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Mussolini’s March on Rome Starts
Description:
The insurrection by which Benito Mussolini gained power in Italy in late October 1922. Mussolini would demand the resignation of the government and that a Fascist government be allowed to take over.
Significance: Marked the beginning of fascist rule and meant the doom of the preceding parliamentary regimes of socialists and liberals.
Purpose:
The organized mass destruction allowed Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party (PNF) to easily gain control of the Kingdom of Italy. -
Stalin Becomes Dictator of USSR
Description:
Having had experience serving in the Russian Civil War and overseeing the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin took over the USSR after Vladimir Lenin died in 1924.
Significance:
With Stalin now in power, he was able to maintain control over Soviet battlefronts, military reserves, and war economy.
Purpose:
After Lenin died, the Soviet Union and Communist Party itself required a new leader, so Stalin was appointed and hailed as Lenin's successor. -
Hitler writes Mein Kampf
Description:
Translating to "My Struggle," Mein Kampf was a political manifesto book written by Adolf Hitler. It would become the guidelines for Nazism and the Final Solution later on during the Holocaust.
Significance: Mein Kampf promoted the key components of Nazism: rabid antisemitism, a racist world view, and an aggressive foreign policy geared to gaining Lebensraum (living space) in eastern Europe. This made the practice more common and widespread.
Purpose:
To outline the goals of Nazism -
1st “five year plan” in USSR Starts
Description:
The plan concentrated on developing heavy industry and collectivizing agriculture, at the cost of a drastic fall in consumer goods.
Significance:
The Soviet Union's achievements were tremendous during the first five-year plan, which yielded a fifty-percent increase in industrial output. This benefited them for the war.
Purpose:
The first five year plan was established to initiate rapid and widespread industrialization across the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). -
Japan invades Manchuria
Description:
In September 1931, the Japanese claimed that Chinese soldiers had sabotaged the Manchurian railway, and attacked the Chinese army. Thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed.
Significance:
By the year 1937, Japan was in control of large sections of China, and war crimes against the Chinese became commonplace.
Purpose:
Japan was in need of more raw materials, so it turned to Manchuria to provide them, even invading them to successfully fulfill their goals. -
Holodomor Starts
Description:
A famine that was caused by mankind that plagued the Soviet republic of Ukraine in the years 1932 and 1933.
Significance:
The death tolls rose to around 3.3 to 7 million, making it a terrible crime against humanity that greatly contributed to genocides happening around the same time.
Purpose:
Stalin and the government purposefully adopted the principle of collectivization and made all agriculture state controlled to prevent revolutions and and promote socialism in the countryside. -
Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany
Description:
Hindenburg's son, former chancellor Franz von Papen acquiesced and on 30 January 1933, he formally appointed Adolf Hitler as chancellor.
Significance:
Hitler was now at the position of power he needed to truly engage in a more intense war, having more control over troops.
Purpose:
Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933 following a series of electoral victories by the Nazi Party. -
“Night of the Long Knives” in Germany
Description:
The purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler, who feared that having too many members of the Nazi party would increase opposition.
Significance: About 100 members of the party were executed, showing just how ruthless and unpredictable Hitler's tactics were.
Purpose: Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful and his own position was threatened, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organization's leaders, including Ernst Röhm. -
Nuremberg Laws enacted
Description:
A list of antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Germany on 15 September 1935, at a meeting of the Reichstag convened during the Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party.
Significance:
The Nazi views of inferior races, specifically Jews, worsened, making it easier for them to turn their backs on the Jews in the Final Solution.
Purpose:
Meant to further dehumanize Jewish people by taking away rights and property, enforcing the idea that they are the inferior race. -
Italian invasion of Ethiopia Starts
A war of aggression which was fought between Italy and Ethiopia from October 1935 to February 1937. A border incident between Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland gave Benito Mussolini an excuse to intervene.
Significance:
The Italians won a victory in the Battle of Maychew, which nullified any possible organized resistance of the Ethiopians.
Purpose:
The aim of invading Ethiopia was to boost Italian national prestige, which was wounded by Ethiopia's defeat of Italian forces at the Battle of Adowa. -
The Great Purge and gulags
Description:
Stalin used his secret police to spy on the people who disagreed with him. Then the police would arrest them and sent them to labor camps in Siberia (gulags) or kill them.
Significance:
Millions were eliminated, Stalin's power grew because the public was too afraid to disrespect him, Germany was lacking military leaders that were assassinated.
Purpose:
The political purge was primarily an effort by Stalin to eliminate challenge from past and potential opposition groups. -
Spanish civil war
Description:
A military revolt against the Republican government of Spain, supported by conservative elements within the country.
Significance:
The Republicans finally surrendered Madrid and Franco subsequently served as dictator of Spain until his death in 1975.
Purpose:
When an initial military coup failed to win control of the entire country, a bloody civil war ensued, fought with great ferocity on both sides. The Spanish parties and groups refused to compromise and respect democratic norms. -
The Rape of Nanking
Description:
To break the spirit of Chinese resistance, Matsui Iwane ordered that Nanking be destroyed. The city was burned, and Japanese troops launched a campaign of atrocities (sexual and physical violence) against civilians.
Significance:
150,000 male “war prisoners" killed, additional 50,000 male civilians killed, raped 20,000 women that were mutilated or killed in the process.
Purpose:
A breakdown in discipline, caused by supply shortages, led Japanese troops to engage in atrocities. -
Kristallnacht
Description:
Nazis rampaged streets in search of Jewish property and buildings, destroying them and creating a "Night of Broken Glass" as they killed about 100 Jews.
Significance:
Economic lives of German Jews were damaged beyond repair, Nazism and antisemitism grew in popularity, Jews became scared to act and speak out and revolt.
Purpose:
Kristallnacht was caused by overall antisemitism and the murder of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jewish man after his family were deported to Poland. -
Nazi Germany Starts Invading Poland
Description:
Germany and the Soviet Union both invaded Poland, dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty.
Significance:
More living space and land and people fueled both Germany and the Soviet Union's needs for resources for the war. This would give them a leg-up in the war. The annexation and dividing of Poland would inevitable inspire WWII itself.
Purpose:
Germany and the Soviet Union desired resources and land that could be found in Poland. -
Japan bombs Pearl Harbor
Description:
An aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island, Hawaii, by the Japanese that precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II.
Significance:
The grief and shock of American death inspired the United States to end isolationism and join WWII on the side of the Allies.
Purpose:
Worsening relations and connections between Japan and the U.S. caused them to attack. Japan also knew that the U.S. would eventually join the war, so they attacked first.