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Germany attacks Poland
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. From East Prussia and Germany in the north and Silesia and Slovakia in the south, German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border and advanced on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack. After heavy shelling and bombing, Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 27, 1939. -
Operation Barbarossa begins - Germany attacks the Soviet Union.
On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany and its Axis allies began a massive invasion of the Soviet Union named "Operation Barbarossa" Approximately 4.5 million troops launched a surprise attack deployed from German-controlled Poland, Finland, and Romania. Hitler had long had his eye on Soviet resources. Although Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR in 1939, both sides remained suspicious of one another, and the agreement merely gave them more time to prepare for a probable war. -
Japan attacks American forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, killing more than 2,300 Americans. The U.S.S. Arizona was completely destroyed and the U.S.S. Oklahoma capsized. A total of twelve ships sank or were "beached" in the attack and nine additional vessels were damaged. More than 160 aircraft were destroyed and more than 150 others damaged. -
D-Day Invasion
June 6, 1944, 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. General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end on June 6, the Allies gained a foot- hold in Normandy. The D-Day cost was high. More than 9,000 Allied Soldiers died or injured. -
The Death of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot on 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. His wife Eva committed suicide with him by ingesting cyanide. That afternoon, in accordance with Hitler's prior instructions, their remains were carried up the stairs through the bunker's emergency exit, covered in petrol and set on fire in the Reich Chancellery garden outside the bunker. -
Victory in Europe Day - also known as V-E Day.
VE Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 to mark the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, thus ending the war in Europe. -
The First successful test of an Atomic Bomb in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, U.S., thereby ushering in the "Atomic Age".
The Atomic Age, was ushered in July 16, 1945, before the eyes of a tense group of renowned scientists and military men gathered in the desert lands of New Mexico to witness the first end results of their $2,000,000,000 effort. Here in a remote section of the Alamogordo Air Base 120 miles southeast of Albuquerque the first man-made atomic explosion, the outstanding achievement of nuclear science, was achieved at 5:30 a.m. of that day. -
Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
The United States became the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Though the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War II, many historians argue that it also ignited the Cold War. -
Atomic Bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
On this day in 1945, a second atom bomb was dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan's unconditional surrender.The devastation wrought at Hiroshima was not sufficient to convince the Japanese War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference's demand for unconditional surrender. The United States had already planned to drop their second atom bomb, nicknamed "Fat Man." -
Formal surrender of Japanese Forces on USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay
In the morning of 2 September 1945, more than two weeks after acceping the Allies terms, Japan formally surrendered. The ceremonies, less than half an hour long, took place on board the battleship USS Missouri, anchored with other United States' and British ships in Tokyo Bay.
