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Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa, original name Operation Fritz, during World War II, code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which was launched on June 22, 1941. The failure of German troops to defeat Soviet forces in the campaign signaled a crucial turning point in the war. -
Japanese Invasion of China
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on September 18, 1931, when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria immediately following the Mukden Incident -
Ribbentrop/Molotov Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, also known as the Nazi–Soviet Pact or the German–Soviet Non-aggression Pact (officially: Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), [a] was a neutrality pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 -
Germany Invasion of Poland
The German-Soviet Pact of August 1939, which stated that Poland was to be partitioned between the two powers, enabled Germany to attack Poland without the fear of Soviet intervention. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. -
German Blitzkrieg
Germany quickly overran much of Europe and was victorious for more than two years by relying on a new military tactic called the "Blitzkrieg" (lightning war). Blitzkrieg tactics required the concentration of offensive weapons (such as tanks, planes, and artillery) along a narrow front. -
Fall Of Paris
The Battle of France, also referred to as The Fall of France, was a battle that took place during the Second World War in May of 1940. German forces invaded areas of France pushing the British Forces (British Expeditionary Force BEF) and French forces (Dunkirk) back to the sea in Operation Dynamo. The battle was organized in two separate operations: The Fall Gelb Operation, also called Case Yellow, and The Fall Rot, also referred to as Case Red. -
Wannsee Conference
On this day, Nazi officials meet to discuss the details of the “Final Solution” of the “Jewish question.” In July 1941, Herman Goering, writing under instructions from Hitler, had ordered Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and Heinrich Himmler’s number-two man, to submit “as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative, material, and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.” -
Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941 -
Battle of Midway
The battle of Midway (June 3–6, 1942), one of the decisive Allied victories of World War II, involved the island but mainly occurred between opposing fleets at sea. Fought mostly with aircraft, it resulted in the destruction of four Japanese aircraft carriers, crippling the Japanese navy. -
Battle Of Stalingrad
Adolf Hitler was very angry at General Paulus for losing the battle. ...
German tanks had trouble fighting in the streets of Stalingrad. ...
General Zhukov would lead the Soviet Union to many more victories by the end of World War II. ...
Around 91,000 German soldiers were captured at the end of the battle. -
Operation Gomorrah
The Battle of Hamburg, codenamed Operation Gomorrah, was a campaign of air raids beginning 24 July 1943 and lasting for 8 days and 7 nights. It was at the time the heaviest assault in the history of aerial warfare and was later called the Hiroshima of Germany by British officials. -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion)
American troops storm the beaches of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. D-Day was the largest amphibious invasion in history. More than 160,000 Allied troops -- about half of them Americans -- invaded Western Europe -
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Liberation of concentration camps
Soviet soldiers were the first to liberate concentration camp prisoners in the final stages of the war. On July 23, 1944, they entered the Majdanek camp in Poland, and later overran several other killing centers. On January 27, 1945, they entered Auschwitz and there found hundreds of sick and exhausted prisoners. -
Operation Thunderclap
Operation Thunderclap was the code for a cancelled operation planned in August 1944 but shelved and never implemented. The plan envisaged a massive attack on Berlin in the belief that would cause 220,000 casualties with 110,000 killed, many of them key German personnel, which would shatter German morale. -
Battle Of The Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge (December 16, 1944–January 16, 1945), also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the largest battle fought on the Western Front in Europe during World War II; it is also the largest battle ever fought by the United States Army. -
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Battle Of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. -
Battle Of Okinawa
The battle of Okinawa, also known as Operation Iceberg, took place in April-June 1945. It was the largest amphibious landing in the Pacific theater of World War II. It also resulted in the largest casualties with over 100,000 Japanese casualties and 50,000 casualties for the Allies. -
VE 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 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. It thus marked the end of World War II in Europe. -
Dropping of the Atomic Bombs
President Harry S. Truman, warned by some of his advisers that any attempt to invade Japan would result in horrific American casualties, ordered that the new weapon be used to bring the war to a speedy end. On August 6, 1945, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima -
VJ Day
The name, V-J Day, had been selected by the Allies after they named V-E Day for the victory in Europe. On September 2, 1945, a formal surrender ceremony was performed in Tokyo Bay, Japan, aboard the battleship USS Missouri