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Invasion of Poland
The day before, Nazi operatives had posed as Polish military officers to stage an attack on the radio station in the Silesian city of Gleiwitz. Germany used the event as the pretext for its invasion of Poland. Invasions of Poland by USSR and Germany, began World War II. Most of Poland is taken in days. -
Battle of Britain
In the summer and fall of 1940, German and British air forces clashed in the skies over the United Kingdom, locked in the largest sustained bombing campaign to that date. A significant turning point of World War II, the Battle of Britain ended when Germany’s Luftwaffe failed to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force despite months of targeting Britain’s air bases, military posts and, ultimately, its civilian population. -
Italy enters the war
Italy enters the war. Italy invades southern France on June 21. -
Germany invades the USSR
Germany invades the USSR, opening what becomes known as the Eastern Front. The Soviet Union had twice or perhaps three times the number of both tanks and aircraft as the Germans had, but their aircraft were mostly obsolete. The Soviet tanks were about equal to those of the Germans, however. A greater hindrance to Hitler’s chances of victory was that the German intelligence service underestimated the troop reserves that Stalin could bring up from the depths of the U.S.S.R. -
Japanese Navy attacks
Pearl Harbor - At 7:02 a.m., two Army operators at Oahu's northern shore radar station detect the Japanese air attack approaching and contact a junior officer who disregards their reports, thinking they are American B-17 planes which are expected in from the U.S. west coast. Pearl Harbor is not on a state of high alert. At 7:53 a.m the first Japanese assault wave begam. The American's are taken completely by surprise. -
Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad. Germany's entire Sixth Army is lost, and the war begins turning in favor of the Allies. The Battle was the successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad in the U.S.S.R. during World War II. Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the bloodiest battles in history, -
"D-Day"
The Allied Expeditionary Force under Dwight Eisenhower lands on the coast of northern France on what will later be called "D-Day". The "Second Front" that Stalin has been demanding for three years is now open. -
Hitler dies
Warned by officers that the Russians were only a day or so from overtaking the chancellery and urged to escape to Berchtesgarden, a small town in the Bavarian Alps where Hitler owned a home, the dictator instead chose suicide. It is believed that both he and his wife swallowed cyanide capsules and for good measure, he shot himself with his service pistol. -
Atomic bomb
The first atomic bomb ever to be used in a military operation was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan On August 6, 1945. The bomb, affectionately named "Little Boy," exploded 1,900 feet above the courtyard of Shima Hospital, with a force equivalent to 12,500 tons of TNT. By the end of 1945, 140,00 people had died as a direct result of the bombing. Within the following five years, another 60,000 would die of bomb-related causes. -
Japn surrenders
The surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945, brought the hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. While publicly stating their intent to fight on to the bitter end, Japan's leaders were privately making entreaties to the neutral Soviet Union to meditate peace on terms favorable to the Japanese.
