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Japan invaded Manchuria.
Japanese were determined to extend their empire, They ruled in Korea, but they also controlled the Manchurian railway. they claimed that Chinese soldiers had sabotaged the railway, and attacked the Chinese army (which had just executed a Japanese spy). The Chinese army did not fight back because it knew that the Japanese were just wanting an excuse to invade Manchuria. -
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sign a treaty
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sign a treaty of cooperation on October 25; on November 1, the Rome-Berlin Axis is announced. -
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, directed against the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement. They agreed to mutually resist Communism and Communist states. This was an explicit treaty of alliance agains the Soviet Union. -
Japan invades China
Japan invades China,initiating World War II in the Pacific. -
Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich agreement
forces the Czechoslovak Republic to cede the Sudetenland, including the key Czechoslovak military defense positions, to Nazi Germany. -
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression agreement
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression agreement and a secret codicil dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence. -
Germany invades Poland
When Germany invaded Poland, it was the start of WWII in Europe. -
Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.
By Honoring their guarantee of Poland’s borders, Great Britian and France come together and declare war on Germany. -
The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east.
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Warsaw Surrenders
The Polish government flees into exile via Romania. Germany and the Soviet Union divide Poland between them. -
The Soviet Union invades Finland,
initiating the so-called Winter War. The Finns sue for an armistice and have to cede the northern shores of Lake Lagoda and the small Finnish coastline on the Arctic Sea to the Soviet Union. -
Germany invades Denmark and Norway
Denmark surrenders on the day of the attack; Norway holds out until June 9. -
Germany attacks western Europe
France and the neutral Low Countries. Luxembourg is occupied on May 10; the Netherlands surrenders on May 14; and Belgium surrenders on May 28. On June 22, France signs an armistice agreement by which the Germans occupy the northern half of the country and the entire Atlantic coastline. In southern France, a collaborationist regime with its capital in Vichy is established. -
Italy enters the war
Italy invades southern France on June 21. -
The Italians invade British-controlled Egypt from Italian-controlled Libya.
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Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact.
The Pact provided for mutual assistance should any of the other countries suffer attack by any nation not already involved in the war. This forming of the alliance was aimed directly at "neutral" America, designed to force the United States to think twice before venturing in on the side of the Allies. -
Bulgaria joins the Axis.
King Boris was eager to expand his country's borders, and Germany had already coerced Romania to restore south Dobruja—which had been lost in World War I—to Bulgaria. Bulgaria had chosen the wrong side in World War I, deciding that its territorial needs then would best be met by joining the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary and the German Empire). They were wrong, and King Boris was determined not to make the same mistake again. -
British troops defeat the Germans and Italians at El Alamein
British troops defeat the Germans and Italians at El Alamein in Egypt, sending the Axis forces in chaotic retreat across Libya to the eastern border of Tunisia. -
Axis forces in Tunisia surrender to the Allies, ending the North African campaign.
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Allied troops land on the beaches of Salerno near Naples
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Finland concludes an armistice with the Soviet Union, leaving the Axis partnership.
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U.S. troops land in the Philippines
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Germans launch a final offensive in the west
The Germans launch a final offensive in the west, known as the Battle of the Bulge, in an attempt to re-conquer Belgium and split the Allied forces along the German border. By January 1, 1945, the Germans are in retreat. -
Hitler commits suicide
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Germany surrenders to the western allies
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Germany surrenders to the Soviets
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The United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
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The United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
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The United States drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki
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Japan formally surrenders, ending World War II.
