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Great Depression Begins
In 1929, the Stock Market crashed and put America into the Great Depression. People were on the streets, starving, homeless, and freezing for almost a decade. The depression uplifted when America went into WWII, creating jobs in factories for everyone, including women. -
Japan Conquers Manchuria in Northern China
In 1931, the Japanese Kwangtung Army attacked Chinese troops in Manchuria in an event commonly known as the Manchurian Incident. Essentially, this was an attempt by the Japanese Empire to gain control over the whole province, in order to eventually encompass all of East Asia. This proved to be one of the causes of World War IIs(1). -
Hitler Becomes Chancellor of Germany
Between 1929 and 1932, the support for the Communist and the Nazi party increased. The Nazi party had won 230 governmental seats, so Nazism increased in popularity around all of Germany, later voting for Adolf Hitler. -
Roosevelt First Elected as President
He was first elected in November 1933, during the middle of the Great Depression, which he tried to fix immediately after getting into office. Once FDR made the New Deal, the depression started to rise. -
Nuremberg Laws
In 1935, after the Nuremberg rally, laws were made by Hitler that Jews had much less rights in Germany than the Germans. These laws revolved around the anti-Semitism (deprived Jews of German citizenship) -
Hitler and Mussolini Form the Rome-Berlin Axis
Hitler and Mussolini found themselves in a similar political situation. Mussolini wanted to be allies with the strongest country in Europe, so he teamed with Adolf Hitler -
Japan Invades China
Japan invades China, which triggers World War II in the Pacific -
Britain's Apeasement of Germany
Most British government officers thought that Hitler and Mussolini were more of leaders, not dictators. Britain thought that communism was the main worry, not fascists at the time, so they were not worried about Germany before the war -
Germany Invades Austria
German soldiers invaded Austria. Austria later became part of the German Greater Reich -
Kristallnacht
A large, violent mob set out to destroy everything Jewish in Germany. They destroyed synagogues, Jewish schools, houses, and arrested over 30,000 Jews that night -
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Manhattan Project
more than $2 billion was spent during the history of the Manhattan Project. The formulas for refining uranium and putting together a working atomic bomb were created and seen to their logical ends by some of the greatest minds of our time. -
Germany & Soviet Union have a nonaggression pact
The German-Soviet Pact enabled Germany to attack Poland on September 1, 1939, without fear of Soviet intervention. German forces invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, less than two years after the German-Soviet Pact was signed. -
Germany invades Poland - blitzkrieg (start of WWII)
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. In 1934, Hitler made a non-aggression pact with Poland, yet he still attacked. Nazi Germany occupied the remainder of Poland when it invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Poland remained under German occupation until January 1945. -
The Nazis implement the “Final Solution”
They used the term “Final Solution” to refer to their plan to annihilate the Jewish people. It is not known when the leaders of Nazi Germany definitively decided to implement the "Final Solution." The genocide, or mass destruction, of the Jews was the culmination of a decade of increasingly severe discriminatory measures. -
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Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airman were an elite group of African-American pilots in the 1940s. They were pioneers in equality and integration of the Armed Forces. Even though the Tuskegee Airmen proved their worth as military pilots they were still forced to operate in segregated units and did not fight alongside their white countrymen. -
Germany invades Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and France (Vichy France)
Germany relied on these 3 countries for their industries. They attacked Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and France, and conquered all of them -
German air force (Luftwaffe) bombs London and other civilian targets in the Battle of Britain
Hitler ordered German pilots to drop bombs all over London, Britain. The next day, Britain sent out pilots and destroyed most of the German planes, not many people died. -
Japan Joins the Axis Powers
All 3 countries were in the same political situation, so Japan needed to join, also because of Germany’s power. This was on September 27, 1940 -
Japanese-American incarceration
During World War II, the federal government ordered 120,000 Japanese-Americans who lived on the West coast to leave their homes and live in 10 large relocation camps in remote, desolate areas, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. Two-thirds were native-born American citizens. -
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Rosie the Riveter
“Rosie the Riveter” is the name of a fictional character who came to symbolize the millions of real women who filled America’s factories, munitions plants, and shipyards during World War II. In later years, Rosie also became an iconic American image in the fight to broaden women’s civil rights. -
Lend-Lease Act
the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. The act 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." Britain, the Soviet Union, China, Brazil, and many other countries received weapons under this law. -
Germany Invades the Soviet Union
The destruction of the Soviet Union by military force, the permanent elimination of the perceived Communist threat to Germany, and the seizure of prime land within Soviet borders for long-term German settlement had been a core policy of the Nazi movement since the 1920s. Adolf Hitler had always regarded the German-Soviet nonaggression pact, signed on August 23, 1939, as a temporary tactical maneuver. In July 1940, just weeks after the German conquest of France and the Low Countries. -
Pearl Harbor
The United States is thrust into war when Japan launches a devastating surprise attack on the U.S. Naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. President Franklin Roosevelt will ask the Congress to declare war on Japan the following day, December 8th. -
Bataan Death March
On that day, Luzon Force commander Gen. Edward King, without informing Wainwright, surrendered to the Japanese. Numbering more than 70,000 (Filipinos and Americans), it was the largest American army in history to surrender. Some refused to become prisoners and fled, joining a significant resistance movement which grew to perhaps 180,000 guerrillas throughout the Philippines -
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway, fought over and near the tiny U.S. mid-Pacific base at Midway atoll, represents the strategic high water mark of Japan's Pacific Ocean war. Prior to this action, Japan possessed general naval superiority over the United States and could usually choose where and when to attack. After Midway, the two opposing fleets were essentially equals, and the United States soon took the offensive. Japanese Combined Fleet commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto moved on Midway -
British forces stop the German advance at El Alamein
The Battle of El Alamein, fought in the deserts of North Africa, is seen as one of the decisive victories of World War Two. The Battle of El Alamein was primarily fought between two of the outstanding commanders of World War Two, Montgomery, who succeeded the dismissed Auchinleck, and Rommel. The Allied victory at El Alamein lead to the retreat of the Afrika Korps and the German surrender in North Africa in May 1943. -
German forces surrender at Stalingrad
Germany begins its assault on the Russian city of Stalingrad. In a battle that will rage for six months, and take hundreds of thousands of German and Russian lives, the Red Army finally defeats invading Nazis. -
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Guadalcanal
the United States and its Pacific Allies fought a brutally hard air-sea-land campaign against the Japanese for possession of the previously-obscure island of Guadalcanal. The Allies' first major offensive action of the Pacific War, the contest began as a risky enterprise since Japan still maintained a significant naval superiority in the Pacific ocean. -
Iwo Jima and Okinawa
In 1943, Allied forces began a long series of Pacific battles against the Japanese. Month after month, on islands like Tarawa, the Marshalls, the Marianas, Leyte, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, the enemies fought with fierce determination. -
D-Day
Over 160,000 Allied troops and 30,000 vehicles are landed along a 50-mile stretch of fortified French coastline and begin fighting on the beaches of Normandy. -
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge begins. Hitler sends a quarter of a million troops across an 85-mile stretch of the Allied front, from southern Belgium into Luxembourg. In deadly cold winter weather, German troops will advance some 50 miles into the Allied lines, creating a deadly "bulge" pushing into Allied defenses. -
Yalta Conference
The last meeting of the Big Three -- Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin -- takes place in the Soviet city of Yalta. Roosevelt and Churchill agree to allow Stalin to control the governments of Eastern Europe at war's end, thereby setting the stage for the future Cold War. -
Roosevelt Dies, Truman Becomes President
President Franklin Roosevelt was in the southern state of Georgia. He was resting after his recent trip to Yalta to meet with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin. Within hours, the world learned the news that Franklin Roosevelt -- the longest serving president in American history -- was dead. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage, bleeding in the brain -
Allied forces advance on Berlin, Germany surrenders
As Soviet forces push into Berlin, Adolf Hitler takes shelter in his bombproof bunker. There, he marries his mistress, Eva Braun, before poisoning her and shooting himself. His remains will never be found. -
Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki
an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced his country's unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15 -
Japanese officials sign an official letter of surrender on the U.S.S. Missouri, ending World War II
Japanese representatives signed the official Instrument of Surrender, prepared by the War Department and approved by President Truman. It set out in eight short paragraphs the complete capitulation of Japan. The opening words, "We, acting by command of and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan," signified the importance attached to the Emperor's role by the Americans who drafted the document