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On August 25, 1939, the aging German pre-dreadnought battleship Schleswig-Holstein arrived in the port of the Free City of Danzig. Officially, it was there to celebrate the anniversary of the German victory in the Battle of Tannenberg in World War I: colorful flags flew from the masts and the men stood at attention in their white dress uniforms, brass buttons shining in the late summer sun. -
Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, two days after the German invasion of Poland. The guarantees given to Poland by Britain and France marked the end of the policy of appeasement. -
On May 10, 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Luxembourg was occupied that same day. The Netherlands surrendered on 15 May, Belgium on the 28th. At first, Great Britain supported the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, but it withdrew later. -
The British and French forces, along with other allied units that were trapped n northern France were able to defend themselves in the port city of Dunkirk and create an escape plan called Operation Dynamo. The operation was a success in evacuating about 330,000 allied troops from France to Britain. -
The Battle of Britain was a major air campaign fought largely over southern England in the summer and autumn of 1940. After the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk and the Fall of France, Germany planned to gain air superiority in preparation for an invasion of Great Britain. -
On May 18, 1917, Congress passed the Selective Service Act, which authorized the Federal Government to temporarily expand the military through conscription. The act eventually required all men between the ages of 21 to 45 to register for military service. -
Passed on March 11, 1941, this act set up a system that would allow the United States to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the United States." -
On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The surprise attack by some 350 Japanese aircraft sunk or badly damaged eighteen US naval vessels, including eight battleships, destroyed or damaged 300 US aircraft, and killed 2,403 men. -
On December 7, 1941, Japanese carrier planes attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, knocking out over 200 planes and sinking or damaging eight battleships, the pride of the US Pacific fleet. The following day, Congress declared war on Imperial Japan. -
On December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Hitler announced in Berlin that Germany, Italy […] On December 16, 1941, Congress approved legislation giving President Roosevelt virtually unlimited powers over defense contracts, the reorganization of government […] -
Battle of the Coral Sea, (May 4–8, 1942) World War II naval and air engagement in which a U.S. fleet turned back a Japanese invasion force that had been heading for strategic Port Moresby in New Guinea. -
Battle of Midway, (June 3–6, 1942), World War II naval battle, fought almost entirely with aircraft, in which the United States destroyed Japan's first-line carrier strength and most of its best trained naval pilots. -
The battle for North Africa was primarily a struggle for control of the Suez Canal and access to oil from the Middle East and raw materials from Asia, but also an effort to drive Italy out of the war as a prelude to invasion of southern Europe and a planned bombing campaign against Germany. -
The Allies' Italian Campaign began with the invasion of Sicily in July 1943. After 38 days of fighting, the U.S. and Great Britain successfully drove German and Italian troops from Sicily and prepared to assault the Italian mainland -
The Battle of the Bulge started on December 16, 1944, when German forces launched a surprise attack on Allied forces in the forested Ardennes region in Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. The battle lasted until January 16, 1945, after the Allied counteroffensive forced German troops to withdraw. -
The operation, given the codename OVERLORD, delivered five naval assault divisions to the beaches of Normandy, France. The beaches were given the code names UTAH, OMAHA, GOLD, JUNO, and SWORD. The invasion force included 7,000 ships and landing craft manned by over 195,000 naval personnel from eight allied countries. -
What they discovered instead would be seared into their memories for as long as they lived—piles of emaciated corpses, dozens of train cars filled with badly decomposed human remains, and perhaps most difficult to process, the thousands of “walking skeletons” who had managed to survive the horrors of Dachau, the Nazi’s first and longest-operating concentration camp. -
At Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill discussed with Stalin the conditions under which the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan and all three agreed that, in exchange for potentially crucial Soviet participation in the Pacific theater, the Soviets would be granted a sphere of influence in Manchuria following ... -
On Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day, Germany unconditionally surrendered its military forces to the Allies, including the United States. On May 8, 1945 - known as Victory in Europe Day or V-E Day - celebrations erupted around the world to mark the end of World War II in Europe. -
The devastation wrought at Hiroshima was not sufficient to convince the Japanese War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference’s demand for unconditional surrender. The United States had already planned to drop their second atom bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man,” on August 11 in the event of such recalcitrance, but bad weather expected for that day pushed the date up to August 9th. So at 1:56 a.m., a specially adapted B-29 bomber, called “Bockscar,” -
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 immediately killed an estimated 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. -
The next day, August 15th, 1945, was proclaimed Victory over Japan (VJ) Day, although the signing of the official instrument of surrender was not to occur until September 2nd, 1945, aboard the USS Missouri, in Tokyo Bay. There, representatives of nine Allied nations were present to accept the Japanese surrender.