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Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the Nazi party
In July 1921, he took over the leadership of the party, by then renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party and, less than 12 years later, it had become the largest party in Germany and Hitler was Reich Chancellor. -
Benito Mussolini appointed prime minister of Italy
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) rose to power in the wake of World War I as a leading proponent of Facism. Originally a revolutionary Socialist, he forged the paramilitary Fascist movement in 1919 and became prime minister in 1922 -
1929 Josef Stalin sole dictator of the Soviet Union (USSR)
Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. -
1931 Japans Army seizes Manchuria, China
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on September 18, 1931, when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria. -
1933, March 21 - Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany
On this day in 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader or fÜhrer of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), as chancellor of Germany. -
1935 Neutrality Acts passed by US Congress
The Neutrality Acts were passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in the US following its costly involvement in World War I, and sought to ensure that the US would not become entangled again in foreign conflicts. -
1935 Italian Army invades Ethiopia in Africa
The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire (also known at the time as Abyssinia). The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia -
1936 Militarist take control of Japanese Government
While Japan was giving the appearance of being a good neighbour in the western Pacific during the 1920s by involvement in treaties designed to preserve peace, extremist elements in Japan's government, military and civilian population had privately never renounced the use of force to expand Japan's territory. Towards the end of the 1920s a combination of economic, social, and political factors played into the hands of the militarists. -
1936 Hitler sends troops into Rhineland of Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty
The remilitarization of the Rhineland by the German Army took place on 7 March 1936 when German military forces entered the Rhineland. This was significant because it violated the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties, marking the first time since the end of World War I that German troops had been in this region. -
1937 Japan’s army pillages Nanjing, China; massacre a quarter of a million people.
The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (then spelled Nanking), then the capital of the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The massacre occurred over a period of six weeks starting on December 13, 1937, the day that the Japanese captured Nanjing. -
1938 Munich Pact signed giving the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany
The Munich Agreement was a settlement permitting Nazi Germany's annexation of portions of Czechoslovakia along the country's borders mainly inhabited by German speakers, for which a new territorial designation "Sudetenland" was coined. -
1938 Nazis begin rounding up Jews for labor camps
Holocaust trains were railway transports run by the Deutsche Reichsbahn national railway system under the strict supervision of the German Nazis and their allies, for the purpose of forcible deportation of the Jews, as well as other victims of the Holocaust. -
1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact signed by Hitler and Stalin
On August 23, 1939–shortly before World War II (1939-45) broke out in Europe–enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years. -
Nazis invaded Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany
On this day in 1939, in response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany. -
Nazis invade Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium – take control
On 8 April 1940 the British violated Norwegian neutrality by laying ocean mines in the shipping channel Germans were using to bring iron ore from Sweden. Hitler already had plans to occupy Norway. His admirals had persuaded him to take Norway before the British occupied it or its territorial waters, cutting Germany from its major source of iron ore. -
Battle of Britain begins – Royal Air Force defeats German Air Force to prevent invasion of their island
The Battle of Britain was a combat of the Second World War, when the Royal Air Force (RAF) defended the United Kingdom (UK) against the German AirForce (Luftwaffe) attacks from the end of June 1940. -
Germany invades France and forces it to surrender
The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries in 1940 during the Second World War. In six weeks from 10 May 1940, German forces defeated Allied forces by mobile operations and conquered France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, bringing land operations on the Western Front to an end until 6 June 1944. -
First time Peacetime Draft in US
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, also known as the Burke-Wadsworth Act, 54 Stat. 885, enacted September 16, 1940, was the first peacetime conscription in United States history. -
Hitler breaks Pact with Stalin’s Russia and invades - USSR which now joins England in fighting the Germans
Under the codename Operation "Barbarossa," Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in the largest German military operation of World War II -
Churchill and FDR issue the Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration released by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on August 14, 1941 following a meeting of the two heads of state in Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter provided a broad statement of U.S. and British war aims -
Japanese invade French Indochina
In September 1940, the Japanese invaded Vichy French Indochina to prevent the Republic of China from importing arms and fuel through French Indochina along the Sino-Vietnamese Railway. -
Dec. 7 Pearl Harbor in Hawaii attacked by Japanese Naval and Air forces, US declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy declare war on the US - Dec. 9
On this day, as America’s Pacific fleet lay in ruins at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt requests, and receives, a declaration of war against Japan. -
Philippines fell to Japanese – Bataan Death March
After the 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. -
Japanese Americans interned in isolated camps
The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in camps in the interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens. -
Battle of Midway, turning point of war in the Pacific
The Battle of Midway was a turning point in the Pacific War. Before the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7-8 May 1942, the Imperial Navy of Japan had swept aside all of its enemies from the Pacific and Indian oceans. -
Russians stop Nazi advance at Stalingrad save Moscow
The German Army never fully recovered from the beating it took in Russia around Moscow and elsewhere during the winter of 1941-42 when it suffered over a million casualties. For a time, the entire Eastern Front had teetered on the verge of collapse as division upon division of well-equipped Russians materialized seemingly out of nowhere and attacked -
British and US forces defeat German and Italian armies in North Africa
The campaign was fought between the Allies and Axis powers, many of whom had colonial interests in Africa dating from the late 19th century. The Allied war effort was dominated by the British Commonwealth and exiles from German-occupied Europe. The United States entered the war in December 1941 and began direct military assistance in North Africa on 11 May 1942. -
Zoot Suit Riots – Los Angeles, CA
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of racist attacks in June 1943 in Los Angeles, California, United States, between Mexican American youths and European American servicemen stationed in Southern California -
July - Italy surrenders, Mussolini dismissed as Prime Min.
On this day in 1943, Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy, is voted out of power by his own Grand Council and arrested upon leaving a meeting with King Vittorio Emanuele, who tells Il Duce that the war is lost. -
D-Day invasion of France at Normandy by Allies
The Normandy landings (codenamed Operation Neptune) were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 (termed D-Day) of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. -
Paris retaken by Allies Forces
The Liberation of Paris (also known as the Battle for Paris) was a military action that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. Paris had been ruled by Nazi Germany since the signing of the Second Compiègne Armistice on 22 June 1940, after which the Wehrmacht occupied northern and western France. -
Battle of the Bulge – last offensive of German Forces
The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was the last major German offensive campaign of World War II. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg, on the Western Front, towards the end of World War II, in the European theatre. -
US forces return to recapture the Philippines
The Philippines campaign, the Battle of the Philippines or the Liberation of the Philippines was the American and Filipino campaign to defeat and expel the Imperial Japanese forces occupying the Philippines, during World War II. -
FDR dies, Harry S. Truman becomes President
On this day in 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passes away after four momentous terms in office, leaving Vice President Harry S. Truman in charge of a country still fighting the Second World War and in possession of a weapon of unprecedented and terrifying power. -
V-E Day, war ends in Europe
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. It thus marked the end of World War II in Europe -
First Atomic Bombs dropped
Number of atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II. 80,000 - People who died instantly in Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, when the first ever atomic bomb was used in war. The code name of the uranium-based bomb was "Little Boy." -
V-J Day, Japan surrenders to Allied Forces
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The surrender of Imperial Japan was announced on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. -
War Crimes Trials held in Nuremberg, Germany; Manila, Philippines and Tokyo, Japan.
Following World War II, the victorious Allied governments established the first international criminal tribunals to prosecute high-level political officials and military authorities for war crimes and other wartime atrocities. The four major Allied powers—France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—set up the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg, Germany, to prosecute and punish “the major war criminals of the European Axis.”
