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Adolf Hitler assumes control of National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party
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Benito Mussolini calls for fascist "Blackshirts" to March on Rome
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Mussolini dismisses Italian parliament, begins to assume dictatorial powers
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt elected President of the United States
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Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg
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German Reichstag burns down; communists blamed, arrested.
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Enabling Act passed by Reichstag; Hitler assumes dictatorial power
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Nazi party declared official party of Germany; all other parties banned
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Hitler orders murder of SA Chief Ernst Roehm in "Night of the Long Knives"
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Military conscription introduced in Germany in violation of Versailles treaty
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German troops remilitarize the Rhineland in violation of Versailles treaty
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Japan withdraws from Washington Conference Treaty limiting the size of its navy
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Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of England
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German troops occupy the rest of Czechoslovakia in violation of Munich Agreement
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German Army invades France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; Winston Churchill appointed British Prime Minister
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Norway capitulates to Nazis; Italy declares war on Britain and France
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Hitler launches operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union
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Roosevelt gives "Day of Infamy" speech; United States and Britain declare war on Japan
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American citizens of Japanese descent forced into "relocation centers"
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German U-boats begin sinking ships off American coast in "Operation Drumbeat
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Royal Air Force launches first 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne, German
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Japanese Navy resoundingly defeated at Battle of Midway--war reaches its turning point in the Pacific; S.S. Leader Rheinhardt Heydrich dies of wounds sustained in partisan attack at Prague
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German and British ships engage in the Battle of the Barents Sea
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Roosevelt and Churchill meet at Casablanca, issue unconditional surrender demand
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German Sixth Army at Stalingrad surrenders to the Russians; war in Europe reaches its turning point
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Battle of Kasserine Pass fought in North Africa between German and U.S. forces
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German submarines achieve their largest tonnage total of the war
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U-boat operations suspended in the North Atlantic due to steep losses
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Allied bombing raid creates firestorm in Hamburg, Germany
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"Big Three" of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill meet at Tehran
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D-Day: invasion of Europe begins with Allied landings at Normandy
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Allied forces break-out of Normandy encirclement in "Operation Cobra"
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Nazis brutally crush revolt in Warsaw; Allies advance into Germany
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German Army launches "Battle of the Bulge" offensive on the Western Front
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Waffen SS executes 81 American prisoners of war in "Malmedy Massacre"
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies of stroke; Harry Truman becomes President; Allies liberate Belsen and Buchenwald concentration camps
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Adolf Hitler and wife Eva Braun commit suicide in Chancellery bunker
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First U.S. atomic bomb tested at Los Alamos, New Mexico; Potsdam Conference begins
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Soviet Union declares war on Japan; Soviet forces invade Manchuria
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Japanese delegation signs instrument of surrender aboard battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay
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Hermann Goering commits suicide; 11 other war criminals hanged
