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"The Japanese invaded China proper, launching the Second Sino-Japanese War. (July 1937). The Japanese Kwantung Army turned a small incident into a full-scale war. Chinese forces were unable to effectively resist the Japanese."
http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww2/camp/pac/china/w2c-inv.html -
When the war began in 1939, the United States declared its neutrality. Still, although isolationist feeling remained strong, many Americans sympathized with those who battled the Axis Powers.
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In August 1939, Hitler stunned the world by announcing a nonaggression pact with his great enemy-Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator. Nazi-Soviet Pact bound Hitler and Stalin to peaceful relations.
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On September 1, 1939, a week after the Nazi-Soviet Pact, German forces invaded Poland.
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On September 1,1939, Nazi forces stormed into Poland, revealing the enormous power of Hitler's blitzkrieg, or "lighting war."
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When war broke out in Europe in 1939, the Japanese saw a chance to grab European possessions in Southeren Asia.
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In April 1940, Hitler launched a blitzkrieg against Norway and Denmark, both of which soon fell.
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On June 22, 1940, Hitler forced the French to sign the surrender documents in the same railroad car in which Germany occupied northern France.
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Beginning in August 1940, German bombers began a daily bombardment of England's southern coast.
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In September 1940, Mussonlini ordered forces from Italy's North African colony of Libya into Egypt.
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In September 1940, Mussolini ordered forces from Italy's North African colony of Libya into Egypt.
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German bombers first appeared over London late on September 7, 1940, all through the night, relays of aircraft showered high explosives and firebombs on the sprawling capital.
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"Hitler's new order grew out his racial hatred. As his forces took over most of Europe, Hitler set up a type of government in which he had someone else as the leader but behind the scenes, he was the actual leader calling the shots. The Slavs of Eastern Europe were considered to be a non-dominant "race." They were shoved aside to provide for the strongest of the Aryans; the Germans."
https://mrpernaamericanhistory.wikispaces.com/7.+Life+Under+Nazi+and+Japanese+Occupation -
"Proposed in late 1940 and passed in March 1941, the Lend-Lease Act was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. It authorized the president to transfer arms or any other defense materials for which Congress appropriated money to “the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.”
http://isolationismtowar.weebly.com/american-involvement-grows.html -
German planes continued to bomb London and other cities off and on until May 1941.
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Germany attacks and invades eastern Poland and the Soviet Union. Einsatzgruppen - armed militias forming mobile killing units - follow the troops and commit mass slaughter of Jews throughout eastern Europe (including the Baltic states) and in the western USSR. The Einsatzgruppen (increased from an initial 4,000 men to 40,000 within a year) target Jews and also Gypsies, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and other minorities.
http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_holocaust1.html -
"Under the codename Operation "Barbarossa," Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in the largest German military operation of World War II."
Ushmm.org -
When the British army, repulsed these invaders, Hitler sent one of his most brilliant commanders, General Erwin Rommel, to North America. The "Desert Fox," as he was called, chalked up a string of successes in 1941 and 1942
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Early on December 7, 1941, Japanese airplanes bombed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
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By 1942, the Japanese empire stretched from Southeast Asia to the western Pacific Ocean.
