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Kristallnach
Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses and killed close to 100 Jews.
Hitler and the Nazis implemented their "Final Solution" to the "Jewish problem," and carried out the systematic murder of some 6 million European Jews in what came to be known as the Holocaust. -
Germany Invades Poland
The German invasion of Poland was a primer on how Hitler intended to wage war. Great Britain would respond with bombing raids over Germany three days later. -
Battle Of Britain
German and British air forces clashed in the skies over the United Kingdom, locked in the largest sustained bombing campaign to that date. 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 -
Pearl Harbor
Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii.Congress declared war on Japan -
Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was the successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in the U.S.S.R. during World War II. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies -
Battle Of Midway
United States defeated Japan in one of the most decisive naval battles of World War II Allowed the United States and its allies to move into an offensive position. -
D-Day
156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. One of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning -
Battle Of Leyte Gulf
The aerial and naval battle conducted as Allied forces invaded the Philippines began with Leyte Island. Leyte Gulf was decisive in that it destroyed much of the remaining Japanese surface fleet while virtually ending Japan's ability to move resources from Southeast Asia to the home island -
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Emperor Hirohito announced his country's unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of "a new and most cruel bomb."
