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Japanese Invasion
Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy which entered them into the military alliance known as the "Axis." After this the united States imposed economic sanctions on Japan which was faced with severe shortages of oil and other natural resources and driven by ambition to displace the US of dominant power in the Pacific. Japan decided to attack the US and British forces in Asia and seize the resources of Southeast Asia. -
Germany's Invasion of Poland
Within a month of Britain and France declaring war on Germany, Poland was defeated by a combination of German and soviet forces and was partitioned between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. This all happened around September 3 of 1939. -
German Blitzkrieg
The word "blitzkrieg" is a term for "lightning war." It is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower. This execution results in short military campaigns, which preserves the lives of humans and limits expenditure of artillery. German forces attempted to use this in Poland in 1939 before successfully employing the tactic with invasions of Belgium, the Netherlands and France in 1940. -
Operation Barbarossa
June 22, 1941 was the day Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward to invade the Soviet Union. This invasion covered a front from the North Cape to the Black Sea, a distance of two thousand miles. The forces invading Russia represented the finest army to fight in the twentieth century. Barbarossa was the crucial turning point in the world war because of its failure forced Nazi Germany to fight a two-front war against a coalition processing immensely superior resources. -
Pearl Harbor
On December 7, 1941 Japanese fighter planes attacked Hawaii, creating one of the deadliest attacks in American history. Multiple family members died; specifically, twenty-three sets of brothers died abroad USS Arizona and the sam ship's band was lost in he attack. Since the wreckage was so bad, fuel continues to leak from it. Quite a few crew members have chosen the USS Arizona as their final resting place. Thanks to Elvis Presley, a memorial was built at the site of the USS Arizona. -
Wannsee Conference
On January 20 of 1942, Nazi officials discussed the Final Solution and the Jewish Question. They came up with quite a few ideas. One of them was to create concentration camps to make Jewish people work until they eventually die. Later on, "gas vas" were invented in Poland to spray gas that would kill 1,00 people a day. The conference resulted in multiple attempts in exterminating the entire Jewish population. -
Operation Gomorrah
On June 24, Britain bombed Hamburg, Germany at night, and America bombed them in the daytime. British aircrafts dropped over 2,400 lots of explosives and killed about 1,500 German people. After all the attacks, it killed over 30,00 people and destroyed around 280,000 buildings which created a dent in the German population but didn't affect their moral in the war. -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion)
On June 6, 1944 over 150,000 Allied soldiers landed in France, which was liberated by the end of August.This was part of a massive military operation. Codenamed as Operation Overlord. This particular invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. -
VJ Day
VJ Day is also commonly known as "Victory over Japan Day" which takes place on August 14. The term has also been used for September 2, 1945, when Japan's formal surrender abroad the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. Many months after Nazi Germany's surrender, Japan's capitulation in the pacific brought six years of hostilities to a final and highly anticipated closing. -
Battle of the Bulge
In December of 1944, Adolph hitler tried to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. As the Germans drove deeper into the Ardennes, the Allied line took on the appearance of a large bulge; hence the name. General Patton's successful maneuvering was proved vital to the Allied defense. Thus leading neutralization of the German counteroffensive despite heavy casualties. -
Operation Thunderclap
Operation Thunderclap was the code for a cancelled operation planned in August 1944 but shelved and never implemented. The plan envisaged a massive attack on Berlin in the belief that would cause 220,000 casualties with 110,000 killed, many of them key German personnel, which would shatter German morale. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
This invasion stemmed from the need for a base near the Japanese coast. It followed elaborate preparatory air and naval bombardment. Three of the US marine divisions landed on the island on February 1945. Iwo Jima was defended by about 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops. These troops fought in many elaborate ways; such as network of caves, dugouts, tunnels, and underground installations. -
Battle of Okinawa
This was the last major battle and one of the bloodiest of World War II. On Easter Sunday, April 1, in 1945, the Navy's Fifth Fleet and more than 180,000 US Army and Marine corps troop's descended on the Pacific island of Okinawa for the final push towards Japan. This invasion was apart of Operation Iceberg which was a complex plan to invade and occupy the Ryukyu Islands. -
VE Day
On May *, 1945 the Allies celebrated their victory of World War II. Many people were out in town celebrating because it was obviously a huge deal. Towards the end of April, Adolph Hitler committed suicide and Mussolini was captured and killed. This event meant the war between Germany and Italy versus France, Britain, Russia, and the US was over. -
Dropping of the atomic bombs
August 6 of 1945 there was an atomic bombing over two Japanese cities; Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An American B-29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over Hiroshima. This explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and killed 80,000 people. Multiple thousand other people would later die of ration exposure. Three days after that bomb hit, a second B-29 dropped in Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. After that Hirohito announced the unconditional surrender of Japan.
