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Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. -
Mussolini takes power in Italy
Since 1939, Mussolini had sought to delay a major war in Europe until at least 1942. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, starting World War II. On 10 June 1940, Mussolini sided with Germany, though he was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity in 1940 to carry out a long war with France and the United Kingdom. -
The Stock Market Crash
The stock market crash of 1929 was not the sole cause of the Great Depression, but it did act to accelerate the global economic collapse of which it was also a symptom. -
Japan Invades Manchuria
The Japanese established a puppet state called Manchukuo, and their occupation lasted until the end of World War II. -
Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
Upon taking office Hitler immediately began accumulating power and changing the nature of the Chancellorship. After only two months in office, and following the burning of the Reichstag building, the Reichstag body passed the Enabling Act giving the Reich Chancellor full legislative powers for a period of four years – the Chancellor could introduce any law without consulting Parliament. -
Italy invades Ethiopia
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire. -
Remilitarization of the Rhineland
This was significant because it violated the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties, marking the first time since the end of World War I that German troops had been in this region. The remilitarization was hugely important as it changed the balance of power in Europe from France towards Germany, and made it possible for Germany to pursue a policy of aggression in Eastern Europe that the demilitarized status of the Rhineland had blocked until then. -
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War widely known in Spain simply as the Civil War or The War, was a civil war fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans, who were loyal to the democratic, left-leaning Second Spanish Republic, and the Nationalists, a falangist group led by General Francisco Franco. The Nationalists won, and Franco then ruled Spain for the next 36 years, from April 1939 until his death in November 1975. -
Rome-Berlin Axis
Rome-Berlin Axis, Coalition formed in 1936 between Italy and Germany. An agreement formulated by Italy’s foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano informally linking the two fascist countries was reached on October 25, 1936. It was formalized by the Pact of Steel in 1939. The term Axis Powers came to include Japan as well. -
Anschluss
Anschluss was the Nazi propaganda term for the invasion and forced incorporation of Austria to Nazi Germany in March 1938. -
Munich Conference
Conference held in Munich on September 28--29, 1938, during which the leaders of Great Britain, France, and Italy agreed to allow Germany to annex certain areas of Czechoslovakia. -
Germany Invades Czechoslovakia
The German occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945) began with the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. German leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this effort was the alleged privations suffered by the ethnic German population living in those regions. -
The Soviet-Nazi Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, officially the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was a non-aggression pact signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in Moscow on 23 August 1939. It is also known as the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact or the Nazi–Soviet Pact. -
the Invasion of Poland
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, or the 1939 Defensive War in Poland, and alternatively the Poland Campaign or Fall Weiss in Germany, was a joint invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent, that marked the beginning of World War II in Europe. -
Britain declares war on Germany
The Declaration of war by France and the United Kingdom was given on 3 September 1939, after German forces invaded Poland. Despite the speech being the official announcement of both France and the United Kingdom, the speech was given by the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in Westminster, London. -
Canada enter the war
Canada likewise declared war on Germany, the country's first independent declaration of war and the beginning of Canada's participation in the largest combined national effort in its history.
