-
Japanese Invasion Of China
China fought Japan, with help from Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war would merge into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front of what is known as the Pacific War. The Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. It accounted for the majority of civilian and military casualties in the Pacific War, with anywhere between 10 and 25 million Chinese civilians and over 4 million Chinese an -
Germany's Invasion Of Poland
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, or the 1939 War in Poland, and alternatively the Poland Campaign or Fall Weiss in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Free City of Danzig, the Soviet Union, and Slovak contingent, that marked the beginning of World War II in Europe. The German invasion began on September 1st 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, while the Soviet invasion began on 17 September following the Molotov-Togo ag -
Germany's Blitzkrieg
method of warfare where by an attacking forceby a dense concentration of armoured and motorised or mechanised infantry formations with close air support, breaks through the opponent's line of defence by short, fast, powerful attacks and then removes the defenders, using speed and surprise to encircle them. Through the employment of combined arms in manoeuvre warfare, blitzkrieg attempts to unbalance the enemy by making it difficult for it to respond to the continuously changing front and defeati -
Operation Barossa
was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which began on 22 June 1941. The operation was driven by Adolf Hitler's ideological desire to conquer Soviet territory as outlined in his 1925 manifesto. -
Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor,the Hawaii Operation or Operation AI by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, and Operation Z during planning,was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, in the United States Territory of Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II. -
wannsee conference
On Janury 20, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's second in command of the SS, convened the Wannsee Conference in Berlin with 15 top Nazi bureaucrats to coordinate the Final Solution in which the Nazis would attempt to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe, an estimated 11 million persons. -
Bataan Death March
After the April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II (1939-45), the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March. -
Battle of Stalingrad
was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia, on the
eastern boundary of Europe. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favour of the Allies. -
operation torch
Operation Torch was the British-American invasion of French North Africa during the North African Campaign of the Second World War which started on 8 November 1942. -
Battle of Guadalcanal
an operation to take the island of Tulagi, by Allied forces, was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theater of World War II. It was the first major offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan. -
Allied Invasion of Italy
the United States and Great Britain, the leading Allied powers, looked ahead to the invasion of occupied Europe and the final defeat of Nazi Germany. The Allies decided to move next against Italy, hoping an Allied invasion would remove that fascist regime from the war, secure the central Mediterranean and divert German divisions from the northwest coast of France where the Allies planned to attack in the near future. -
D-day
[D-Day Video](- http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/d-day)During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy,it lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima during World War II stemmed from the need for a base near the Japanese coast. Following elaborate preparatory air and naval bombardment, three U.S. marine divisions landed on the island in February 1945. Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops, who fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations. Despite the difficulty of the conditions, the marines wiped out the defending forces -
FDR Death-Truman becomes President
FDR VideoOn this day in 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passes away after four momentous terms in office, leaving Vice President Harry S. Truman in charge of a country still fighting the Second World War and in possession of a weapon of unprecedented and terrifying power. -
VE Day
VE Day VideoOn this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine. -
Battle of okinawa
Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa campaign involved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. By the end of the 82-day campaign, Japan had lost more than 77,000 soldiers and the Allies had suffered more than 65,000 casualties including 14,000 dead. -
Dropping of the atomic bombs
On August 6, 1945, during World War II. An American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, 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 -
VJ Day
On August 15 1945 news of the surrender was announced to the world. This sparked spontaneous celebrations over the final ending of World War II. On September 2 1945 a formal surrender ceremony was held in Tokyo Bay aboard the USS Missouri. At the time President Truman declared September 2 1945 to be VJ Day. -
Nuremberg trials
Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949. The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high ranking military officers along with German industrialists -
Tehran Conference
meeting between U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in Tehran, Iran, between November 28 and December 1. The three leaders coordinated their military strategy against Germany and Japan and made a number of important decisions concerning the post World War II era. The most notable achievements of the Conference focused on the next phases of the war against the Axis powers in Europe and Asia. -
Battle of the Bulge
Battle of the BulgeOn this day, the Germans launch the major offensive of the war, Operation Mist, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. -
Battle of Midway
In May 1942, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto sought to draw the US Pacific Fleet into a battle where he could overwhelm and destroy it. To accomplish this he planned an invasion of Midway Island which would provide a base for attacking Hawaii. Using decrypted Japanese radio intercepts, Admiral Chester Nimitz was able to counter this offensive.