World War II

  • Mussolini and the Fascists come to power in Italy

    Mussolini and the Fascists come to power in Italy
    The first successful Fascist takeover was in Italy under Benito Mussolini. He was born in 1886 in the rough hill country of North Central Italy. His mother was a devout Catholic and schoolteacher, while his father was an atheist and anarchist who liked to smash ballot boxes on Election Day. Benito himself was a troublemaker who had a bad habit of knifing his classmates. As a young adult, he fled to Switzerland to avoid the draft and was converted to socialism there.
  • Japanese invasion of Manchuria

    Japanese invasion of Manchuria
    During 1931 Japan had invaded Manchuria without declarations of war, breaching the rules of the League of Nations. Japan had a highly developed industry, but the land was scarce of natural resources. Japan turned to Manchuria for oil, rubber and lumber in order to make up for the lack of resources in Japan. China's immediate responde was to plead to the League of Nations for them to help drive Japan out of China.
  • Neutrality Acts passed in the US

    Neutrality Acts passed in the US
    The first neutrality act was passed by Congress in August 1935 and imposed a ban on shipments of weapons and war materiel to belligerent countries and discouraged travel by American citizens on the ships of belligerents by specifying that they did so at their own risk.
  • Hitler and the Fascists come to power

    Hitler and the Fascists come to power
    The harsh restrictions on Germany fueled a state of frustration, which was lead by Adolf Hitler when he rose to power as Führer and chancellor by the stepping down of the president of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg. Although Hitler is often seen as the face of fascism, he was actually the leader of the German Socialist Party, better known as the Nazi Party.
  • Kristallnacht

    Kristallnacht
    A massive, coordinated attack on Jews throughout the German Reich on the night of November 9, 1938, into the next day, has come to be known as Kristallnacht or The Night of Broken Glass.On November 9, mob violence broke out as the regular German police stood by and crowds of spectators watched. Nazi storm troopers along with members of the SS and Hitler Youth beat and murdered Jews, broke into and wrecked Jewish homes, and brutalized Jewish women and children.
  • Munich Conference

    Munich Conference
    Conference held in Munich on September 28--29, 1938, during which the leaders of Great Britain, France, and Italy agreed to allow Germany to annex certain areas of Czechoslovakia.The Munich Conference came as a result of a long series of negotiations. Adolf Hitler had demanded the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia; British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain tried to talk him out of it.
  • Germany and the USSR sign the Non-Aggression Pact

    Germany and the USSR sign the Non-Aggression Pact
    On August 23, 1939–shortly before World War II (1939-45) broke out in Europe–enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years.
  • Germany invades Poland-Beginning of WWII

    Germany invades Poland-Beginning of WWII
    German forces bombard Poland on land and from the air, as Adolf Hitler seeks to regain lost territory and ultimately rule Poland. World War II had begun. The German invasion of Poland was a primer on how Hitler intended to wage war–what would become the “blitzkrieg” strategy. This was characterized by extensive bombing early on to destroy the enemy’s air capacity, railroads, communication lines, and munitions dumps, followed by a massive land invasion with overwhelming numbers of troops, tanks,
  • Fance falls to Germany

    Fance falls to Germany
    The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries during the Second World War. Beginning on 10 May 1940, the battle defeated primarily French forces. The German plan for the battle consisted of two main operations.
  • Rescue at Dunkirk

    Rescue at Dunkirk
    The Dunkirk evacuation, code-named Operation Dynamo, also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, France, between 27 May and 4 June 1940, during World War II. The operation was decided upon when large numbers of Belgian, British, and French troops were cut off and surrounded by the German army during the Battle of France.
  • Formation of Axis powers

    Formation of Axis powers
    on September 27, 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, which became known as the Axis alliance. Even before the Tripartite Pact, two of the three Axis powers had initiated conflicts that would become theaters of war in World War II.
  • Congress passes the Lend Lease Act

    Congress passes the Lend Lease Act
    President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease bill into law on 11 March 1941. It permitted him to "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of, to any such government [whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States] any defense article."
  • Bombing of Pearl Harbor,Hawaii

    Bombing of Pearl Harbor,Hawaii
    The attack on Pearl Harbor, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor,[9] the Hawaii Operation or Operation AI by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters,[10][11] and Operation Z during planning,[12] was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, in the United States Territory of Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.
  • Relocation of Japanese Americans to camps

    Relocation of Japanese Americans to camps
    The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States was the forced relocation and incarceration during World War II of between 110,000 and 120,000[2] people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast in camps in the interior of the country. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens.[3][4] President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the incarceration shortly after Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
  • Bataan of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

    Bataan of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
    http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor
    Just before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours, but it was devastating: The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and more than 300 airplanes.
  • Battle of Midway Island

    Battle of Midway Island
    The Battle of Midway was a crucial and decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II.[6][7][8] Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy under Admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals.
  • D-Day Invasion

    D-Day Invasion
    June 6, 1944 the Allied Forces of Britain, America, Canada, and France attacked German forces on the coast of Normandy, France. With a huge force of over 150,000 soldiers, the Allies attacked and gained a victory that became the turning point for World War II in Europe. This famous battle is sometimes called D-Day or the Invasion of Normandy.
  • Allied Invasion/Victory in the Philippines

    Allied Invasion/Victory in the Philippines
    The Philippines campaign of 1944–45, (Operation Musketeer I, II, and III) the Battle of the Philippines 1944–45, or the Liberation of the Philippines was the American and Filipino campaign to defeat and expel the Imperial Japanese forces occupying the Philippines, during World War II. The Japanese Army had overrun all of the Philippines during the first half of 1942.
  • Presidential election of 1944

    Presidential election of 1944
    The United States presidential election of 1944 was the 40th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1944. Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic nominee, sought his fourth term in office; he defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey in the general election.
  • Yalta Conference

    Yalta Conference
    https://youtu.be/pS10dJToa_Q
    The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held from February 4 to 11, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively.
  • Manhattan Project

    Manhattan Project
    The Manhattan Project was a secret military project created in 1942 to produce the first US nuclear weapon. Fears that Nazi Germany would build and use a nuclear weapon during World War II triggered the start of the Manhattan Project, which was originally based in Manhattan, New York.
  • Battle of the Atlantic

    Battle of the Atlantic
    The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest battle of World War II. It began immediately upon the British declaration of war against Germany in September 1939 and ended with Germany's surrender to the Allies in May 1945.
  • V-E Day

    V-E Day
    Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 (7 May in Commonwealth realms) to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces.
  • Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagaski

    Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagaski
    On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.
  • Surrender of Japan

    Surrender of Japan
    The surrender of the Empire of Japan was announced by Imperial Japan on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. Together with the United Kingdom and China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945.
  • Formation of the United Nations

    Formation of the United Nations
    On January 1, 1942, representatives of 26 nations at war with the Axis powers met in Washington to sign the Declaration of the United Nations endorsing the Atlantic Charter, pledging to use their full resources against the Axis and agreeing not to make a separate peace.
  • Battle of the Bulge

    Battle of the Bulge
    In late 1944, during the wake of the Allied forces' successful D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, it seemed as if the Second World War was all but over. On Dec. 16, with the onset of winter, the German army launched a counteroffensive that was intended to cut through the Allied forces in a manner that would turn the tide of the war in Hitler's favor. The battle that ensued is known historically as the Battle of the Bulge. The courage and fortitude of the American Soldier was tested against grea