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Japanese Invasion of China
Ends at September 9th, 1945. The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy aimed at expanding its influence politically and militarily in order to secure access to raw material reserves and other economic resources in the area. China fought Japan, with some economic help from Germany (see Sino-German cooperation until 1941), the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war would merge into the greater conflict of World War. -
Germanys Invasion of Poland
Ends at October 6th, 1939. The german offensive in the West began on Sept. 1st, and was later followed by the Soviet offensive in the East. The german leader, Adolf Hitler understood that his conquest was neautralizing Poland in the East. These soviets are preparing a battle against Britain and France. http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/1232253/edit -
Germans Blitzkrieg
Ended at May 15th, 1940. The speed, flexibility and initiative of the German Wehrmacht took the Allies completely by surprise during the blitzkrieg at the start of World War Two. It had taken only a few short weeks for the Wehrmacht (the German army), under his control, to crush the army of the French Third Republic -
Fall of Paris
Ended at June 25th, 1940. 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. Parisians awaken to the sound of a German-accented voice announcing via loudspeakers that a curfew was being imposed for 8 p.m. that evening-as German troops enter and occupy Paris. http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/1232253/edit -
Operation Barbarossa
Ended at January 7th, 1942. Germany and its allies launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive invasion of the Soviet Union from the Baltic shore in the north to the Black Sea in the South. The Soviets were caught by surprise. Their military leadership had been decimated by Stalin’s purges of the 1930s, in which he removed—often killed—many of the most effective commanders and replaced them with political stooges. -
Operation Gomorrah
Ended at January 7th, 1942. British bombers raid Hamburg, Germany, by night in Operation Gomorrah, while Americans bomb it by day in its own Blitz Week. Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The explosive power was the equivalent of what German bombers had dropped on London in their five most destructive raids. Britain lost only 12 aircraft in this raid, thanks to a new radar-jamming device call. -
Pearl Harbor
Japanese carrier-based bombers struck the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. Japan’s military planners hoped to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet in order to buy time to capture and fortify the region they sought to control, then negotiate an armistice from a position of strength. America’s president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had long wanted the U.S. involved in the war on the side of Great Britain. -
Wannsee Conference
15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's second in command of the SS, convened the Wannsee Conference in Berlin. -
Bataan Death March
It was the forcible transfer from Saisaih Pt. and Mariveles to Camp O'Donnell by the Imperial Japanese Army. The Bataan Memorial Death March is a challenging march through the high desert terrain of White Sands Missile Range, conducted in honor of the heroic service members who defended the Philippine Islands during World War II, sacrificing their freedom, health and, in many cases, their very lives. http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bataan-death-march -
Battle of Midway
Ended June 7th, 1942. The Battle of Midway was a crucial and decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Thanks in part to major advances in code breaking, the United States was able to preempt and counter Japan’s planned ambush of its few remaining aircraft carriers, inflicting permanent damage on the Japanese Navy. http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-midway -
Battle of Stalingrad
Ended in Feb. 1943. The soviet army was very desperate so they turned to the victories when they needed them the most. Stalingrad proved no excpetpion to unfolding events along the East Front. Based on the grand thrusts into and around stalingrad, were already proclaiming a big victory for German army. http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-stalingrad -
D-Day Normandy Invasion
The USSR had battled the Axis since the summer of 1941 and had faced the bulk of German military strength. The Western Allies invaded France’s Normandy coast. Months of carefully planned deceptions had convinced Hitler the invasion would come at Calais, the closest point on the French coast to England. The actual targets of Operation Overlord were further west. By the day of the invasion, called D-Day, the Allies had established complete air superiority. The invasion began in darkness. -
Operation Thunderclap
This event was cancelled. Operation Thunderclap had been under discussion within the Allied Command for some time, the proposal was to bomb the eastern-most cities of Germany to disrupt the transport infrastructure behind what was becoming the Eastern front. At Yalta Churchill had promised to do more to support the Soviet forces moving west into Germany, and the priority for Thunderclap moved up the timetable of bombing. -
Battle of the Bulge
Ended at January 25th, 1945. Just south of the Hurtgen Forest, German troops were secretly massing a quarter-million men, nearly 1,000 tanks and mechanized assault guns, and 1,900 artillery pieces for a major counteroffensive that was meant to drive a wedge between the American and British sectors and re-capture the port of Antwerp in the Netherlands. The onslaught forced a bulge 50 miles wide and 70 miles deep into the American lines, giving it the name Battle of the Bulge. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
Ended at March 26th, 1945. As the Allies neared the Japanese home islands, they fought fierce battles to capture small islands nearby, to use as air and supply bases. Only 300 of the 21,000 Japanese defenders were taken alive. American losses were approximately 6,500 dead and 20,000 thousand wounded. -
Battle of Okinawa
Ended at June 22, 1945. Okinawa is just 60 miles long and just 18 miles across at its widest point. An assault force of 180,000 was sent to wrest it from 130,000 defenders. Over 107,000 Japanese military and civilian personnel died, including women who threw their babies into the sea from cliffs, then jumped themselves because Japanese propaganda had convinced them the Americans would torture them. -
VE Day
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day or simply V Day was the public holiday. It was to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. V-E Day is celebrated in America and Britain. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine. -
Potsdam Declaration
The Big Three—Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The prodigious land, sea and air forces of the United States, the British Empire and of China, many times reinforced by their armies and air fleets from the west, are poised to strike the final blows upon Japan. The result of the futile and senseless German resistance to the might of the aroused free peoples of the world stands forth in awful clarity as an example to the people of Japan. http://www.atomicarchiv -
Dropping of the Atomic Bombs
An American B-29 dropped a single atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, obliterating the town. When no Japanese surrender was forthcoming, a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. While the world was shocked by the high number of primarily civilian casualties and massive destruction wrought by a single explosive device. -
VJ Day
The term has also been used for September 2, 1945, when Japan’s formal surrender took place aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay. This name is also known as Victoryover Japan Day.
