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End of WWI
. After a 1918 German offensive along the western front, United States forces entered the trenches and the Allies drove back the German armies in a series of successful offensives. Germany agreed to a cease-fire on 11 November 1918, later known as Armistice Day. -
Hitler joins the Nazi party
The party's last leader, Adolf Hitler, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by president Paul von Hindenburg in 1933. Hitler rapidly established a totalitarian regime known as the Third Reich. -
Establishment of the Fascist Party in Italy under Mussolini
Founded in Rome on November 9, 1921, it marked the transformation of the paramilitary Fasci Italiani di Combattimento into a more coherent political group. -
Mussolini takes over Italy
Mussolini became the 40th Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and began using the title Il Duce by 1925. -
Establishment of the USSR
The Soviet Union was founded in December 1922 when the Russian SFSR, which formed during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and emerged victorious in the ensuing Russian Civil War, unified with the Transcaucasian, Ukrainian and Belorussian SSRs. -
Death of Vladimir Lenin. Stalin takes control of USSR
deaths of 8-13 million Russians -
US and 61 other countries sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact
After negotiations, the pact was signed in Paris at the French Foreign Ministry by the representatives from: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, India, the Irish Free State, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. It was proclaimed to go into effect on July 24, 1929. -
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan, beginning on September 19, 1931, immediately followed the Mukden Incident. The Japanese occupation of Manchuria lasted until the end of World War II. -
Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany, establishing the Third Reich
Having secured supreme political power, Hitler went on to gain public support by convincing most Germans he was their saviour from the economic Depression, the Versailles treaty, communism, the "Judeo-Bolsheviks", and other "undesirable" minorities. The Nazis eliminated opposition through a process known as Gleichschaltung ("bringing into line"). -
FDR takes office
Starting in his "First Hundred Days" in office, which began March 4, 1933, Roosevelt launched major legislation and a profusion of executive orders that gave form to the New Deal—a complex, interlocking set of programs designed to produce relief . -
Hitler begins military buildup
In 1935 he abandoned the Versailles Treaty and began to build up the army by conscripting five times its permitted number. -
US begins passing Neutrality Acts
The Neutrality Acts were laws that were passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to World War II. -
Italian troops conquer Ethiopia
The Second Italo–Abyssinian War (also referred to as the Second Italo-Ethiopian War) was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy (Regno d'Italia) and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire (also known as Abyssinia). -
German troops invade Rhineland
Under Articles 42, 43 and 44 of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles—imposed on Germany by the Allies after the Great War—Germany was "forbidden to maintain or construct any fortification either on the Left bank of the Rhine or on the Right bank to the west of a line drawn fifty kilometers to the East of the Rhine". If a violation "in any manner whatsoever" of this Article took place, this "shall be regarded as committing a hostile act...and as calculated to disturb the peace of the world".[ -
Civil War begins in Spain under Francisco Franco
The Spanish Civil War was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after a military rebellion by a group of conservative generals led by Francisco Franco against the established Government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of President Manuel Azaña. -
Japan invades China
The Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – September 9, 1945) was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany (see Sino-German cooperation (1911–1941)), the Soviet Union (1937–1940) and the United States. -
Hitler announces secret plans for lebensraum
The official German history of World War II was to conclude that the conquest of Lebensraum was for Hitler and the rest of the National Socialists the most important German foreign policy goal. -
Hitler takes Austria
Austria was annexed to the German Third Reich on 12 March 1938. There had been several years of pressure from Germany and there were many supporters within Austria for the "Heim ins Reich"-movement, both Nazis and non-Nazis. -
Munich Agreement; Sudetenland to Germany
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. -
Totalitarian government estalbished in USSR
Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a political system where the state, usually under the control of a single political person, faction, or class, recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible. -
Czechoslovakia falls to Hitler
German occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945) began with the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this effort was the alleged privations suffered by ethnic German populations living in those regions. -
Franco is successful in Spain
Francisco Franco Bahamonde (4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975), commonly known as Franco, was a Spanish military general and head of state of Spain from October 1936 (whole nation from 1939 onwards), and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November 1975. -
Non-agression pact; Germany and Russia; divide Poland
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, colloquially named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union. -
German invasion of Poland
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War (Polish: Kampania wrześniowa or Wojna obronna 1939 roku) in Poland and the Poland Campaign (German: Polenfeldzug) in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe. -
Russian army into Finland
The Winter War (Finnish: Talvisota, Swedish: Vinterkriget, Russian: Зимняя война (trans. Zimnyaya voyna)) was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939—three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland—and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty. -
German invasion of Denmark and Norway
Germany's economy relied on over 11 million tons of iron ore imported from Sweden every year, transported over land into Norway before the ore was shipped to Germany. This was made possible with Norway's neutrality. The government of Norway, unwilling to become involved in the war, protected German transports sailing in her waters in order to appease Adolf Hitler. Hitler, therefore, had no plans to invade Norway. -
Defeat of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg by Germany
Germany wanted to invade France. Before they did that they also
invaded Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, -
British and French defeat at Dunkirk
The Battle of Dunkirk was a battle in the Second World War between the Allies and Germany. A part of the Battle of France on the Western Front, the Battle of Dunkirk was the defence and evacuation of British and allied forces in Europe from 24 May-4 June 1940. -
Italy enters the war on the side of Germany and invades France
On 10 June 1940, as the French government fled to Bordeaux before the German invasion, declaring Paris an open city, Mussolini felt the conflict would soon end and declared war on Britain and France. -
France surrenders to Germany
The armistice was signed on 22 June 1940 in the very same railway carriage in which the 1918 Armistice was signed (it was removed from a museum building and placed on the precise spot where it was located in 1918), Hitler sat in the same chair in which Marshal Ferdinand Foch had sat when he faced the defeated German representatives. -
Beginning of 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.
