-
Mussolini’s March on Rome
Mussolini's Blackshirts conquered strategic points across the country and gathered outside Rome. King Victor Emmanuel III refused to declare the state of emergency and implemented the bloodless transfer of power to the Fascists. -
Hitler writes Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf, (German: “My Struggle”) political manifesto written by Adolf Hitler. It was his only complete book, and the work became the bible of National Socialism (Nazism) in Germany's Third Reich. It was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1927, and an abridged edition appeared in 1930. -
1st “five year plan” in USSR
In the Soviet Union, the first Five-Year Plan (1928–32), implemented by Joseph Stalin, concentrated on developing heavy industry and collectivizing agriculture, at the cost of a drastic fall in consumer goods. -
Stalin becomes dictator of USSR
Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. However, he ruled by terror, and millions of his own citizens died during his brutal reign. -
Japan invades Manchuria
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on 18 September 1931, when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria immediately following the Mukden Incident. At war’s end in February of 1932, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. -
Holodomor
The Holodomor, also known as the Terror-Famine and sometimes referred to as the Great Famine, was a famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. -
Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany
Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933 following a series of electoral victories by the Nazi Party. He ruled absolutely until his death by suicide in April 1945. -
“Night of the Long Knives” in Germany
Night of the Long Knives, in German history, purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler on June 30, 1934. Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organization’s leaders, including Ernst Röhm. Also killed that night were hundreds of other perceived opponents of Hitler. -
Italian invasion of Ethiopia
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression which was fought between Italy and Ethiopia from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Italian Invasion, and in Italy as the Ethiopian War. -
Nuremburg Laws enacted
The Nuremberg Race Laws consisted of two pieces of legislation: the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. A special session of the Nazi-controlled Reichstag passed both laws at the Party’s rally in Nuremberg, Germany. These laws institutionalized many of the racial theories underpinning Nazi ideology and provided the legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany. -
The great purge and gulags
The Great Purge or the Great Terror, also known as the Year of '37 and the Yezhovschina, was Joseph Stalin's campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union that occurred from 1936 to 1938. -
The Spanish civil war
The Spanish Civil War was a civil war in Spain fought from 1936 to 1939. Republicans loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic -
The Rape of Nanking
The Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Imperial Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing, at that time the capital of China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War. -
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung paramilitary forces along with civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. The German authorities looked on without intervening. -
Nazi Germany invades Poland
Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe. German forces broke through Polish defenses along the border and quickly advanced on Warsaw, the Polish capital. -
Japan bombs Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 08:00, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941.