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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier.
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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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The Anti-Comintern Pact is signed by Nazi Germany and Japan against the International Comintern but not against the Soviet Union.
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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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Nazi German troops march into the Sudetenland. Without the support of their alleged allies, France and Britain, the Czechoslovakians are powerless against Adolf Hitler's army.
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Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact, stunning the world, given their diametrically opposed ideologies. But the dictators were, despite appearances, both playing to their own political needs.
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German troops invade Poland all along its 1,750-mile border with German-controlled territory.
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in response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany.
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Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov declares that the Polish government has ceased to exist, as the U.S.S.R. exercises the “fine print” of the Hitler-Stalin Non-aggression pact, the invasion and occupation of eastern Poland.
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German warships enter major Norwegian ports, from Narvik to Oslo, deploying thousands of German troops and occupying Norway.
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France signs an armistice with Nazi Germany. The armistice, signed by the French on June 22, went into effect on June 25, and more than half of France was occupied by the Germans.
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the Germans begin the first in a long series of bombing raids against Great Britain, as the Battle of Britain, which will last three and a half months, begins.
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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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a Japanese dive bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan on its wings appears out of the clouds above the island of Oahu.
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as America’s Pacific fleet lay in ruins at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt requests, and receives, a declaration of war against Japan.