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Japanese Invasion of China
Japan was eager for natural resources to be found in China. China had iron ore, rubber, and oil resources and seeing China's weakness they invaded and occupied Manchukuo. While they were planning on bombing Pearl Harbor. -
Period: to
World War Two
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Germany's Invasion of Poland
The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. Germany had more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes that broke through Polish. -
German Blitzkrieg
Germany's strategy was to defeat its opponents in a series of short campaigns. Blitzkrieg tactics required the concentration of offensive weapons such as tanks, planes, and artillery along a narrow front. -
Fall of Paris
Paris had awaken to the sound of German accented voice announcing via loudspeakers that a curfew was imposed to 8 p.m. that evening as German troops enter and occupy Paris. -
Operation Barbarossa
Hitler launched his armies eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union, three great army groups over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks smashed across the frontier into Soviet territory. -
Pearl Harbor
Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours. The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and more than 300 airplanes. More than 2,00 American soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. -
Wannsee Conference
Fifteen high-ranking Nazi party and German Government leaders gathered for an important meeting. They met in a wealthy section of Berlin at a villa by a lake known as Wannsee. The reason why they had the meeting is to discuss the "final solution to the Jewish question in Europe". The "final solution" was the code name for the deliberate, carefully planned destruction of all European Jews. They also used the "final solution" to cover up all the mass murders from the rest of the world. -
Battle of Stalingrad
Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies. The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the bloodiest battles in history, with combined military and civilian casualties of nearly 2 million. -
Bataan Death March
U.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. -
Battle of Midway
Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States defeated Japan in one of the most decisive naval battles 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. An important turning point in the Pacific campaign, the victory allowed the United States and its allies to move into an offensive position. -
Operation Gomorrah
British bombers had bombed Hamburg, Germany by night in Operation Gomorrah, while America bombed them during the day in its own "blitz week". Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians. More than 1,500 million Germans were killed. -
Allied invasion of Italy
The British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery begins the Allied invasion of the Italian peninsula, crossing the Strait of Messina from Sicily and landing at Calabria–the “toe” of Italy. On the day of the landing, the Italian government secretly agreed to the Allies’ terms for surrender, but no public announcement was made until September 8. -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion)
D-Day is the day that foreshadowed the end of Hitlers dream of Nazi domination. Overload was the largest air, land, and sea operation undertaken before or since June 6, 1944. The land included over 5,000 ships, 11,000 planes, and over 150,000 service men. -
Battle of the Bulge
Hitler attempted to split up the Allied armies in the Northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antworth. -
Operation Thunderclap
The background of "Thunderclap" was long and complex. Two months after D-Day, Sir Charles Portal, chief of the Air Staff, had suggested that the moment Germany approached military collapse, a series of heavy air rads to be launched again East German population centers these raids might even precipitate total surrender. -
Battle if Iwo Jima
Stemmed from the need for a base near the Japanese coast. Following elaborate preparatory air and naval bombardment, three U.S. marine divisions landed on the island in February 1945. Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops, who fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts tunnels, and underground installations. -
Battle of Okinawa
Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World Was II, the Okinawa campaign involved 287,000 troops of the U.S. Trenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. There were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. by the end of the 82-day campaign, Japan had lost more than 77,000 soldiers and the Allies had suffered more than 65,000 casualties including 14,000 dead. -
VE Day
On this 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. -
Dropping of the Atomic Bombs
The United States becomes the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Though the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World Was II, many historians argue that it is also ignited the Cold War. -
VJ Day
Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as "Victoryover Japan Day" or simpily "V-J Day."
