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Seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industries, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. By 1937 Japan controlled large sections of China, and accusations of war crimes against the Chinese became commonplace.
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German troops march into Austria to annex the German-speaking nation for the Third Reich. In early 1938, Austrian Nazis conspired for the second time in four years to seize the Austrian government by force and unite their nation with Nazi Germany.
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Germany invaded Poland to regain lost territory and ultimately rule their neighbor to the east. The German invasion of Poland was a primer on how Hitler intended to wage war–what would become the “blitzkrieg” strategy.
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Battle of Britain is the name commonly given to the effort by the Luftwaffe to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), before a planned sea and airborne invasion of Britain during the Second World War. During the next three months the Royal Air Force lost 792 planes and over 500 pilots were killed.
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Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union: three great army groups with over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks smashed across the frontier into Soviet territory.
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Japanese attack had several major aims. First, it intended to destroy important American fleet units, thereby preventing the Pacific Fleet from interfering with Japanese conquest of the Dutch East Indies and Malaya and to enable Japan to conquer Southeast Asia without interference.
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The result of Japanese seafarers' deference prior to Midway: the needless loss of the Kidō Butai, the IJN's aircraft-carrier fleet and main striking arm. Worse from Tokyo's standpoint, Midway halted the Japanese Empire's till-then unbroken string of naval victories.
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Stalingrad was one of the most decisive battles on the Eastern Front in the Second World War. The Soviet Union inflicted a catastrophic defeat on the German Army in and around this strategically important city on the Volga river, which bore the name of the Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin.
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The Battle of El Alamein marked the culmination of the World War II North African campaign between the British Empire and the German-Italian army. To break this line and destroy the Axis forces was the task of Bernard Montgomery, commanding the British imperial forces.
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Operation Torch was the Anglo-American invasion of French Morocco and Algeria during the North African Campaign of World War II. It began on November 8 and concluded on November 16, 1942.
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During the Conference, the three leaders coordinated their military strategy against Germany and Japan and made a number of important decisions concerning the post World War II era. ... Stalin also agreed in principle that the Soviet Union would declare war against Japan following an Allied victory over Germany.
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Troops from the UK, the US, Canada, and France attacked German forces on the coast of northern France. It was the largest military naval, air and land operation ever attempted and marked the start of the campaign to liberate Nazi-occupied north-west Europe.
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Hitler's aim was to split the Allies in their drive toward Germany. ... As the Germans drove into the Ardennes, the Allied line took on the appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle's name. The battle proved to be the costliest ever fought by the U.S. Army, which suffered over 100,000 casualties.
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The Yalta Conference, also known as the Crimea Conference and code-named Argonaut, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe.
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The Potsdam Conference is perhaps best known for President Truman's July 24, 1945 conversation with Stalin, during which time the President informed the Soviet leader that the United States had successfully detonated the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945.
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The American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A blast equivalent to the power of 15,000 tons of TNT reduced four square miles of the city to ruins and immediately killed 80,000 people
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