-
Japanese Invade China 1937
In 1937 Japan invaded China mostly because of its need of resources. Japan was a small country that in order to become a powerful industrial country needed resources. China had a lot of iron ore, rubber, and oil the Japan needed. -
Rape of Nanking
In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army marched into China's capital city of Nanking and proceeded to murder 300,000 out of 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city. The six weeks of carnage would become known as the Rape of Nanking and represented the single worst atrocity during the World War II era in either the European or Pacific theaters of war. Japanese troops smashed into the city on December 13, 1937, with orders issued to "kill all captives."
historyplace.com -
German's Invasion of Poland (1939)
On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated by the Germans within weeks. German units had more than 2,000 tanks and 1,000 planes that broke through the border and advanced on Warsaw. On September 27, 1939 Warsaw finally surrendered to Germany. -
German Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg is a German word for "lightning war". It is a military tactic to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower. Its development is traced back to between 1918 and 1939 in Germany. It was successful with execution results which result in short military campaigns. -
Fall of Paris
On this day in 1940, Parisians awaken to the sound of a German-accented voice announcing via loudspeakers that a curfew was being imposed for 8 p.m. that evening-as German troops enter and occupy Paris.By the time German tanks rolled into Paris, 2 million Parisians had already fled, with good reason. In short order, the German Gestapo went to work: arrests, interrogations, and spying were the order of the day, as a gigantic swastika flew beneath the Arc de Triomphe. -
Operation Barbarossa
Adolf Hitler launched his armies on a massive invasion eastward towards the Soviet Union. Hitler sent three huge army groups with over three million soldiers. The operation covered a strip of land about 2,000 miles reaching from the front of North Cape to the Black Sea.This was a huge turning point in the war due to the Nazis now having to fight on two fronts against a coalition possessing immensely superior resources. -
Pearl Harbor
On December 7, 1941 hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the american naval base of Pearl Harbor located near Honolulu, Hawaii. The attack only lasted about two hours and the Japanese destroyed nearly everything. More than 2,000 Americans lost their lives and about 1,000 were wounded. The day after congress declared war on Japan. Japans allies then declared war on war on the United States as well. After two years of the war initially beginning the United States had finally joined the war -
Wannsee Conference
15 high ranking Nazi officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."The "Final Solution" was the code name for the systematic, deliberate, physical annihilation of the European Jews. Hitler authorized this European-wide scheme for mass murder. Reinhard Heydrich indicated that approximately 11,000,000 Jews in Europe would fall under the provisions of the "Final Solution." -
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 (1939-45), the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March.
history.com -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was the successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad in the USSR during World War II. Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies. It was one of the bloodiest battles in history, with combined military and civilian casualties of nearly 2 million.
history.com -
Allied Invsion of Italy
The invasion of Sicily, code-named Operation Husky, began before dawn on July 10, 1943, with combined air and sea landings involving 150,000 troops, 3,000 ships and 4,000 aircraft, all directed at the southern shores of the island. This massive assault was nearly cancelled the previous day when a summer storm arose and caused serious difficulties for paratroopers dropping behind enemy lines that night. However, the storm also worked to the Allies’ advantage.
history.army.mil -
Operation Gomorrah (1943)
Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. The explosive power was the equivalent of what German bombers had dropped on London in their five most destructive raids. More than 1,500 German civilians were killed in that first British raid.Operation Gomorrah proved devastating to Hamburg and their morale -
D-Day
Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, 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.he invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history.By late August 1944, all of northern France had been liberated, and by the following spring the Allies had defeated the Germans. www.history.com -
Battle of the Bulge
In December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp.The Allied line, caught off gaurd, took on the appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle’s name.The Battle of the Bulge was the costliest action ever fought by the U.S. Army, which suffered over 100,000 casualties. history.com -
Operation Thunderclap
Operation Thunderclap was a proposal to bomb the eastern-most cities of Germany to disrupt the transport infrastructure behind what was becoming the Eastern front. This was also know as the Dresden Bombing.Allied forces bombed the historic city of Dresden. The bombing was controversial because Dresden was neither important to German wartime production nor a major industrial center, and before the massive air raid of February 1945 it had not suffered a major Allied attack. ww2today.com -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The American invasion of Iwo Jima during World War II stemmed from the need for a base near the Japanese coast. Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops, who fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations. Despite the difficulty of the conditions, the marines wiped out the defending forces after a month of fighting, and the battle earned a place in American lore. American losses included 5,900 dead and 17,400 wounded. -
Battle of Okinawa
Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa campaign involved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. By the end of the 82-day campaign, Japan had lost more than 77,000 soldiers and the Allies had suffered more than 65,000 casualties.The commanding generals on both sides died in the course of this battle. Allies won the battle. -
VE Day
On this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine.The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms. Confrontation would continue into the next day. On May 9, the Soviets would lose 600 more soldiers in Silesia before the Germans finally surrendered. -
Dropping of Atomic Bombs
At approximately 8.15am on 6 August 1945 a US B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing around 80,000 people. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, causing the deaths of 40,000 more. The dropping of the bombs, which occurred by executive order of US President Harry Truman, remains the only nuclear attack in history. The effects of the attack were devastating. The predicted Japanese surrender, which ended World War II. history.com -
VJ Day
On August 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as “Victoryover Japan Day,” or simply “V-J Day.”In Washington on August 14, President Harry S. Truman announced news of Japan’s surrender in a press conference at the White House: “This is the day we have been waiting for since Pearl Harbor. This is the day when Fascism finally dies, as we always knew it would.”
