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Benito Mussolini's Fascist Party staged a coup-like march on the Italian capital. Rather than resisting, King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini as prime minister, initiating more than two decades of fascist rule in Italy. This event marked the first fascist takeover of power in the world. -
While imprisoned for a failed coup, Adolf Hitler began dictating his book Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"). It outlined his political ideology, including his extreme antisemitism and blueprint for the Third Reich. While sales were initially low, the book became a bestseller in Germany after Hitler came to power. -
Following Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin strategically used his position as General Secretary of the Communist Party to accumulate power. He filled the party bureaucracy with his allies, and then systematically eliminated his rivals, such as Leon Trotsky, through police repression and political maneuvers. -
Joseph Stalin introduced a series of five-year plans to rapidly industrialize the Soviet Union and collectivize agriculture. The forced consolidation of private farms into state-run collectives aimed to control the grain supply for export and fund industrial growth. -
These were antisemitic and racist laws that institutionalized racial discrimination in Nazi Germany. The two key laws were the Reich Citizenship Law, which stripped Jews of German citizenship, and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which banned marriage and sexual relations between Jews and "Germans or related blood." -
Japan, having economic and military interests in China's northeastern region of Manchuria, sought to secure its dominance amid rising Chinese nationalism. The Japanese Kwantung Army staged an explosion on a Japanese-controlled railway and used the fabricated incident as a pretext for a full invasion. -
Joseph Stalin engineered this man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine to eliminate Ukrainian nationalism and force the collectivization of agriculture. The Soviet government confiscated food, imposed unrealistic grain quotas, and sealed borders to prevent Ukrainians from seeking food elsewhere. Millions of Ukrainians died as a result. -
German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler as chancellor. Conservative politicians believed they could control Hitler, but he quickly consolidated power, turning Germany into a one-party dictatorship by using legal decrees and intimidation. -
This political purge was a crucial move by Hitler to consolidate his power by eliminating political rivals within his own party. The purge targeted leaders of the SA, the Nazi Party's paramilitary force, whose ambitions and influence Hitler perceived as a threat. -
The invasion was a test of the League of Nations' authority and exposed its weakness in preventing aggression. The unprovoked attack, which used modern weapons and resulted in atrocities, demonstrated the imperialistic ambitions of Mussolini's fascist regime. -
A bloody conflict between the Republican government and Nationalist rebels led by General Francisco Franco. Franco's Nationalists, aided by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, won the war, establishing a dictatorship that lasted until 1975. The war served as a "dress rehearsal" for WWII, allowing Germany and Italy to test new military technology and tactics. -
After capturing the Chinese capital of Nanjing, the Imperial Japanese Army engaged in a campaign of mass murder, mass rape, looting, and arson against Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers. Estimates of the death toll range from 100,000 to over 300,000 people. -
This was a pogrom against Jewish people throughout Nazi Germany, annexed Austria, and the Sudetenland. Nazi paramilitary forces and civilians, encouraged by the government, vandalized and destroyed hundreds of synagogues, thousands of Jewish businesses, and homes. Dozens of Jews were murdered, and tens of thousands were arrested and sent to concentration camps. -
Stalin orchestrated this brutal political campaign (also known as the "Great Terror") to eliminate dissenting members of the Communist Party, government officials, military leaders, and other perceived threats. Hundreds of thousands were executed, and over a million survivors were sent to forced labor camps known as the Gulags, which were notorious for their high death rates. -
German forces invaded Poland using the "blitzkrieg" strategy, a clear act of aggression that prompted Britain and France to declare war on Germany, marking the formal beginning of World War II in Europe. -
The Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in an attempt to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet and prevent American interference in their expansion into Southeast Asia. This attack brought the United States into World War II.