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Germany invades Poland, WWII begins
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Hitler launches his blitzkrieg, also known as lightning war, against Holland and Belgium.
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Italy enters the war and joins the Axis powers. Soon after they invade Southern France
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The French sign an armistice with Germany, which took France out of the war and into German occupation
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Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact, which was a pact of mutual alliance
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after 3 months of air raids and bombing, the German Luftwaffe failed to win against Royal Air Force despite months of targeting Britain's military post and population as a whole. A turning point in the war because Germany lost
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Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, causing the US to declare war on Japan
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US enters WWII
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The US defeated the Japanese navy at the Battle of Midway because of this, the US navy was able to push the Japanese back.
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Eisenhower helped British and American forces and gradually closed in on Germans
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Allied troops win the island of Sicily
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Mussolini had been thrown out of office and the new government of Italy surrendered to the Allies. The Germans took control of the Italian army, freed Mussolini from imprisonment and set him up as head of a government in Northern Italy, which blocked any further allied advance through Italy.
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British and US troops successfully land on the Normandy beaches of France
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The Allies crossed the Rhine while Soviet forces were approaching Berlin
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Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bombproof shelter
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German forces in Italy surrender to the Allies
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The Japanese generals refuse to surrender, so the US drop an atomic bomb on the island of Hiroshima.
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The US drop an atomic bomb on the island of Nagasaki because the Japanese did not surrender after Hiroshima
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Officially ends WWII
