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The Holocaust
A mass murder of some 6 million European Jews as well as members persecuted groups. The German Nazi during the Second World War jews were an inferior race. Europe were the Nazis’ primary target, many millions of other people were also imprisoned, enslaved and murdered. -
Japan invades China
When the Japanese claimed that they were fired on by Chinese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing. The Japanese launched an invasion on China using the conquered Manchuria as a launching base for their troops. Its senior officers allowed the Japanese army to run up on Nanking murdering tens of thousands as they went. -
Munich Conference
A settlement permitting Nazi Germany's annexation of portions of Czechoslovakia along the country's borderign mainly by German. Hitler continued to make speeches demanding that Germans in Czechoslovakia be reunited with their homeland. Neither France nor Britain felt prepared to defend Czechoslovakia and Hitler agreed to take no military action without further discussion. -
Non-Aggression Pact
Germany and the Soviet Union by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which the two countries agreed to take no military action for the next 10 years. Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, breaking the agreement it had signed with Great Britain and France the year before in Munich, Germany. -
Germany Invades Poland
The German invasion of Poland was how Hitler intended to wage war–what would become the “blitzkrieg” strategy. Once Hitler had a base of operations within the target country, he immediately began setting up security forces. The Polish forces were unequipped and attempted to take the Germans head-on with falling back to more natural defensive positions. -
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Battle of Britain
The Germans first in a long series of bombing against Great Britain as the Battle of Britain, which will last three and a half months. 120 German bombers and fighters struck a British convoy in that very Channel, while 70 more bombers attacked at South Wales. Britain also produced a quality aircraft. Its Spitfires could turn tighter than Germany’s ME109. -
Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease brought the United States one step closer to entry into the war. By allowing the president to transfer war materiel to Britain and without payment as required by the Neutrality Act of 1939. It enabled the British to keep fighting until events led America into the conflict. -
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Operation Barbarossa
Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union. The invasion covered a front from the North Cape to the Black Sea, a distance of two thousand miles. The forces invading Russia represented the finest army to fight in the twentieth century. It left their troops with no winter clothes or supply dumps for the winter, the generals urged Hitler to continue. -
Pearl Harbor
Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and almost 200 airplanes. About 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan and Congress approved his declaration with just one dissenting vote. -
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Battle of Stalingrad
The Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad in the U.S.S.R. during World War II. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and one of the bloodiest battles in history, with combined military and civilian casualties of nearly 2 million. -
Bataan Death March
About 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The next three months, the combined U.S.-Filipino army held out despite a lack of naval and air support. General Homma Masaharu, commander of the Japanese invasion forces, he was held responsible for the death march, a war crime, and was executed by firing squad on April 3, 1946. -
D-Day
Germany invaded and occupied northwestern France beginning in May 1940 and the Americans entered the war in December 1941. Allied plans for a cross channel invasion began to ramp up and November 1943, Adolf Hitler was aware of the threat of an invasion along France’s northern coast. The Allies carried out a massive operation intended to make the Germans think the main invasion target was PasdeCalais. -
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Battle of the Bulge
Germans launch the last major offensive of the war and attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. Their assault came in the morning at a weak poor protected stretch of hills and woody forest. American units and the thick fog that prevented air cover from discovering Germans. The Germans were able to push the Americans into retreat. -
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Battle of Iwo Jima
The Invasion of Iwo Jima, a key island in the Bonin chain roughly 575 miles from the Japanese coast. Iwo Jima was defended by 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops. a key island in the Bonin chain 575 miles from the Japanese coast.American losses with 5,900 dead and 17,400 wounded. -
Battle of Okinawa
The 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. About 77,000 soldiers and the Allies had suffered more than 65,000 casualties 14,000 dead. -
V-E Day
Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Germans surrendered to the Soviet Union, after having lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more. The German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire and more documents were signed in Berlin. -
The Bombing of Hiroshima
A second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people and about tens of thousands more would later die of radiation. World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the power of a new and most cruel bomb. -
V-J Day
A decade of relations between Japan and the United States and led to an immediate U.S. declaration of war. The Allies were bombarding Japan from air and sea, dropping some 100,000 tons of explosives on more than 60 Japanese cities . -
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Battle of Midway
The victory allowed the United States and its allies to move into an offensive position. The United States defeated Japan in one of the most decisive naval battles of World War II. When the United States began its counterattack May 2, messages that were intercepted began to indicate some operations. Japanese plans and order of battle had been reconstructed in detail. -
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Warsaw Pact
Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites sign a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact. The member states to come to the defense of any member attacked by an outside force. It increases the danger of a new war and creates a threat to the national security of peace-loving states.