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Hitler Authorizes “adult and child euthanasia” of mentally ill and physically disabled people1939
Two years before the start of the Holocaust, Hitler authorized programs for the killing of children in Germany. Propaganda encourged parents and caretakers to report so-called abnormalities so that diabled people could be 'properly cared for'. Once hospitals or officials recived word about them, they were added to a list of people to be sent to 'clinics', where they would be starved or injected and creamted. This process murdered 250,000 people. -
Panic in Moscow over lack of defense and invading Germans
After Nazi capture of Vyazma, citizens of the capital city of Moscow began to panic that invading forces would soon reach them. They only had 100,000 soldiers to defend the city, and people began to flee to cities further inland. On October 15th, the State Defense Committee ordered the destruction of buisnesses and railways if Germans made it into the city. Stalin himself was almost escorted from the city at the height of the tension, but convinced leadership to stay, and to shoot the runaways. -
German Jews Begin Being Deported
At the Wannsee conference, offfocias began discussing the bginning of a systematic deportation of German jews, to Killing camps. They estimated that 11 million jews would be deported in 'The Final Solution'. They disguised this program to the pubic as 'relocation' prgrams, but the railway cars that the jewish people were transported in and the camps themselves resulted in the deaths of 6 million, not to mention those deaths who were unaccounted for. -
The Battle of Midway
During 1942, American forces cracked Japanese codes and determined that there ware attacks planned on the US Navy at the island of Midway. After intercepting the message, American air forces were able to destroy all Japanese aricraft carriers in the area, resulting in a massive victory. Only 300 Amricans weere lost compared to the Japanese losses of 2500. This victory allowed Americans to begin reclaiming islands on thier way to Japan. -
Surrender of Stalingrad
Russian forces captured the Field Marshal Paulus of the German Sixth Army, which led to the surrender of the German forces in Stalingrad. The German army was spread too thin by having troops occupying many different European nations and attempting to overpower Russia. By the time that German forces made it into Stalingrad, they we so low on ammunition that they were forced into hand to hand combat. The Russians were successful because they were motivated to defend thier homeland from takeover. -
D-Day
On D-Day,156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along the coast of Normandy in France. At thispoint in the war, Germany had been failing because of American involvement and loss of forces. The attack was planned to start the reclamation of French territory, in what would be the beginninng of gaining European territories from Germany. This attack allowed 160000 soldiers to invade the coast of Normady, and defeat the Germans, allowing for Allied movement into France. -
Bommbing of Hiroshima
In the summer of 1945, the war was beginning to come to an end after the Germans and the Italians surrendered in the western front. However, japan was still engaged in war with the Americans, so the Americans sent the plane the Enola Gay to drop an atomic bomb in the city of Hiroshima. The force of the blast was equivalent to the equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT, and killed over 90,000 people. -
