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Japanese Invasion of China
A clash occurred between Chinese and Japanese troops near Peiping in North China. When this clash was followed by indications of intensified military activity on the part of Japan, Secretary of State Hull urged upon the Japanese Government a policy of self-restraint. -
Germany's Invasion of Poland
On this day in 1939, German forces bombard Poland on land and from the air, as Adolf Hitler seeks to regain lost territory and ultimately rule Poland. World War II had begun. -
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German Blitzkrieg
German forces tried out the blitzkrieg in Poland in 1939 before successfully employing the tactic with invasions of Belgium, the Netherlands and France in 1940. -
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Operation Barbarossa
On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union: three great army groups with over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks smashed across the frontier into Soviet territory. -
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. -
Wannsee Conference
The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel leaders, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. -
Operation Gomorrah
Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion)
The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. -
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Battle of the Bulge
The last major German offensive campaign of World War II. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg, on the Western Front, towards the end of World War II, in the European theatre -
Operation Thunderclap
Operation Thunderclap was the code for a cancelled operation planned in August 1944 but shelved and never implemented. -
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Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima 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. -
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Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, code named Operation Iceberg, was a series of battles fought in the Japanese Ryukyu Islands, centered on the island of Okinawa. -
V-E Day
On this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. -
Dropping of the Atomic Bombs
The United States detonates the world's first atomic bomb at a test site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. Less than a month later, atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. -
VJ Day
Victory over Japan Day is the day on which the Empire of Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect ending the war.
