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Battle of the Atlantic
It was a battle contest between the Western Allies and the Axis powers (particularly Germany) for the control of Atlantic sea routes. -
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Axis victories
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Germany invades Poland
German forces, under the control of Adolf Hitler, bombarded Poland on land and from the air. The outmoded thinking of the Polish commanders coupled with the antiquated state of its military were no match for the overwhelming and modern-mechanized German forces, and thus they took over. World War two had begun. -
France and Britain declare war on Germany
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Auschwitz is established
Auschwitz was the largest of the German Nazi concentration camps and extermination centres. It was a complex of camps that had a concentration camp, an extermination camp, and a forced labour camp. It was located near Kraków, Poland. Over 1.1 million men, women and children were killed, directly or indirectly, there. -
Germany invades France, Belgium, and the Netherlands
The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. -
Italy declares war on France and Great Britain
Italy was ruled by Mussolini (fascist). -
France surrenders to Germany
They signed an armistice. -
Battle of Britain
It was the successful defence of Great Britain against unremitting and destructive air raids conducted by the German air force (Luftwaffe) from July through September 1940, after the fall of France. -
Germany invades the Soviet Union
Also known as Operation Barbarossa, this massive failure for the German troops marked an important turning point for the war and gave the Allies the upper hand. -
Seige on Leningrad
After the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, a German army surrounded the city of Leningrad. In subsequent months, the city sought to establish supply lines from the Soviet interior and evacuate its citizens, often using a hazardous "road" across Lake Ladoga. A successful land corridor was created in January 1943, and the Red Army finally managed to drive off the Germans the following year. Altogether, the siege lasted nearly 900 days and resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million civilians. -
Attack on Pearl Harbour
It was a surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island, Hawaii, by the Japanese that precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II. -
Germany and Italy declare war on the United States and viceversa
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Allied offensives
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Battle of Stalingrad
Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. It ended on February second the following year. It was the first major defeat of the Germans. The city withstood several months of siege, after which the Germans surrendered. After this, the Soviets went on the attack, taking back Ukraine and ending the siege of Leningrad -
Alied victories in Africa
During the Second World War, the North African Campaign took place from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943. It included campaigns fought in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts and in Morocco and Algeria and Tunisia, the last of which being the place where the Germans were defeated by the British. -
Normandy landings
The normandy Invasion, also called Operation Overlord or D-Day, was the Allied invasion of Western Europe, which was launched on June 6, 1944 (the most celebrated D-Day of the war), with the simultaneous landing of U.S., British, and Canadian forces on five separate beachheads in Normandy, France. It brought many men and weapons, and cost many lives. By the end of August 1944 all of northern France was liberated, and the invading forces reorganized for the drive into Germany, -
Hitler suicide
Hitler and his wife of one day, Eva Braun, committed suicide by taking cyanide pills and shooting themselves in the head. -
Germany surrenders
After a series of failures and the death of Hitler, Germany surrendered. This generally ended the war, yet Japan was still kept fighting. -
Hiroshima
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. -
Nagasaki
A second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”