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Japanese military leaders and ultranationalists thought that Japan should have an empire equal to those of the Western powers
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United States Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts
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In the face of the apparent weakness of Britian, France, and the United States, Germany, Italy, and Japan formed the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. Three nations agreed to fight Soviet communism
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Italy invanded Ethiopia. Ethiopians resisted bravely, their outdated weapons were no match for Mussolini's taks, machine guns, poison gas, and airplanes.
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Hitler sent troops into Rhineland bordering France
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Spain polarized public opinion thoughout Europe. Trouble began in 1931, when popular unrest against the old order forced the king to leave Spain
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Conservative general named Francisco Franco led a revolt that touched off a bloody civil war.
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Government passed a series of controversial reforms, taking land and priveleges away from the Church and old ruling classes
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The League had no power to enforce the sanctions, and Italy had conquered Ethiopia
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Western democracies adopted a policy of appeasement
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Japanese armies overran much of eastern China, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War
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German air raid on Guernica. German planes dropped their load of bombs, and then swooped low to machine-gun anyone who had survived the bombs. Nearly 1,000 innocent civilians were killed.
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Hitler was ready to engineer the Anschluss, or union of Austria and Germany.
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At the Munich Conference in September 1938, British and French leaders again chose appeasement.
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Hitler broke his promises and gobbled up the rest of Czechoslovakia
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Hitler launched a blitzkrieg against Norway and Denmark. iHs forces slammed into the Netherlands and Belgium.
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Germany invades Poland. France and Britain declare war on Germany
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Once in power, he created a fascist dictatorship similar to the dictatorships of Hitler and Mussolini. Used terror to promote order.
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United States declared its neutrality. Many Americans sympathized with those who battled the Axis powers.
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Japan advanced into French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies
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Hitler stunned the world by announcing a nonaggression pact with his great enemy, Joseph Stalin.
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A week after the Nazi-Soviet Pact, German forces invaded Poland.
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Britain and France declared war on Germany after Germany invades Poland
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Hitler made plans for Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of Britain. He launched massive air strikes against the island nation.
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Hitler forced the French to sign the surrender documents in the same railroad car in which Germany had signed the armistice ending World War I.
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German bombers began a daily bombardment of England’s southern coast
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German bombers first appeared over London. Aircraft showered high explosives and firebombs on the sprawling capital. The bombing continued for 57 nights in a row.
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Italian forces invaded Greece, and they encountered stiff resistance
