World War II

  • Mussolini and the Fascists come to power in italy

    Mussolini and the Fascists come to power in italy
    Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) rose to power in the wake of World War I as a leading proponent of Facism. Originally a revolutionary Socialist, he forged the paramilitary Fascist movement in 1919 and became prime minister in 1922. Mussolini’s military expenditures in Libya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Albania made Italy predominant in the Mediterranean region, though they exhausted his armed forces by the late 1930s. Mussolini allied himself with Hitler, relying on the German dictator.
  • 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.
  • Hitler and the Nazis come to power

    Hitler and the Nazis come to power
    Hitler was a powerful and spellbinding speaker who attracted a wide following of Germans desperate for change. He promised the disenchanted a better life and a new and glorious Germany. The Nazis appealed especially to the unemployed, young people, and members of the lower middle class (small store owners, office employees, craftsmen, and farmers).
  • Munich Conference

    Munich Conference
    No Czech representative was invited to the conference. Chamberlain had asked for the Czech ambassador to Berlin to come to Munich as an adviser, but he was not allowed in the same room as Hitler. On the night of September 28th a Czech government statement agreed to cede Czech territory where 50 per cent or more of the population were German, but protested against the demand for a plebiscite in areas without a German majority. - See more at: http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/munich-co
  • Kristallnacht

    Kristallnacht
    The Nazi government barred Jews from schools on November 15 and authorized local authorities to impose curfews in late November. By December 1938, Jews were banned from most public places in Germany.
  • Neutrility Acts passed in the US

    Neutrility Acts passed in the US
    In a public statement that day, Roosevelt said that the new law would require American vessels to obtain a license to carry arms, would restrict Americans from sailing on ships from hostile nations and would impose an embargo on the sale of arms to “belligerent” nations. Most observers understood “belligerent” to imply Germany under its new leader, Adolf Hitler, and Italy under Benito Mussolini. It also provided the strongest language yet warning other countries that the U.S. would increase its
  • Germany invades Poland-Begining of WWII

    Germany invades Poland-Begining of WWII
    On this day in 1939, 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 numb
  • Germany and the USSR sign the Non-Aggression Pact

    Germany and the USSR sign the Non-Aggression Pact
  • Battle of the Atlantic

    Battle of the Atlantic
  • Formation of the Axis Powers

    Formation of the Axis Powers
    Italy joined the Anti-Comintern Pact on November 6, 1937. On May 22, 1939, Germany and Italy signed the so-called Pact of Steel, formalizing the Axis alliance with military provisions. Finally, on September 27, 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, which became known as the Axis alliance.
  • Presidential election of 1940

    Presidential election of 1940
  • Rescue at Dunkirk

    Rescue at Dunkirk
    It was a fateful decision that would ultimately transform a military defeat into a moral victory. As German forces continued their advance into France, General Viscount Gort, Commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France, could see that the German invaders were getting the upper hand. The French Army was in disarray while his own forces were fighting desperately. The French called upon Gort to move his troops south to join them in a defensive stand. The British commander realized the ac
  • France falls to Germany

    France falls to Germany
  • Congress passes the Lend lease Act

    Congress passes the Lend lease Act
  • Bombing of Pearl Harbor,Hawaii

    Bombing of Pearl Harbor,Hawaii
  • Bataan Death March

    Bataan Death March
  • Battle of Midway Island

    Battle of Midway Island
  • Formation of the United Nations

    Formation of the United Nations
  • Relocation of Japanese Americans to camps

    Relocation of Japanese Americans to camps
  • Rosie the Riveter campaign encourages women to get a job

    Rosie the Riveter campaign encourages women to get a job
    American women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers during World War II, as widespread male enlistment left gaping holes in the industrial labor force. Between 1940 and 1945, the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to nearly 37 percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home. “Rosie the Riveter,” star of a government campaign aimed at recruiting female workers for the munitions industry, became perhaps the most iconi
  • D-Day Invasion

    D-Day Invasion
  • Battle of the Bulge

    Battle of the Bulge