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Nazi Stormtroopers attack jewish homes, businesses, and synogages in Germany. It was called "The Night of Broken Glass" because of all of the Jewish shops that had their windows shattered.
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At dawn on September 1st, 1939. Hitler ignored the Munich Agreement and launched a suprise attack against Poland. All of Poland fell within a matter of days.
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France and Great Britain declared war on Germany on September 3rd, 1939. The French and British armies were unable to stop the blitzkrieg (lightning war).
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After convincing the allies that the Germans would attack along the French border at the Maginot line, Hitler instead launched a suprise invasion of Denmark and Norway on April 9th, 1940. Denmark fell in 4 hours.
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In a flanking move designed to trap allied forces on the Belgium coast. Hitler's armored devisions entered France through the Ardennes forest in May of 1940.
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Great Britain mobilized an enormous fleet of vessels in the English channel to rescue approx. 400,000 English troops stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk in Belgium.
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Summer of 1940. Hitler's Air Force called the Luftwaffe began bombimg British air fields, factories and cities. The Royal Air Force lost 400 planes but the Germans lost over 1000.
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During the Battle of Britain, Mussolini invaded Egypt, but by February the British struck back and took most of the Italian force as prisoner.
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German General Rommel, known as "the Desert Fox", who was in charge of Hitler's Afrika Korps attacked British forces violently in North Africa in March 1941. After being driven back, the British army stopped Rommel in Tobruk, Lybia.
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Hitler's plan to invade Russia was called "Operation Barberossa". Supported by tanks and plans the German army rolled 500 miles into the Soviet Union.
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The city of Leningrad was attacked by the German army on September 8th, 1941. They succeeded in cutting it off from the rest of the country, and nearly one million people died inside the city during the winter of 1941 and 1942
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Huge defeat for Germans, lost 330,000. Russians kept the city but lost over 1 Million men. 99% of the city was destroyed.
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British forces, led by General Bernard Montgomery, attacked the German army at El Alamein, a small town in Egypt, west of Alexandria. After a fierce fight, the British troops prevailed, defeating Rommels army.
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"Operation Torch". An allied force of more than 100,000 men led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower. They flanked Rommel's army from Morocco and Algeria and finally crushed it.
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Allied forced invaded Sicily and captured it from German and Italian troops. This event brought down Mussolini's regime, and he was arrested on July 25th. 2 months later, Italy surrendered.
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Largest invasion force ever assembled-thousands of planes, ships, and landing craft and 3 million soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy which began the liberation of france.
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An attempt by Germany to split the allied forces in the west between Britain and America along a 75 mile front called the Ardennes. The effort by Hitler failed.
