-
Fascism and Nazism
Nazism refers to the totalitarian Fascist ideology and policies espoused and practiced by Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Worker's Party from 1920-1945.
Fascism was an authoritarian political movement that developed in Italy and several other European countries after 1919 as a reaction against the profound political and social changes brought about by World War I and the spread of socialism and Communism. -
Neutrality Act
The Neutrality Acts were passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in the US following its costly involvement in World War I, and sought to ensure that the US would not become entangled again in foreign conflicts. -
Germany’s expansion and annexation of Austria
After a prolonged period of intense propaganda inside Austria, German troops entered the country on March 12, 1938, receiving the enthusiastic support of most of the population. Austria was incorporated into Germany on the following day. In April, this German annexation was retroactively approved in a plebiscite that was manipulated to indicate that about 99 percent of the Austrian people wanted the union with Germany. Neither Jews nor Roma were permitted to vote. -
Blitzkrieg attack on Poland
The morning after the Gleiwitz incident, German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. As the Germans advanced, Polish forces withdrew from their forward bases of operation close to the Polish–German border to more established lines of defence to the east. After the mid-September Polish defeat in the Battle of the Bzura, the Germans gained an undisputed advantage. -
Non aggressive pact
On August 23, 1939–shortly before World War II (1939-45) broke out in Europe–enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years. With Europe on the brink of another major war, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) viewed the pact as a way to keep his nation on peaceful terms with Germany, while giving him time to build up the Soviet m -
Transition of the US home front to War production
In late 1939, a full two years before the United States entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided it would be necessary—and perhaps wise—to invest time and money into national defense. Despite his promise to keep the nation out of the war escalating abroad, Roosevelt carefully and deliberately prepared the country for a worst-case scenario. By the spring of 1940, he convinced Congress to increase defense spending, enlarge the army, and expand the U.S. military air fleet. -
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the Second World War air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940. The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces, and was also the largest and most sustained aerial bombing campaign to that date. -
Liberation of Madjdanek (concentration camp)
During the entire period of its existence, the Majdanek camp was under construction. Construction on the camp began in October 1941 with the arrival of about 2,000 Soviet prisoners of war. Most of the Soviet prisoners of war at Majdanek were too weak to work; virtually all were dead by February 1942 -
Booming of Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II. -
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway was a crucial and decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy under Admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chuichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondo on Midway Atoll, inflic -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in the south-western Soviet Union -
D-day
On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which, “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Continental Europe. -
Battle of Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was a major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. -
Battle of Imo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Armed Forces landed and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. -
The Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg,was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II.The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945. -
V-e day
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day, or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 (7 May in Commonwealth realms) to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces.[1] It thus marked the end of World War II in Europe. -
Land-Lease act
The Lend-Lease policy, formally titled "An Act to Further Promote the Defense of the United States", was a program under which the United States supplied Free France, Great Britain, the Republic of China, and later the USSR and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and August 1945. -
Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. -
VE Day
On August 15, 1945, news of the surrender was announced to the world. This sparked spontaneous celebrations over the final ending of World War II. On September 2, 1945, a formal surrender ceremony was held in Tokyo Bay aboard the USS Missouri. At the time, President Truman declared September 2 to be VJ Day. -
invasion of Africa by Eisenhower
In July, Eisenhower was appointed lieutenant general and named to head Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa. As supreme commander of a mixed force of Allied nationalities, services, and equipment, Eisenhower designed a system of unified command and rapidly won the respect of his British and Canadian subordinates. From North Africa, he successfully directed the invasions of Tunisia, Sicily, and the Italian mainland, and in December 1943 was appointed Supreme Allied Commande -
Signing of the Non-Aggression Pact (Germany and U.S.S.R.)
