WWII beginnings

  • Italy

    Italy conquered Libya
  • United States

    representatives from 9 asian and European nations met in Washington to discuss ways to ease Pacific tensions - resulted in 10-year moratorium on construction of battleships and a fairly equal distribution of ships.
  • United States

    “The people have had all the war, all the taxation and all the military service they want.” - President Calvin Coolidge
  • United States/France

    French foreign minister attempted to outlaw war which failed
  • Japan

    Japan invaded Manchuria and reduced the Chinese province to a puppet state
  • Japan

    Japan terminated the Five-Power Naval Treaty of 1922 (limited its naval power in the Pacific)
  • Germany

    Hitler publicly announced that he was building an air force and a 550,000-man army
  • Italy

    provoked war with Ethiopia and conqered it in eight months
  • United States

    some 150,000 college students participated in a nationwide Student Strike for Peace and half a million signed pledges saying that they would refuse to serve in the event of war - public poll indicated that 39% of college students would refuse to participate in any war even if the country was invaded
  • United States

    opinion poll found that 70% of Americans believed that American intervention in WWI was a mistake
  • United States

    Between 1935 and 1937, Congress passed 3 neutrality laws and was not wanting to repeat what happened in WWI.
  • Germany

    Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact which was the beginnings of a full-scale military alliance & the Rome-Berlin Axis w/ Italy’s dictator Mussolini
  • Germany

    troops reoccupied the Rhineland which was seized in the Treaty of Versailles, surrounding areas (France and Great Britain) wanted to believe this area was all he wanted, but he wanted more
  • United States

    8 Princeton undergraduates formed the Veterans of Future Wars which demanded a bonus of $1,000 for every man within the age to fight so they could enjoy it before being forced to fight the next war.
  • Japan

    Japanese aircraft bombed a US gunboat killing three Americans, but the US quickly accepted Japan’s apology and promise against war to simply stay out of it.
  • Italy

    sent 70,000 troops to Spain to help Francisco Franco defeat republican government in the Spanish Civil War with the slogan “Believe! Obey! Fight!”
  • Japan

    Japan invaded China and the League of Nations held a conference at Brussels in November 1937 in response.
  • Germany

    annexed Austria and imprisoned the country’s chancellor to reunite all German-speaking peoples under the “Third Reich”; France and Britain again thought Hitler wouldn’t go any farther until he seized the German-speaking region of western Czechoslovakia
  • Germany

    Hitler lied to Chamberlain in a meeting in Munich, Germany to discuss further territorial seizes. British and French leaders believed that he would not go any farther into Europe.
  • United States

    pacifist sentiment was fading. Other major powers were sizing up.
  • Germany

    Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty; in turn gave the SU a sphere of influence around his surrounding eastern front, protecting it for warfare.