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Invasion of Manchuria
The Kwantung Army from the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria right after the Mukden Incident. After this war, Japan established the puppet state (a state that is thought to be independent but is really not) Manchukuo. The Wanpaoshan Incident, a dispute between Japan and China (in July of 1931) led to this. The Japanese wanted a reason to invade China. They claimed that the Chinese soldiers had damaged the railway. They wanted control of the whole province and wanted to surround all of East Asia. -
Tri-Partite Agreement
An agreement between the United States, Great Britain, and France, that was made to help stabilize their own currencies at home and also in the international exchange markets. After Great Britain got rid of the Gold Standard method (a monetary system where the value of the standard economic unit is purely based on the fixed quantity of gold) in 1931 and the United States in 1933, their currencies, as well as the French's, became imbalanced. A few years later, the Tripartite Agreement was formed -
Rape of Nanking
It was a huge event where the Japanese raped and murdered a huge amount of Chinese people in Nanjing, China. In just six weeks almost 300,000 Chinese people and soldiers were killed and about 20,000 women were raped. The Japanese soldiers would go to every door, looking for a woman at pretty much any age to rape. After the soldiers did this, they would almost immediately kill them. There were dead bodies, men and women all over Nanjing, China at the time, and it was a terrible and brutal event -
Anschluss
The annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany. Anschluss meant "united Germany and Austria forming a 'Greater Germany'", and the idea was first brought up when Germany unifying excluded German Austrians and Austria from the German Empire in 1871. The failure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during World War I caused the Republic of German-Austria to try to form a union with Germany. The Treaty of Saint Germain and Versailles said "German-Austria" can't be used, and took some of Austria's territories -
Munich Pact
An agreement that involved Germany, Britain, France, and Italy. The purpose of this was to prevent a war in Europe by giving bits of territories to Hitler. It helped prevent war and Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia, was handed to Hitler (Germany). Hitler wanted to unite all the Germans into one nation. He promised Britain's Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, that if he could receive control of the Sudetenland, he wouldn't invade Czechoslovakia. The majority of the Sudetenland were Germans -
Kristallnacht
A harmful and extremely affectful event directed towards the Jews. It was also known as "The Night of Broken Glass" because of all the glass scattered all along the streets, which was from buildings such as synagogues and stores that were owned by the Jews. They were destroyed using sledgehammers, and over 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed in Austria, Sudetenland, and Germany. At least 91 Jewish people were murdered and about 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and put into concentration camps -
Non-Aggression Pact
An event where Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union made an agreement where neither one of them could attack or take any military action towards each other for 10 years. There were two parts to the agreement: one involved economics and stated Germany would exchange manufactured goods for raw materials, and the other was just an agreement that said they can't attack each other. They can't help another power that might attack the other or give any ideas to the power that might attack the other. -
Invasion of Poland
A joint invasion that was mainly Germany, but also included the Soviet Union, the Free City of Danzig and a small Slovak contingent that started World War II. The German forces invaded Poland from the North, the South, and the West. Hitler stated that the invasion was an act of defending themselves, but Britain and France didn't believe that. On September 3, they declared war on Germany and the Soviets. They took care of them, however, and split up the Polish land (with Lithuania and Slovakia) -
Evacuation of Dunkirk
The Allied soldiers evacuated the beaches and Harbour of Dunkirk, France, because of a large number of French, Belgian, and British troops surrounded by the German troops during the Battle of France, which was the invasion by Germany on the French and "Low Countries" (Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Belgium) that lasted six weeks, and started about two weeks before the Evacuation of Dunkirk. The Phoney War, an eight-month period when the French invaded Germany's Saar district, caused this to happen -
Lend Lease Act
An act that set up a system which allowed the United States to either lend or lease to any nation. Lending it would mean that they would use it and give it back at some point without any cost. Leasing it would mean that they would "rent" it, and they would be able to use it for a period of time with some sort of payment. This was so that they could choose whether they wanted to lend some of their military supplies to their allies during World War II, or lease them and get something back for it -
Operation Barbarossa
The secret name for the Axis (Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo) invasion of the Soviet Union. This operation was caused by Nazi Germany's aim to conquer the Western part of the Soviet Union in order for the Germans to repopulate it, and for them to use the Slavs as a slave-labor force for the Axis powers, and to get all reserved oil of the Caucasus, and the agricultural resources located in the Soviet territory. Prior to this operation, the Soviet Union and Germany signed political and economic pacts -
Pearl Harbor
The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service made a surprise military strike on the United States naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, United States. It started at exactly 7:48 am. It was attacked by 353 aircraft which were launched from 6 different aircraft carriers. All 8 of the U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with 4 of them sinking. They damaged 3 cruisers, 3 destroyers, 1 anti-aircraft training ship, and 1 minelayer. There were about 1,143 Americans wounded, and twice as many killed -
Battle of Midway
A decisive battle in the Pacific Ocean Theater (a theater in these terms are a place where important military events/battles happen) where Japan (the Imperial Japanese Navy) attacked the United States (their Navy as well). The goal for the Japanese was a lot like that from the Attack of Pearl Harbor: to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific. This was a major turning point in the war because it stopped the Japanese attack in Hawaii and made the Japanese "play defense" -
D-day Invasion
The landing operations of the Allied invasion of Normandy in the Operation Overlord (the code name given to for this operation). It was the largest seaborne (traveling on water or the sea) in history. Normandy is located on the Northern coast of France. The planning for this operation lasted almost a year, and during that time, the Allies established a substantial military deception, which means they attempted to mislead the Nazi Germans, and lying about when and where they were going to land -
Liberation of Paris
Also known as the Battle for Belgium and France, this was a military battle between the United States and France (and some Spanish volunteers), and Germany. This began when the French Forces of the Interior (French resistance fighters) held an uprising against the German garrison (troops defending an area) upon the approach of the Third United States Army (a U.S Army formation) led by George Patton. Dietrich von Choltitz (German general) surrendered at Hotel Meurice (French Headquarters), France -
Battle of the Bulge
The final major German offensive campaign, an aggressive form of a military that used strategic plans containing a series of military operations/battles, which form a larger battle, which is war. They were located on the Western Front, but it was mainly in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. The German offensive was trying to stop the Allies from using the Belgian Port, Antwerp, a city in Belgium, and is also the capital of the Antwerp province in Flanders (Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium) -
Hitler's suicide
He shot himself in an air raid shelter, known as a Fuhrerbunker, in Berlin. Some people believed he died from poison, while others believed he shot himself as he was biting down on a cyanide pill/ capsule. Historians have said that these beliefs of how he died were either Soviet propaganda or an attempt to compromise and then make wise and good decisions between the two different conclusions of how he might have died. Another believed he was shot in the mouth, due to Hitler's corpse (dead body) -
Surrender of Germany
The Allied forces started to take a large number of the Axis prisoners. In April, the Western Allies had captured at least 120,000 German troops in the last military operation (campaign) in Italy. For almost 4 months up until the end of April, about 800,000 German soldiers surrendered on the Eastern Front. German forces left Finland. German forces first surrendered in Berlin, then in Netherlands, Denmark, and North West Germany. Then they surrendered in Bavaria, then in Breslau, and even more -
Hiroshima/Nagasaki
At the end of WWII, the United States set off two nuclear weapons against the Japanese: one was in Hiroshima, and the other one was three days later in Nagasaki. They did this after they received permission from the United Kingdom, through the Quebec Agreement. This agreement was between the United States and the United Kingdom involving the science and engineering of nuclear energy, and especially nuclear weapons. More were killed in Hiroshima, but a total of about (probably) 200,000 died