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Adolf Hitler is appointed as the leader of Germany. He held this position until his death in 1945. He used this power to attempt to achieve what he called the "Aryan Race", which was a race of people he deemed to be 'superior'. -
Also called "The Night of Broken Glass" or "November Pogroms" refers to the night in which many Jewish people and their property were attacked by German Nazis. The violence continued into the next day and in many places for the coming days as well. This event was given its name because of the broken glass left on the streets afterwards. -
On this date the war between Poland and Nazi Germany began. Germany's invasion of Poland sparked global conflict, leading countries such as Britain and France to declare war on Germany, thus resulting in the beginning of the second world war. The invasion was not a fair contest with Germany's 1.5 million men facing less than a million Polish troops and much less to defend themselves. -
Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp, located near a small Polish town named Oświęcim. By March 1941 there were already over 10,000 prisoners being held there. The camp was not just one camp, but three camps in one: a prison camp, an extermination camp and a slave-labour camp. -
Also called the Miracle of Dunkirk refers to the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force and some other allied troops using civilian boats and other naval vessels. By the end of the evacuation on the 4th of June 1940, around 198,000 British troops and 140,000 French and Belgian troops had been successfully saved. -
The attack was carried out on the United States naval base in Hawaii by the Japanese. During the first wave, 4 battleships were hit, one of which exploded minutes later and killed all 1,177 of the crew on board. Hours later, during the second wave, at least 21 warships were destroyed or damaged and 2,403 servicemen and women had been killed. -
Japanese bombers attacked the port twice that day. There were 252 casualties of both civilians and individuals involved with the war. During the following months many attacks were made in Western Australia, The Northern Territory, Queensland and others. These attacks were not made with the intention to invade despite the fears at the time. -
Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide in his underground study. Hitler was found with a bullet hole in the right side of his head and Eva Braun had ingested cyanide. They had been married for 40 hours. Prior to this he had poisoned his dog and said goodbye to his servants. -
America bombs the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Tens of thousands of people were killed and due to the bombs used being atomic bombs, many more people were killed by radiation poisoning. Just one day after the bombing of Nagasaki, the Japanese government accepted the terms of surrender. -
Germany officially surrendered on May 8th, around a week after Hitler's suicide. However, due to the scale of the war, it continued in many places even after the official ending. The war ended when the Axis powers had all surrendered unconditionally.