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The Paris Peace Conference Signing
The great powers of the world (those who won the war), came together in Paris to sign the Treaty of Versailles. This document stated that as the losers of the war, Germany would be blamed for the conflict, being forced to pay back huge sums of money, a total of £6,600,00, a debt that they only finished paying in 2010. As well as that, Germany would unable to participate in the conference and were left humiliated. -
Hitler named chancellor of the National Socialist Party
President Paul Von Hindenburg named Adolf Hitler the chancellor of the National Socialist German Workers Party (better known as the NAZI party). -
A series of attacks take place in Jewish homes and workplaces
The ninth and tenth days of November brought with them havoc in the form of Kristallnacht ("The night of crystal"). The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish attacks throughout Germany, Austria, and German-occupied Czechoslovakia. More specifically, the broken glass that lined the streets when NAZI officials and Hitler youth groups forced their way into homes and businesses, plundering and often beating residents. Records show a high rate of criminal activity in its aftermath. -
The invasions of France, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and The Netherlands
The British violated Norwegian neutrality by laying ocean mines in the shipping channel Germans were using to bring iron ore from Sweden, cutting Germany from its major source of iron ore. As the British were laying their mines, Hitler's forces were on their way to Norway, and on the 9th of April his troops landed at six of Norway's ports. Germany conquered the Netherlands after only five days of fighting. -
Beginning of Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. Over the course of the operation, about four million soldiers invaded the Soviet Union along a 2,900 kilometer front, the largest invasion force in the history of warfare. In addition to troops, the Germans employed some 600,000 motor vehicles and between 600–700,000 horses. It marked the beginning of the rapid escalation of the war. -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike taken out by the Imperial Japanese Navy. Just before 8 a.m, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours, but it was devastating. The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels. The attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II. -
D-Day Landing of allied troops in Europe (The Normundy Landings)
The Normandy landings (codenamed Operation Neptune) were the landing operations of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, and contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front. -
Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
An American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15.
