on Japan on December 8,1941. https://www.britannica.com/event/Pearl-Harbor-attack -
Allies drive Germany out of North America
The British had been fighting the Germans and Italians in North Africa since 1940. The purpose of doig this was to provide the Allies with an opportunity to invade Italy. In 1943, the US tank commander defeated the German tank commander. 240,000 Germans and Italians surrendered. This provided a way for the Allies to invade mainland Europe through southern Italy. -
D-Day
More than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France.More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft were used. More than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 Soldiers to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe, to defeat Adolf Hitler’s crack troops. https://www.army.mil/d-day/?from=features_bar -
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
An American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, wiping out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more later died of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped a bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s surrender in World War II. http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
