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Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) is elected president of the United States.
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Hindenburg appoints Hitler chancellor of Germany.
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Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact. This was a pact against communism and Russia.
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On Sept. 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the act that started World War II.
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German troops march toward the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
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Fair Employement Practice Committee (FEPC) is set up to reduce discrimination in government employment and in defense industries.
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Germany launches an air attack on Great Britain. These attacks last until the end of October and are known as the Battle of Britain.
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Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact creating the Axis Alliance.
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In the United States, the Office of Production Management is set up to coordinate defense manufacturing and supply material aid to Great Britain. Defense manufacturing will eventually invigorate the United States economy by employing many previously unemployed workers, including an increasing number of women, coining the phrase Rosie the Riveter.
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On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, killing more than 2,300 Americans.
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Britain and the United States declare war on Japan. Japan invades Malaya.
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Battle of Guadalcanal, heavy losses on both sides, eventual United States victory.
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On 6 June 1944 the Western Allies landed in northern France, opening the long-awaited "Second Front" against Adolf Hitler's Germany. Though they had been fighting in mainland Italy for some nine months, the Normandy invasion was in a strategically more important region, setting the stage to drive the Germans from France and ultimately destroy the National Socialist regime.
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Battle of the Bulge, the last German offensive in the west.
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Dresden raid. Allied firebombing kills 135,000 Germans, including civilians, and destroys 80% of the city.
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Der Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany, burrowed away in a refurbished air-raid shelter, consumes a cyanide capsule, then shoots himself with a pistol, on this day in 1945, as his "1,000-year" Reich collapses above him.
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Germany surrenders to the Allies after Hitler commits suicide.
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On 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.
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Atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima.
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Aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan formally surrenders to the Allies, bringing an end to World War II.
