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Period: to
WW 2
WW 2 -
Vichy France begins
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the Government of France from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic. The Government officially called itself the French State (État Français), in contrast with the previous designation, the "French Republic." -
The Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain (German: Luftschlacht um England or Luftschlacht um Großbritannien) is the name given to the air campaign waged by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940. The objective of the campaign was to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), especially Fighter Command. -
Hitler breaks Non-Aggression agreement and invades the Soviet Union –
The Nazis and the Soviets kept the terms of the pact and the protocol until Germany's surprise attack and invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. -
Pearl Harbor attack
The attack on Pearl Harbor (called the Hawaii Operation or Operation Z by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, and the Battle of Pearl Harbor by some Americans) 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. The next day the United States declared war on Japan resulting in their entry into World War II. -
Germany and Italy declare war on US
Germany and Italy have announced they are at war with the United States. America immediately responded by declaring war on the two Axis powers. -
MacArthur promises to return to the Philippines -
on April 1, 1942. It was in Australia that he uttered his famous promise, "I shall return." For the next three years, Douglas MacArthur would fight for his promise. -
Bataan death march
The Bataan Death March (also known as The Death March of Bataan) took place in the Philippines in 1942 and was later accounted as a Japanese war crime. The 60 mi (97 km) march occurred after the three-month Battle of Bataan, part of the Battle of the Philippines (1941–42), during World War II. In Japanese, it is known as Batān Shi no Kōshin (バターン死の行進?), with the same meaning. -
The Battle of the Coral Sea
The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought during May 4–8, 1942, was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval and air forces from the United States (U.S.) and Australia. The battle was the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other. It was also the first naval battle in history in which neither side's ships sighted or fired directly upon the other. -
Battle of Midway
Battle of Midway the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II.Between 4 and 7 June 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated an Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) attack against Midway Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese fleet. military historian John Keegan has called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history. -
General Eisenhower and his forces land in North Africa
In 1942, having been persuaded of the impracticality of launching an invasion of France as a second front, American commanders agreed to conduct landings in northwest Africa with the goal of clearing the continent of Axis troops and preparing the way for a future attack on southern Europe. Intending to land in Morocco and Algeria, Allied planners were forced to determine the mentality of the Vichy French forces defending the area. These numbered around 120,000 men, 500 aircraft, and several wars -
End of Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the most important battles of World War II. Around 1.5 million people died there in less than 6 months. It was the first disaster of the war for the Germans, and the first important vicotry for the Russians.On January 31 Paulus finally surrendered. About 100,000 of his men became Soviet prisoners, but only a few of them ever returned to Germany alive. -
Guadalcanal
The Guadalcanal Campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by Allied forces, was fought between August 7, 1942 and February 9, 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theatre of World War II -
Sicily falls
The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis (Italy and Nazi Germany). It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign. -
Rome falls
Rome falls on June 5: on the sixth the Normandy invasion overshadowed the Roman victory The newsmen threw away their Roman copy and concentrated instead on Operation Overlord: the landings on the Normandy Beaches. -
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations of the Allied invasion of Normandy, also known as Operation Overlord and Operation Neptune, during World War II. The landings commenced on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 (D-Day), beginning at 6:30 AM British Double Summer Time (GMT+2). In planning, D-Day was the term used for the day of actual landing, which was dependent on final approval. -
MacArthur returns
20 October, 1944: In the early morning hours Japanese soldiers of the 16th Infantry Division awoke to a rain of shells courtesy of the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet. Off the eastern coast of Leyte, in the central Philippines, were over 700 Allied ships carrying 174,000 soldiers of the U.S. 6th Army. Ashore in strength by the day's end, the operation appeared destined to clear the island in short order. What was to have been a relatively brief campaign against an overwhelmed foe became instead an extende -
Kamikaze attacks begin
These attacks, which began in October 1944, followed several critical military defeats for the Japanese. They had long lost aerial dominance due to outdated aircraft and the loss of experienced pilots. On a macroeconomic scale, Japan experienced a decreasing capacity to wage war, and a rapidly declining industrial capacity relative to the United States. The Japanese government expressed its reluctance to surrender. In combination, these factors led to the use of kamikaze tactics as Allied forces -
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge (also known as the Ardennes Offensive and the Von Rundstedt Offensive) (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was a major German offensive (die Ardennenoffensive), launched toward the end of World War II through the densely forested Ardennes Mountains region of Wallonia in Belgium, hence its French name, (Bataille des Ardennes), France and Luxembourg on the Western Front. The Wehrmacht's code name for the offensive was -
US flag raised on Mt. Suribachi
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is an historic photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It depicts five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. -
Truman becomes president
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953). As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice-president and the 34th Vice President of the United States, he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his historic fourth term. -
Hitler commits suicide
Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot on 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. His wife Eva (nee Braun), committed suicide with him by ingesting poison.[4] In accordance with Hitler's prior instructions, their remains were removed from the bunker, doused in petrol and set alight in the Reich Chancellery gardens outside of the bunker. The Soviet archives record that their burnt remains were recovered and interned in successive locations until 1970 when they were again ex -
U-boats sink merchant vessels
Merchant ships faced danger from submarines, mines, armed raiders and destroyers, aircraft, "kamikaze," and the elements. About 8,300 mariners were killed at sea, 12,000 wounded of whom at least 1,100 died from their wounds, and 663 men and women were taken prisoner. (Total killed estimated 9,300.) Some were blown to death, some incinerated, some drowned, some froze, and some starved. 66 died in prison camps or aboard Japanese ships while being transported to other camps. 31 ships vanished with -
V-E Day
Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day or VE Day) commemorates May 8, 1945, the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. The formal surrender of the occupying German forces in the Channel Islands was not until May 9, 1945. On 30 April Hitler committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin, and so the surrender of Germany was authorized by his replacement, President of Germany Karl Dönitz. -
Okinawa taken
The Battle of Okinawa started in April 1945. The capture of Okinawa was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the Far East. Okinawa was to prove a bloody battle even by the standards of the war in the Far East but it was to be one of the major battles of World War Two. -
Hiroshima
On 6th August 1945, a B29 bomber (Enola Gay) dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima. It has been estimated that over the years around 200,000 people have died as a result of this bomb being dropped. Japan did not surrender immediately and a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days later. On 10th August the Japanese surrendered. The Second World War was over -
Nagasaki
During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. -
V-J Day
Victory over Japan Day (also known as Victory in the Pacific Day, V-J Day, or V-P Day) is a name chosen for the day on which the Surrender of Japan occurred, effectively ending World War II, and subsequent anniversaries of that event. The term has been applied to both the day on which the initial announcement of -
formal surrender of Japan
In the morning of 2 September 1945, more that two weeks after acceping the Allies terms, Japan formally surrendered. The ceremonies, less than half an hour long, took place on board the battleship USS Missouri, anchored with other United States' and British ships in Tokyo Bay
