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Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the Nazi Party
Hitler joined the party the year it was founded and became its leader in 1921. In 1933, he became chancellor of Germany and his Nazi government soon assumed dictatorial powers. -
Benito Mussolini appointed Prime Minister of Italy
ower in the wake of World War I as a leading proponent of Facism. Originally a revolutionary Socialist, he forged the paramilitary Fascist movement in 1919 and became prime minister in -
Josef Stalin sole dictator of the Soviet Union (USSR)
was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. However, he ruled by terror, and millions of his own citizens died during his brutal reign. -
Japan’s Army seizes Manchuria, China
Manchuria, on China’s eastern seaboard, was attacked by Japan in 1931. The League effectively did nothing. -
Militarist take control of Japanese Government
while discriminatory legislation in many countries and anti-Japanese racism served as barriers to emigration. Chinese and Japanese efforts to secure racial equality in the League of Nations covenant had been rejected by Western statesmen. -
Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany
Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The supposed one thousand year Reich had started. -
Neutrality Acts passed by US Congress
On August 31, 1935, Congress passed the first Neutrality Act prohibiting the export of “arms, ammunition, and implements of war” from the United States to foreign nations at war and requiring arms manufacturers in the United States to apply for an export license. -
Italian Army invades Ethiopia in Africa
s a colonial war that started in October 1935, after a battle on 5 December 1934, 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 -
Hitler sends troops into Rhineland of Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty
France signed a treaty of friendship and mutual support with the USSR. Germany claimed the treaty was hostile to them and Hitler used this as an excuse to send German troops into the Rhineland in March -
Japan’s army pillages Nanjing, China; massacre a quarter of a million people.
In late 1937, over a period of six weeks, Imperial Japanese Army forces brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of people–including both soldiers and civilians–in the Chinese city of Nanking (or Nanjing). The horrific events are known as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanking, as between 20,000 and 80,000 women were sexually assaulted. -
Nazis begin rounding up Jews for labor camps
A roundup was a widespread Nazi German World War II military tactic used in occupied. Most people who were rounded up were transported to labor camps -
Munich Pact signed giving the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany
settlement reached by Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy that permitted German annexation of the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia. -
Nazi-Soviet Pact signed by Hitler and Stalin
The use of forced labour in Nazi Germany and throughout German-occupied Europe during. Prisoners in Nazi labour camps were worked to death on short rations and in bad conditions, or killed if they became unable to work. -
Nazis invade Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany
Britain and France declare war on Germany. Britain and France are at war with Germany following the invasion of Poland two days ago. -
Nazis invade Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium
During World War II, Germany overran much of Europe using a new tactic called the ... Belgium (May 1940), the Netherlands (May 1940) -
Battle of Britain begins – Royal Air Force defeats German Air Force to prevent invasion of their island
On 19 May, German High Command grew very confident. Attacked Abbeville in force -
22 Germany invades France and forces it to surrender
On this day in History, France to surrender on Jun 17, 1940. With Paris fallen and the German conquest of France reaching its conclusion, Marshal -
First time Peacetime Draft in US
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, also known as the Burke-Wadsworth Act, Pub.L. 76–783, 54 Stat. 885, enacted September 16, 1940, -
Hitler breaks Pact with Stalin’s Russia and invades - USSR which now joins England in fighting the Germans
German–Soviet Union relations date to the aftermath of the First World War -
Churchill and FDR issue the Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration released by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on August 14, 1941 -
Japanese invade French Indochina (Viet. Laos, Cambodia)
The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration released by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on August 14, 1941 -
Pearl Harbor in Hawaii attacked by Japanese Naval and Air forces, US declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy declare war on the US
- Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December of nineteen forty-one was one. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by air, President Roosevelt
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Japanese Americans interned in isolated camps
The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in camps in the interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom lived on the Pacific coast.Japanese Americans interned in isolated camps -
Philippines fall to Japanese – Bataan Death March
After the April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II -
Russians stop Nazi advance at Stalingrad save Moscow
Other times, he was distracted by unrelated political and Nazi Party events. On closer look, German field commanders realized that Russian battle tactics had changed. -
Battle of Midway, turning point of war in the Pacific
The Battle of Midway was a turning point in the Pacific War. Before the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7-8 May 1942, the Imperial Navy of Japan had swept aside all of its enemies from the Pacific and Indian oceans. -
British and US forces defeat German and Italian armies in North Africa
British and US forces defeat German and Italian armies in North Africa -
Zoot Suit Riots – Los Angeles, CA
Conflict between American servicemen stationed in Southern California and Mexican-American youths -
Italy surrenders, Mussolini dismissed as Prime Min.
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician, journalist, and leader of the National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista; PNF), ruling the country as Prime Minister from 1922 -
D-Day invasion of France at Normandy by Allies
On this day in 1944, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the go-ahead for the largest amphibious military operation in history: Operation Overlord, code named D-Day, the Allied invasion of northern France. -
Paris retaken by Allies Forces
The Liberation of Paris (also known as the Battle for Paris) was a military action that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. -
Battle of the Bulge – last offensive of German Forces
The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was the last major German offensive campaign of World War II. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg, on the Western Front, towards the end of World War II, in the European theatre. -
US forces return to recapture the Philippines
The Philippines campaign, the Battle of the Philippines or the Liberation of the Philippines. -
FDR dies, Harry S. Truman becomes President
On this day in 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passes away after four momentous terms in office, leaving Vice President Harry S. Truman in charge of a country still fighting the Second World War and in possession of a weapon of unprecedented and terrifying power. -
V-E Day, war ends in Europe
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 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. It thus marked the end of World War II in Europe. -
First Atomic Bombs dropped
President Harry S. Truman, warned by some of his advisers that any attempt to invade Japan would result in horrific American casualties, ordered that the new weapon be used to bring the war to a speedy end. On August 6, 1945, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. -
V-J Day, Japan surrenders to Allied Forces
n September 2, Allied supreme commander General Douglas MacArthur, along with the Japanese foreign minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu, and the chief of staff of the Japanese army, Yoshijiro Umezu, signed the official Japanese surrender aboard the U.S. Navy battleship Missouri, effectively ending World War II. -
War Crimes Trials held in Nuremberg, Germany; Manila, Philippines and Tokyo, Japan.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trials or the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was convened on April 29, 1946, to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of war crimes. .... The trials were held in the War Ministry office in Tokyo. On May 3 the prosecution opened
