-
First Ballistic Missile
Developed by Germany, the V-2 was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine assigned to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings against Germany cities. The V-2 was also the first man-made object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on June 20th, 1944. -
The Slinky
Naval mechanical engineer Richard James was developing springs that could support and stabilize sensitive instruments aboard ships in rough seas. James accidentally knocked one of the springs from a shelf, and watched as the spring "stepped" in a series of arcs to a stack of books, to a tabletop, and to the floor, where it recoiled itself and stood upright. James thought if he got the right property of steel and right tension it could walk. After trying different metals, he finally made it walk. -
Invasion of Italy
Lasted from September 3rd, 1943 to September 16th, 1943. With North Africa secured and Sicily conquered, the Allied forces launched their invasion of Italy on September 3rd, 1943. First, British forces skipping across the Strait of Messina to Calabria. A few days later, more British and American forces landed several hundred miles north at Salerno. Their plan was to have the northern forces throw a net across the Italian peninsula while the British army chased the Germans into it from the south. -
D-Day
Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. By late August, northern France had been liberated, and by the following spring the Germans had been defeated. -
First Kamikazes of World War 2
During the Battle of the Leyte Gulf, airplane suicide bombers, which crash-dive their airplanes, were used by Japan for the first time of the war. -
Battle of the Bulge
Lasted from December 16th, 1944 to January 16th, 1945 and took place in The Ardennes, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. It was a German offensive intended to drive a wedge between the American and British armies in France and the Low Countries and recapture the port of Antwerp in The Netherlands to deny the Allies use of the port facilities. It fell far short of its goals but managed to create a bulge in the American lines 50 miles wide and 70 miles deep. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
Lasted from February 18th to March 26th, 1945. -
Arms Race
Lasted from August 6th, 1945 to November 1990. During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union became engaged in a race to produce the most amount of nuclear warheads, which started when the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War 2. The two superpowers had met together and signed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty on December 8, 1987 in Washington, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons. Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation meant the end of the Arms Race. -
Bombing of Hiroshima
Atomic bomb dropped on August 6th, 1945. -
Bombing of Nagasaki
Atomic bomb dropped on August 9th, 1945. -
Battle of the Atlantic
Lasted from September 3rd, 1939 to May 8th, 1945. This was a contest between the Western Allies and the Axis powers (particularly Germany) for the control of Atlantic sea routes. For the Allied powers, the battle had three objectives: blockade of the Axis powers in Europe, security of Allied sea movements, and freedom to project military power across the seas. The Axis, in turn, hoped to frustrate Allied use of the Atlantic to wage war. -
Sound Barrier Broken
A booming thunder roared across the clear skies of the Mojave Desert on Oct. 14, 1947, as U.S. Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager nudged an experimental rocket-powered plane faster than the speed of sound. Though only a handful of people realized it at the time, an aviation record had been set. -
Warsaw Pact
The "treaty of mutual friendship, co-operation and mutual assistance" is signed between Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Republic. It was the Communist counteraction to NATO and came to be seen as quite a potential militaristic threat, as a sign of Communist dominance, and a definite opponent to American capitalism. The pact was used more to keep the Soviet allies under a watchful eye than to actually make and enforce decisions.
