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Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailes was the peace settlement signed after World War One had ended in 1918 and in the shadow of the Russian Revolution and other events in Russia. The treaty was signed at the vast Versailles Palace near Paris, hence its title, between Germany and the allies. The three most important politicians there were David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson. -
Hitler invades poland
One of Adolf Hitler's first major foreign policy initiatives after coming to power was to sign a nonaggression pact with Poland in January 1934. This move was not popular with many Germans who supported Hitler but resented the fact that Poland had received the former German provinces of West Prussia, Poznan, and Upper Silesia under the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. -
Treaty of Munish
Munich Agreement, (September 30, 1938), settlement reached by Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy that permitted German annexation of the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia. After his success in absorbing Austria into Germany proper in March 1938, Adolf Hitler looked covetously at Czechoslovakia, where about three million people in the Sudeten area were of German origin. -
Britain and france declare war on Germany
On this day in 1939, in response to Hitler's invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany.As for Britain's response, it was initially no more than the dropping of anti-Nazi propaganda leaflets 13 tons of them over Germany. They would begin bombing German ships on September 4, suffering significant losses. -
Battle of britan
With France conquered, Hitler could now turn his forces on Germany’s sole remaining enemy: Great Britain, which was protected from the formidable German Army by the waters of the English Channel. On July 16, 1940, Hitler issued a directive ordering the preparation and, if necessary, the execution of a plan for the invasion of Great Britain. But an amphibious invasion of Britain would only be possible, given Britain’s large navy, if Germany could establish control of the air in -
Tripartite Pact
The Tripartite Pact was signed by Rippentrop, for Germany, Ciano, Italy's Minister of Propaganda, for Italy, and Kurusu, for Japan, on September 27, 1940 in Berlin. The military alliance of the Axis powers was now final. -
Hitler attacks Russia-operation Barbarossa
On this day in 1941, over 3 million German troops invade Russia in three parallel offensives, in what is the most powerful invasion force in history. Nineteen panzer divisions, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces pour across a thousand-mile front as Hitler goes to war on a second front. -
Pearl Harbour
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II. -
Britain and US declare war on Japan
On December 8, 1941 the United States Congress declared war upon the Empire of Japan in response to that country's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor the prior day. It was formulated an hour after the Infamy Speech presidential address of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Following the declaration, Japan's allies, Germany and Italy, declared war on the United States, definitively bringing the United States into World War II. -
Japanese take Singapore
The Japanese occupation of Singapore in World War II took place from 1942 to 1945, following the fall of the British colony on 15 February 1942. Military forces of the Empire of Japan occupied it after defeating the combined Australian, British, Indian, and Malayan garrison in the Battle of Singapore. -
The Battle of Midway
fought in June 1942, must be considered one of the most decisive battles of World War Two. The Battle of Midway effectively destroyed Japan’s naval strength when the Americans destroyed four of its aircraft carriers. Japan’s navy never recovered from its mauling at Midway and it was on the defensive after this battle. -
Mussolini captured and exicuted
During the last few days of the war in Italy, Dictator Benito Mussolini attempted to escape the advancing Allied Army by hiding in a German convoy headed towards Alps. Partisans stopped and searched the convoy at Dongo. They found him in the back of a truck wearing a private’s undercoat over his striped general’s pants. The Partisans took him prisoner and was joined by his mistress,They were executed on April 29, 1945, and their bodies were hung at an Esso gas station in the Piazzale Loreto. -
D-day
The Normandy landings (codenamed Operation Neptune) were the landing operations on 6 June 1944 (termed D-Day) of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the invasion of German-occupied western Europe, led to the restoration of the French Republic, and contributed to an Allied victory in the war. -
Hitler commits suiside
Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot on 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. His wife Eva committed suicide with him by ingesting cyanide. That afternoon, in accordance with Hitler's prior instructions, their remains were carried up the stairs through the bunker's emergency exit, doused in petrol, and set alight in the Reich Chancellery garden outside the bunker. -
German forces surrender
On April 30, 1945, as Russian troops fought to within yards of his subterranean bunker, Adolph Hitler put a pistol to his head, pulled the trigger and closed the curtain on the Third Reich. Before his death, Hitler anointed Admiral Karl Donitz as his successor with orders to continue the fighting. Hitler was unaware that the German surrender had already begun. -
V.E. Day
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day,VE Day, or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 (7 May in Commonwealth realms) to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. It marked the end of World War II in Europe. -
Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
The atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan were conducted by the United States during the final stages of World War II in August 1945. The two bombings were the first and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare. -
Atomic domb dropped on Nagasaki
August 9 1945, a second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan's unconditional surrender. -
Russia declared war on Japan
The Soviet Japanese War of 1945 within the Second World War began on August 9, 1945, with the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. The Soviets and Mongols terminated Japanese control of Manchukuo, Mengjiang (inner Mongolia), northern Korea, southern Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. -
Japanese surrender
The surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945, brought the hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent.
