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World War Two Timeline by Ryan Shafer

  • Japanese Invasion of China

    Japanese Invasion of China
    This battle occurred near Peiping North China between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from the time of 1937 to 1945. It was referred to as The Second Sino-Japanese war. Secretary Hull issued a statement of his own with fundamental principles of international policy. Hull stated that any situation in which armed hostilities were in progress or were in any type of threatening situation where the rights or interests of the nation may be at a serious risk.
  • Rape of Nanking

    Rape of Nanking
    Nanking, the capital of China had been overtaken by the Japanese. While this unfolded the Chinese government had fled to Hankow, inland on the Yangtze River. During the Rape of Nanking the Japanese slaughtered a predicted amount of 150,000 men who were "war prisoners" and 50,000 men who were only civilians. Along with the additional 20,000 women and girls who varied from all age groups.
  • Ribbentrop/Molotov Pact

    Ribbentrop/Molotov Pact
    A short time before World War II. Germany and the Soviet Union signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, where the two countries had agreed to take zero military action toward one another within the next ten years.Joseph Stalin felt this was a way to keep his nation on peaceful terms with Germany and build his army. Hitler used the pact to make sure he could invade Poland unopposed. The German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact fell apart in when Nazi-Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.
  • Germanys invasion of Poland

    Germanys invasion of Poland
    German invaded Poland at 4;45 in the morning with 1.5 million Nazi soldiers. Along its entire 17,750 mile border with a German controlled territory. While this was happening German Luftwaffe bombed Poland's airfields, as the German Navy attacked Poland's Naval forces. Hitler claimed this invasion as a defensive action.
  • German Blitzkrieg

    German Blitzkrieg
    Known as the German term for "lightening war", the German Blitzkrieg was a military tactic made to create disorganization among enemy forces by using mobile forces to create chaos. German first tested this on Poland in 1939 with great success. Commander Erwin Rommel used this method during the North African campaign of the second World War, and was adopted by the U.S General George Patton
  • Fall of Paris

    Fall of Paris
    When Germans had entered Paris. A German voice over loud speaker woke up the citizens of Paris and informed them of their new 8 p.m. curfew. Winston Churchill told the French government to hang on. For not too far ahead America would enter the war to come to there aid
  • Operation Barbosa

    Operation Barbosa
    Where Hitler sent out his armed forces eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union. There were over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks. The invasion went from the North Cape to the Black Sea
  • Pearl Harbor

    Pearl Harbor
    At around 8 in the morning, hundreds of Japanese planes attacked the Americans naval base at Pearl Harbor near the island of Honolulu. The attack went on for about 2 hours, but was extremely terrorizing. The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, eight gigantic battle ships and a substancial 300 airplanes. Over 2,000 American soldiers and sailors died. The following day F.D.R declared war on Japan,
  • Bataan Death March

    Bataan Death March
    This was the Philippine and United states surrender of the Bataan peninsula on the island of Luzon in the Philippines to Japan. A predicted 75,000 Filipino and U.S soldiers on the peninsula of Bataan were forced to make a full intense 65 mile march to prison camps.
  • Battle of Midway

    Battle of Midway
    A half year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the U.S defeated Japan in one of the largest Naval battles in the second world war. The United States countered the Japanese, which caused permanent damage to the Japanese Navy.
  • Battle of Stalingrad

    Battle of Stalingrad
    The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the successful Soviet defenses that the Soviet Union upheld against Germany at the city of Stalingrad in the U.S.S.R. It upheld the German advance into the Soviet Union and showed a sign of the turning of the tide of the war finally going more in favor of the Allies.This battle was one of the bloodiest battles in both Russian and world history, with a combined soldier and civilian casualties of nearly 2 million.
  • Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

    Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
    In Warsaw, Poland, Jewish residents in a ghetto occupied by Nazis. The Jews had an armed revolt against deportations and extermination camps. This revolt inspired many other revolts throughout ghettos and extermination camps all throughout Eastern Europe.
  • D-Day

    D-Day
    The day on which 156,000 American, British, and Canadian forces landed along five beaches along a 50 mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of Frances Normandy region
  • Battle of the Bulge

    Battle of the Bulge
    Its purpose was to seperate the allies by means of surprise and BLitzkrieg in one final desperate offensive attack by Hitler. It was one of the costliest battle for America in the second world war with around a 100,000 casualties. As the Germans advanced deeper into Ardennes to secure vital bridgeheads. The line defining the Allied front was compared to a bulge, hence the name of the battle
  • Liberation of Concentration Camps

    Liberation of Concentration Camps
    While the Allies moved across Europe, they came upon the terror of thousands of prisoners in the German Nazi camps. Many prisoners were tortured and burned at these camps, like the largest of all, Auschwitz
  • Operation Thunderclap

    Operation Thunderclap
    This was a sequence of Allied firebombing raids against the German held city of Dresden, which reduced the "Florence of the Elbe to rubble. It wiped out 135,000 people. It was the most destructive bombing executed in the war.
  • Battle of Iwo Jima

    Battle of Iwo Jima
    The invasion of Iwo Jima by Americans stemmed for a strong need of a base near the Japanese coast. Iwo Jima was defended by a predicted to be defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese troops.
  • Battle of Okinawa

    Battle of Okinawa
    The involvement of 287,000 American troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 Japanese soldiers of the Thirty Second Army. This was an eighty two day campaign in which Japan had lost 77,000 soldiers.
  • VE Day

    VE Day
    This is the celebration of victory for Great Britain and the U.S. in Europe. In both nations, cities put up flags and banners to rejoice in the defeat of the Nazi war machine.
  • Dropping of the atomic bombs

    Dropping of the atomic bombs
    On August 6th, at 8:15 in the morning, an American B-29 bomber by the name of the Enola Gay, dropped the worlds first ever atomic bomb. Around 80,000 people were wiped out as a direct result of the explosion and 35,000 were left injured. With an additional 60,000 dead by the end of the year from the fallout effects.
  • VJ Day

    VJ Day
    The day on which Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. Which resulted in the end of the second World War. Since then August 14 and 15 have been referred to as "Victory over Japan Day" or VJ Day.