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The Treaty of Versailles was the peace settlement ending World War I, signed by Germany and the Allied powers on June 28, 1919, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. -
The Empire of Japan's Kwantung Army invaded the Manchuria region of the Republic of China on 18 September 1931, immediately following the Mukden incident, a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext to invade. -
Italy invaded Ethiopia, also known as Abyssinia, starting on October 3, 1935, under Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, driven by imperial ambitions, a desire for revenge for a previous defeat, and the search for economic resources during the Great Depression. -
The remilitarisation of the Rhineland began on 7 March 1936, when military forces of Nazi Germany entered the Rhineland, which directly contravened the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. Neither France nor Britain was prepared for a military response, so they did not act. -
Buchenwald was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territories. Many actual or suspected communists were among the first internees. -
The Évian Conference was convened 6–15 July 1938 at Évian-les-Bains, France, to address the problem of German and Austrian Jewish refugees wishing to flee persecution by Nazi Germany. -
The Anschluss, also known as the Anschluß Österreichs, was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an Anschluss arose after the 1871 unification of Germany excluded Austria and the German Austrians from the Prussian-dominated German Empire. -
The Munich Agreement was reached in Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. The agreement provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, where three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived. -
The Wagner-Rogers Bill was a proposal to admit 20,000 German refugee children to the United States outside of existing immigration quotas. -
The MS St. Louis was a German ocean liner that, in 1939, carried over 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Denied entry to Cuba and the United States, the ship was forced to return to Europe. The incident is known as the "St. Louis incident" and serves as a powerful symbol of the failure of many nations to offer refuge to those escaping the Holocaust. -
The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. -
The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. -
The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939, was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union, which marked the beginning of World War II. -
The Nazi-Soviet Pact, signed on August 23, 1939, was a non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union that secretly agreed to divide Poland, officially starting World War II on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. The pact enabled Germany to attack without fear of Soviet intervention, and on September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, occupying the part of Poland designated to them in the pact's secret protocol. -
Blitzkrieg, or "lightning war" in German, was a military tactic characterized by concentrated, rapid, and deep attacks by armored (Panzer) units, supported by mobile infantry and tactical air power, to quickly defeat an enemy by dislocating and disrupting their lines of communication and command rather than through prolonged attrition. -
The Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement was a 1940 deal where the United States transferred 50 aging naval destroyers to Great Britain in exchange for 99-year leases on eight British naval and air bases in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. Announced on September 2, 1940, the agreement allowed the U.S. to bolster its own defense by gaining strategic bases in the Western Hemisphere, while also supporting Britain's urgent need for naval protection against the escalating threat of Nazi aggression. -
The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. -
The Lend-Lease Act was a US program enacted in 1941 that allowed President Roosevelt to provide military aid, supplies, and other war materials to Allied countries deemed vital to the defense of the United States, while the US remained officially neutral. -
The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration made in August 1941 by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, outlining their shared war aims for the end of World War II and laying the foundation for the postwar world order. -
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. At the time, the U.S. was a neutral country in World War II. -
The Battle of the Coral Sea, from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia. -
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. -
The War Refugee Board (WRB) was a U.S. government agency created in January 1944 by President Roosevelt to rescue Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution during World War II. Led by officials from the Treasury Department, the Board coordinated efforts to provide relief, establish safe havens, and facilitate the rescue of approximately 200,000 people, though the overall U.S. government response to the Holocaust is often criticized as being "too little, too late". -
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive or Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during the Second World War, taking place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. -
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful liberation of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings. -
The United Nations is an international organization established in 1945 after World War II to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, and promote international cooperation. -
The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. -
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries across Europe and committing atrocities against their citizens in World War II. -
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by the United States Army and United States Marine Corps forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. -
"Little Boy" was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, by the Enola Gay B-29 bomber. -
The atomic bomb used at Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, was "Fat Man". The bomb was dropped by a USAAF B-29 airplane named "Bockscar", piloted by U.S. Army Air Force Major Charles Sweeney. The bomb weighed 10,000 pounds and had a diameter of 60 inches. -
VJ Day marks the anniversary of 15 August 1945 when Japan announced its surrender to the Allied forces. The surrender was met with relief and celebration that after six long years the Second World War was finally over. -
The Truman Doctrine was a U.S. foreign policy established in 1947 that committed the United States to providing political, military, and economic assistance to democratic nations threatened by communist expansion. -
The Marshall Plan, officially the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. initiative to provide economic aid to Western Europe following World War II. Proposed by Secretary of State George Marshall in 1947, the plan provided approximately $13.3 billion in aid between 1948 and 1951 to help rebuild war-torn economies, prevent the spread of communism, and create stable trading partners for the U.S -
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that codifies some of the rights and freedoms of all human beings. -
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 32 member states—30 in Europe and 2 in North America. Founded in the aftermath of World War II, NATO was established with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949.