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Japenese Invasion of China
On july 7, 1937 a clash occurred between Chinese and Japanese troops near Peiping in North China. When this clash was followed by indications of intensified military activity on the part of Japan, Secretary of State Hull urged upon the Japanese Government a policy of self-restraint. In a conversation of July 12 with Japanese Ambassador Saito, Secretary Hull elaborated upon the futility of war and its awful consequences, emphasizing the great injury to the victor as well as to the vanquished in c -
Germany Invasion of Poland
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. From East Prussia and Germany in the north and Silesia and Slovakia in the south, German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border and advanced on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack. After heavy shelling and bombing, Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 27, 1939. http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php? -
German Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg means "lightning war". Blitzkrieg was first used by the Germans in World War Two and was a tactic based on speed and surprise and needed a military force to be based around light tank units supported by planes and infantry (foot soldiers). The tactic was developed in Germany by an army officer called Hans Guderian. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005437
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Fall of Paris
Paris fell to Nazi Germany on June 14, 1940, one month after the German Wehrmacht stormed into France. Eight days later, France signed an armistice with the Germans, and a puppet French state was set up with its capital at Vichy. Elsewhere, however, General Charles de Gaulle and the Free French kept fighting, and the Resistance sprang up in occupied France to resist Nazi and Vichy rule. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/06/1089311/-Paris-is-liberated http://www.history.c -
Operation Barbarosa
June 22, 1941)
In December 1940, Hitler issued a directive outlining the planned (since July 1940) attack on Russia, which was labeled Operation Barbarossa (it was originally called Operation Fritz. Hitler changed the name to refer to Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor who had set out to conquer the Holy Land in 1190). http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/opbarb.html
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Pearl Harbor
Japan's devastating surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, capped a decade of deteriorating relations between Japan and the United States and led to an immediate U.S. declaration of war the following day. Germany then declared war on the United States, turning the war into a global conflict. http://www.ammoland.com/2012/08/remembering-the-significance-of-vj-day/
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Wannsee Conference
On January 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." The "Final Solution" was the code name for the systematic, deliberate, physical annihilation of the European Jews. At some still undetermined time in 1941, Hitler authorized this European-wide scheme for mass murder. http://www.berlin.de/2013/en/partners/au -
Bataan Death March
The Battle of Bataan ended on April 9, 1942, when U.S. General Edward P. King surrendered to Japanese General Masaharu Homma. At that point 75,000 soldiers became Prisoners of War: about 12,000 Americans and 63,000 Filipinos. What followed was one of the worst atrocities in modern wartime history—the Bataan Death March. http://www.socialphy.com/posts/images-pics/3568/World-War-II-Photos-Part-9.html -
Battle of Midway
Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa campaign involved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. http://www.glogster.com/ashferd7/the-battle-of-okinawa/g-6lpbv0smg0l6h21uhjr9ga0
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Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Between July 22 and September 12, 1942, the German authorities deported or murdered around 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. SS and police units deported 265,000 Jews to the Treblinka killing center and 11,580 to forced-labor camps. The Germans and their auxiliaries murdered more than 10,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during the deportation operations. The German authorities granted only 35,000 Jews permission to remain in the ghetto, while more than 20,000 Jews remained in the ghetto in hiding. -
Operation Gomarrok
On this day in 1943, British bombers raid Hamburg, Germany, by night in Operation Gomorrah, while Americans bomb it by day in its own "Blitz Week." Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. The explosive power was the equivalent of what German bombers had dropped on London in their five most destruct -
Allied Invasion of Italy
conquest of Sicily and winning the so-called Race to Messina. http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/timeline/index.html -
Allied Invasion of Italy
On July 10, 1943, the Allies began their invasion of Axis-controlled Europe with landings on the island of Sicily, off mainland Italy. Encountering little resistance from demoralized Sicilian troops, Montgomery's 8th Army came ashore on the southeast part of the island, while the U.S. 7th Army, under General George S. Patton, landed on Sicily's south coast. Within three days, 150,000 Allied troops were ashore. On August 17, Patton arrived in Messina before Montgomery, completing the Allied... -
Battle Iwo Jima
The American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima, a key island in the Bonin chain roughly 575 miles from the Japanese coast, was sparked by the desire for a place where B-29 bombers damaged over Japan could land without returning all the way to the Marianas, and for a base for escort fighters that would assist in the bombing campaign. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Flag_on_Iwo_Jima
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DDay
largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. http://www.commandposts.com/2011/06/d-day-in-pictures-1944-to-today/beachhead-supply/
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D-Day
During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in -
Battle of the Bulge
Early on the misty winter morning of 16 December 1944, over 200,000 German troops and nearly 1,000 tanks launched Adolf Hitler's last bid to reverse the ebb in his fortunes that had begun when Allied troops landed in France on D-day. Seeking to drive to the English Channel coast and split the Allied armies as they had done in May 1940. http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/2012/12/review-battle-of-bulge-ipad.html
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Operation Thunderclap
13/14 February 1945
The Air Ministry had, for several months, been considering a series of particularly heavy area raids on German cities with a view to causing such confusion and consternation that the hard-stretched German war machine and civil administration would break down and the war would end. The general name given to this plan was Operation Thunderclap, but it had been decided not to implement it until the military situation in Germany was critical. That moment appeared to be at hand. -
Battle of Okinawa
Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa campaign involved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. http://www.glogster.com/ashferd7/the-battle-of-okinawa/g-6lpbv0smg0l6h21uhjr9ga0
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VE Day
Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) was on May 8th 1945. VE Day officially announced the end of World War Two in Europe. On Monday May 7th at 02.41. German General Jodl signed the unconditional surrender document that formally ended war in Europe. Winston Churchill was informed of this event at 07.00. While no public announcements had been made, large crowds gathered outside of Buckingham Palace. http://femaleimagination.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/google-celebrates-ve-day-with-tiny-poppy/
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Atomic Bomb
At approximately 8.15am on 6 August 1945 a US B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing around 80,000 people. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, causing the deaths of 40,000 more. The dropping of the bombs, which occurred by executive order of US President Harry Truman, remains the only nuclear attack in history. In the months following the attack, roughly 100,000 more people died slow, horrendous deaths as a result of radiation -
V-J Day
Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii, was attacked by Japanese torpedo and bomber planes on December 7, 1941, at 7:55 a.m. The sneak attack sparked outrage in the American populace, news media, government and the world. On December 8, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the American Congress, and the nation, to detail the attack. The day the battle was won is known as v-j-day http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/ph-ca.htm
http://www.history.com/topics/v-j-day
