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Speaking to a crowd in Milan, Benito Mussolini coins the name "Axis" for Italy and its allies when he states that the "line between Rome and Berlin is not a partition but rather an axis around which all European states...can also collaborate."
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Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, directed against the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement
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Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich agreement which forces the Czechoslovak Republic to cede the Sudetenland, including the key Czechoslovak military defense positions, to Nazi Germany.
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Commemorative medal awarded to soldiers of the Third Reich who participated in the October 1, 1938, annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia by Germany.
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Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression agreement and a secret codicil dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence.
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Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe.
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Honoring their guarantee of Poland’s borders, Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.
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The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east