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Japanese invasion of China
when the Japanese claimed that they were fired on by Chinese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing -
German Blitzkrieg
a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower -
Germany's invasion of Poland
German Luftwaffe bombed Polish airfields, and German warships and U-boats attacked Polish naval forces in the Baltic Sea. -
Fall of Paris
Parisians awaken to the sound of a German-accented voice announcing via loudspeakers that a curfew was being imposed for 8 p.m. that evening-as German troops enter and occupy Paris. -
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the name given to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia -
Pearl Harbor
hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. -
Wannsee Conference
Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's second in command of the SS, convened the Wannsee Conference in Berlin with 15 top Nazi bureaucrats to coordinate the Final Solution (Endlösung) in which the Nazis would attempt to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe, an estimated 11 million persons. -
Battle of Midway
During the four-day sea-and-air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one of its own, the Yorktown, to the previously invincible Japanese navy. -
Operation Gomorrah
British bombers raid Hamburg, Germany, by night in Operation Gomorrah, while Americans bomb it by day in its own “Blitz Week.” -
D-Day Normandy Invasion
British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. -
Battle of the Bulge
was a major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. -
Liberation of concentration camps
As Allied troops moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Nazi Germany, they began to encounter tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners. -
Operation Thunderclap
had been under discussion within the Allied Command for some time, the proposal was to bomb the eastern-most cities of Germany to disrupt the transport infrastructure behind what was becoming the Eastern front. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
was a major battle in which the United States Armed Forces landed and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial -
Battle of Okinawa
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. -
VE Day
Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine. -
Dropping of the atomic bombs
American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world’s first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. -
VJ Day
it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II.