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The Invasion (Blitzkrieg) of Poland
The invasion lasted from September 1 to October 5, 1939. As dawn broke on September 1, 1939, German forces launched a surprise attack on Poland. Army Group North attacked from Pomerania and East Prussia, while Army Group South drove deep into southern Poland from Silesia and Slovakia. -
Great Britain and France Declare War on Nazi Germany
Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, two days after the German invasion of Poland. The guarantees given to Poland by Britain and France marked the end of the policy of appeasement. -
The Invasion (Blitzkrieg) of Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands & France
Germany planned to defeat Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg by catching them off guard in a swift attack, the so-called Blitzkrieg. The Germans used espionage to discover the weak points in the Dutch defence. -
The Battle & Great Escape at Dunkirk
Churchill and his advisers had expected that it would be possible to rescue only 20,000 to 30,000 men, but in all 338,000 troops were rescued from Dunkirk, a third of them French. Ninety thousand remained to be taken prisoner and the BEF left behind the bulk of its tanks and heavy guns. -
The Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. -
Selective Service & Training Act
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, also known as the Burke–Wadsworth Act, Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law 76–783, 54 Stat. 885, enacted September 16, 1940, was the first peacetime conscription in United States history. -
Lend-Lease Assistance Act
Passed on March 11, 1941, this act set up a system that would allow the United States to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the United States." -
The Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, just before 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941 -
America Enters World War II
America's isolation from war ended on December 7, 1941, when Japan staged a surprise attack on American military installations in the Pacific. The most devastating strike came at Pearl Harbor, the Hawaiian naval base where much of the US Pacific Fleet was moored. -
Germany and Italy Declare War on the United States
On December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Hitler announced in Berlin that Germany, Italy […] On December 16, 1941, Congress approved legislation giving President Roosevelt virtually unlimited powers over defense contracts, the reorganization of government -
The Battle of the Coral Sea
The Battle of the Coral Sea, from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia. -
The Battle of Midway Island
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place 4–7 June 1942, six months after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. -
The Invasion of North Africa
Operation Torch was an Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of securing victory in North Africa -
The Invasion of Sicily & Italy
The Allied invasion of Sicily, also known as the Battle of Sicily and Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II in which the Allied forces invaded the island of Sicily in July 1943 and took it from the Axis powers. -
The D-Day Invasion of France
The D-Day operation of June 6, 1944, brought together the land, air, and sea forces of the allied armies in what became known as the largest amphibious invasion in military history. -
Nazi Concentration Camps Discovered
The first major camp to be liberated was Majdanek near Lublin, Poland in July 1944. Surprised by the rapid Soviet advance from the east, the Germans attempted to hide the evidence of mass murder by demolishing much of the camp, but parts - including the gas chambers - were left standing. -
The Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. -
V-E (Victory in Europe) Day
Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945; it marked the official end of World War II in Europe in the Eastern Front, with the last known shots fired on 11 May. -
The Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki
The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict -
V-J (Victory over Japan) Day
Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day) would officially be celebrated in the United States on the day formal surrender documents were signed aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay: September 2, 1945. But as welcome as victory over Japan was, the day was bittersweet in light of the war's destructiveness. -
The Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima
On the morning of August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. -
The Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was a major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II which took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region between Belgium and Luxembourg