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World War II Timeline
World War II Events -
Japanese Invasion of China
invasion of chinaa military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1941. China fought Japan, with some economic help from Germany (see Sino-German cooperation), the Soviet Union (see Soviet Volunteer Group) and the United States (see American Volunteer Group). After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. The Second Sino-Japanese War was -
Germany's invasion of Poland
invasion of polandAt 4:45 a.m., some 1.5 million German troops invade Poland all along its 1,750-mile border with German-controlled territory. Simultaneously, the German Luftwaffe bombed Polish airfields, and German warships and U-boats attacked Polish naval forces in the Baltic Sea. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler claimed the massive invasion was a defensive action, but Britain and France were not convinced. On September 3, they declared war on Germany, initiating World War II. France and london declared war on Germany -
fall of paris
fall of france May 1940, Europe had been at war for nine months. Yet Britain and France, despite having declared war on Germany in September 1939 following Hitler’s attack on Poland, had seen little real fighting. It ended on 10 of May 1940, when Germany launched an invasion of France and the Low Countries. French second-rate divisions in the area were not prepared or equipped to deal with the major armoured thrust that developed. , and were hammered by incessant attacks by German bombers. -
operation barbarossa
operation barossaOn June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward in a enormous invasion of the Soviet Union: three great army groups with over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks squished across the frontier into Soviet territory. The invasion covered a front from the North Cape to the Black Sea, a distance of two thousand miles. Barbarossa was the crucial turning point in World War II. for its failure forced Nazi Germany to fight a two-front war against resources. -
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
pearl harborJust before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The on going attack lasted 2 hours, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, but Japan and the United States had been edging toward war for decades. More than 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. -
The Wannsee Confrence
Wannsee confrenceOn January, 20, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's second in command of the SS, convened the Wannsee Conference in Berlin with 15 top Nazi bureaucrats to figure out the Final solution, in which the Nazis would attempt to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe, an estimit of atleast 11 million Jewish people."Europe would never see a Jew from East to West ever again", Heydrich stated. They would send the Jews to the ghettos in Poland and send them to concentration camps to kill them. -
Bataan Death march
Death marchU.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II (1939-45), the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March. -
Warsaw Ghetto uprising
uprisnigShortly after the German invasion of Poland, in September 1939, more than 400,000 Jews in Warsaw, the capital, were imprisoned to an area of the city that was little more than 1 square mile. In November 1940, this ghetto was sealed off by brick walls, barbed wire and armed guards, and anyone caught leaving was shot on sight. The Nazis controlled the amount of food that was brought into the ghetto, and disease and starvation killed thousands each month. (Ghettos were established in cities) -
Operation Gomorrah
history of operatio gomorrahOn the day of 1943, 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 are going to turn. The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. -
allied invasion of italy
italian invasionThe British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery began the Allied invasion of the Italian peninsula. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini envisioned building Fascist Italy into a new Roman Empire, but a string of military defeats in World War II effectively made his regime a puppet of its stronger Axis Germany.By the spring of 1943, opposition groups in Italy were uniting to overthrow Mussolini. -
D-Day
D Day The Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codename Operation Overlord, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and to defeat Germany and end the war. -
battle of the bulge
battle of the bulgeIn December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. Caught off-guard, American units fought desperate battles to stem the German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and Bastogne. As the Germans drove deeper into the Ardennes in an attempt to secure vital bridgeheads, the Allied line took on the appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle’s name. -
liberation of concentration camps
liberationOn 27 Jan 1945, Soviet troops from the 100th Infantry Division discovered Auschwitz 11 days after the Germans abandoned it, and found remnants of what had been a terrible nightmare: 348,820 men's suits and 836,515 women's dresses neatly folded, pyramids of dentures and eyeglasses, and seven tons of women's hair. Dwight Eisenhower toured the remains of a concentration camp near the town of Gotha in Apr 1945 and recorded his experience that was indescribable with words. -
VE day
VE Day both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. 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. The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists. The main concern of many German soldiers was to elude the grasp of Soviet forces, to keep from being taken prisoner. -
the dropping of the Atomic bomb
atomic bombhe United States became the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. When dropping the atomic bomb on Japan, it marked the end of World War II. Since 1940, the United States have been working on creating an atomic weapon, after having been warned by Albert Einstein that Nazi Germany was already conducting research into nuclear weapons. After pearl harbor america got mad -
VJ Day
japan surrendersOn August 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered completely to the Allies, finally ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 has been known as “Victoryover Japan Day,” or simply “V-J Day.” Several months after the surrender of Nazi Germany, Japan’s surrender in the Pacific brought six years of war to a final and highly anticipated close.
