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Annexation of Austria '
German troops march into Austria to annex the German-speaking nation for the Third Reich. -
Munich Conference
Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier sign the Munich Pact with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The agreement averted the outbreak of war but gave Czechoslovakia away to German conquest. -
German Invasion of Poland
Germany invaded Poland to regain lost territory and ultimately rule their neighbor to the east. -
Battle of France
At the end of the Battle of France, Nazi Germany took over direct control of the northern half of France -
Battle of Britain
the successful defense of Great Britain against unremitting and destructive air raids conducted by the German air force -
Pearl Harbor
aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the United States Naval base -
Bataan Death March
The Japanese forced 76,000 captured Allied soldiers -
The Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway dashed Japan's hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval power -
Battle of Stalingrad
It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union -
Operation Torch
The Anglo-American invasion of French Morocco and Algeria during the North African Campaign of World War II. -
The Italian Campaign
Allied beach landings and land battles from Sicily and southern Italy up the Italian mainland toward Nazi Germany -
D-Day
Allied forces launched a combined naval, air and land assault on Nazi-occupied France. -
The Bombing of Dresden
Allied bombing raids on February 13–15, 1945, that almost completely destroyed the German city of Dresden. -
The Battle of Iwo Jima
it's believed that all but 200 or so of the 21,000 Japanese forces on the island were killed, as were almost 7,000 Marines. -
Auschwitz/ Dachau Death Camps
Dachau was initially a camp for political prisoners; however, it eventually evolved into a death camp where countless thousands of Jews died from malnutrition, disease and overwork or were executed. -
Los Alamos New Mexico - Manhattan Project
the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated—the Trinity Test—creating an enormous mushroom cloud some 40,000 feet high and ushering in the Atomic Age. -
Hiroshima/ Nagasaki
the first atomic bomb, codenamed 'Little Boy', was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.