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Mussolini’s March on Rome
Planned march of thoasands of Fascist supporters to take control of Rome; in response Mussolini was given the legal right to control Italy. The significance of the Mussolini's March on Rome was to establish Mussolini and the Fascist Party as the most important political party in Italy. They wanted the government to be given to them or they seize it by force through marching the streets of Rome. -
Stalin Becomes Dictator of USSR
Serving in the Russian Civil War before overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in 1922, Stalin assumed leadership over the country following Lenin's death in 1924. Under Stalin, socialism in one country became a central tenet of the party's ideology. -
Hitler Writes Mein Kampf
On 18 July 1925, Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf (‘My Struggle’) was published. He wrote it in prison, where he was serving a sentence for a failed coup he attempted in 1923. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote about his ideology and presented himself as the leader of the extreme right. He talked about his life and his youth, his 'conversion' to antisemitism (the hatred of Jews) and his time as a soldier in the First World War. -
1st "Five Year Plan" in USSR
In the Soviet Union the first Five-Year Plan (1928–32), implemented by Joseph Stalin, concentrated on developing heavy industry and collectivizing agriculture, at the cost of a drastic fall in consumer goods. This plan was created in order to initiate rapid and large-scale industrialization across the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). -
Japan Invades Manchuria
Conflict in Asia began well before the official start of World War II. Seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industries, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. By 1937 Japan controlled large sections of China, and war crimes against the Chinese became commonplace. -
Holodomor
Fearing that opposition to his policies in Ukraine could intensify and possibly lead to Ukraine's secession from the Soviet Union, Stalin set unrealistically high grain procurement quotas. Those quotas were accompanied by other Draconian measures intended to wipe out a significant part of the Ukrainian nation. The term Holodomor (death by hunger, in Ukrainian) refers to the starvation of millions of Ukrainians in 1932–33 as a result of Soviet policies. -
Hitler Appointed Chancellor of Germany
On January 30, 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader or führer of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), as chancellor of Germany. Hitler’s emergence as chancellor on January 30, 1933, marked a crucial turning point for Germany and, ultimately, for the world. His plan, embraced by much of the German population, was to do away with politics and make Germany a powerful, unified one-party state. -
"Night of the Long Knives" in Germany
Night of the Long Knives, in German history, purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler on June 30, 1934. Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organization's leaders, including Ernst Röhm. -
Nuremberg Laws Enacted
The Nazis enacted the Nuremberg Laws. These laws informally became known as the Nuremberg Laws or Nuremberg Race Laws. This is because they were first announced at a Nazi Party rally held in the German city of Nuremberg. because they wanted to put their ideas about race into law. The Nazis considered Germans to be members of the supposedly superior “Aryan” race. They saw the so-called Aryan German race as the strongest, and most valuable race of all. -
Italian Invasion of Ethiopia
When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Haile Selassie led the resistance, but in May 1936 he was forced into exile. The aim of invading Ethiopia was to boost Italian national prestige, which was wounded by Ethiopia's defeat of Italian forces at the Battle of Adowa in the nineteenth century (1896), which saved Ethiopia from Italian colonisation. -
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War began on July 17, 1936, when generals Emilio Mola and Francisco Franco launched an uprising aimed at overthrowing the country's democratically elected republic. The Nationalist rebels' initial efforts to instigate military revolts throughout Spain only partially succeeded. -
The Great Purge and Gulags
The Great Terror of 1937, also known as the Great Purge, was a brutal political campaign led by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to eliminate dissenting members of the Communist Party and anyone else he considered a threat. In these camps, political prisoners were forced to perform hard labor under terrible conditions. Many died from exposure to harsh elements, lack of nutrition, and unsanitary conditions. -
The Rape of Nanking
The Nanjing Massacre, also called Rape of Nanjing (December 1937–January 1938), was the mass killing and the ravaging of Chinese citizens and capitulated soldiers by soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army after its seizure of Nanjing, China, on December 13, 1937, during the Sino-Japanese War that preceded World War II. -
Kristallnacht
On November 9–10, 1938, Nazi leaders unleashed a series of pogroms against the Jewish population in Germany and recently incorporated territories. This event came to be called Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) because of the shattered glass that littered the streets after the vandalism and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes. -
Nazi Germany Invades Poland
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, War of Poland of 1939, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union; which marked the beginning of World War II. -
Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor
On the morning of 7 December 1941, at 7.48am local time, 177 aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the United States Naval base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Two things inspired Yamamoto's Pearl Harbor idea: a prophetic book and a historic attack. The book was The Great Pacific War, written in 1925 by Hector Bywater, a British naval authority.