-
Japanese Invasion of China
Japan invaded China mostly to become an imperial power. Japan needed resources and more space, they wanted to prove to the world that they were strong. -
Rape of Nanking
Nanking, the capital of China, was attacked and taken over by Japanese forces. The city was soon destroyed in flames. Japanese killed an estimated 150,000 male war prisioners, massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages. -
Germany Blitzkreig
German forces attack Poland by land and air as Adolf Hitler seeks to regain territory. Hitler uses a strategy called "blitzkrieg," which involves extensive bombing followed by massive land invasions plowing its way through. -
Germany's invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland marked the start of WWII. The conquest of Poland would bring Lebensraum, or “living space,” for the German people. -
Ribbentrop/Molotov Pact
Germany and the Soviet Union agree to divide control of occupied Poland roughly along the Bug River–the Germans taking everything west, the Soviets taking everything east. -
Fall of Paris
Parisians awaken to the sound of a German-accented voice announcing via loudspeakers that a curfew was being imposed for 8 p.m. that evening-as German troops enter and occupy Paris. -
Operation Barbarossa
Over 3 million German troops invade Russia in three parallel offensives, in what is the most powerful invasion force in history. Nineteen panzer divisions, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces pour across a thousand-mile front as Hitler goes to war on a second front. -
Pearl Harbor
Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. This suprise attack lasted roughly two hours killing 2,000 American soldiers and 1,000 more wounded. 20 American naval vessels and 300 airplanes were destroyed. The day after the attack President Franklin D. Roosevelt, along with Congress and all of America, delcared war on Japan. -
Wannsee Conference
Nazi officials meet to discuss the details of the “Final Solution” of the “Jewish question.” The minutes of this conference were kept with meticulous care, which later provided key evidence during the Nuremberg war crimes trials. -
Bataan Death March
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 Midway
Battle of Midway–one of the most decisive U.S. victories against Japan during World War II–begins. During the four-day sea-and-air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one of its own, the Yorktown, to the previously invincible Japanese navy. -
Warsaw Ghetto uprisising
In Warsaw, Poland, Nazi forces attempting to clear out the city’s Jewish ghetto are met by gunfire from Jewish resistance fighters, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins. An underground resistance group was established in the ghetto–the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB). -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion - 1944)
The day the Allied powers crossed the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control during World War II. -
Battle of Iwo Jimma
American soldiers make their first strike on the Japanese Home Islands at Iwo Jima. -
Battle of Okinawa
Allied forces invade the island of Okinawa and engage the Japanese in the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. -
Liberation of concentration camps
On April 29, 1945, the U.S. Seventh Army’s 45th Infantry Division liberates Dachau, the first concentration camp established by Germany’s Nazi regime. A major Dachau subcamp was liberated the same day by the 42nd Rainbow Division. -
VE Day
General Alfred Jodl signed Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender in World War II. According to its terms German soldiers across Europe laid down their arms. -
Dropping of the atomic bombs
An American B-29 bomber drops the world’s first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. -
VJ Day
Japanese troops finally surrendered to Americans on the Caroline, Mariana, and Palau islands, representatives of their emperor and prime minister were preparing to formalize their capitulation. In Tokyo Bay, aboard the Navy battleship USS Missouri, the Japanese foreign minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu, and the chief of staff of the Japanese army, Yoshijiro Umezu, signed the “instrument of surrender.” -
Battle of the Bulge
On this day, the Germans launch the last major offensive of the war an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium.
