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END OF WW I
the war finally came to an end
German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires—had been militarily and politically defeated.The League of Nations was formed hoping to prevent another such conflict. -
FASCIST PARTY ESTABLISHED UNDER MUSSOLINI IN ITALY
Mussolini was among the founders of Italian Fascism, which included elements of nationalism, corporatism, national syndicalism, expansionism, social progress and anti-communism in combination with censorship of subversives and state propaganda. -
HITLER JOINS THE NAZI PARTY
Was a political party in Germany between 1919 and 1945. It was known as the German Workers' Party (DAP) prior to a change of name in 1920. The party's last leader, Adolf Hitler, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by president Paul von Hindenburg in 1933. -
MUSSOLINI TAKES OVER IN ITALY
Mussolini became the 40th Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and began using the title Il Duce by 1925. After 1936, his official title was "His Excellency Benito Mussolini, Head of Government, Duce of Fascism, and Founder of the Empire". -
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: CONTROL OF USSR TO JOSEPH STALIN; DEATH OF 8-13 RUSSIANS
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years, leading the country through the Russian Civil War, and worked to create a socialist economic system. -
US AND 61 OTHER COUNTRIES SIGN KELLOGG- BRIAND PACT
Signed by the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Japan, and a number of other countries. The pact renounced aggressive war. The pact was the result of a determined American effort to avoid involvement in the European alliance system. -
JAPANESE INVASION AT 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. -
ROOSEVELT TAKES OFFICE
The 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war. The only American president elected to more than two terms. -
HITLER BEGINS MILITARY BUILDUP
Hitler created an army for all boys and men, created an air force, and started to build submarines. The Treaty of Versailles kept Germany from having more than a 100,000 man-army, but Hitler soon had 600,000 men waiting for battle. -
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
Italy conquers Ethiopia through overwhelming military force, revealing the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations and encouraging Mussolini’s exaggerated estimate of his nation’s military power. -
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. -
GERMAN TROOPS INVADE RHINELAND
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler violates the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact by sending German military forces into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone along the Rhine River in western Germany -
JAPAN INVADES CHINA
China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the war merged into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. -
HITLER ANNOUNCES SECRET PLANS FOR LEBENSRAUM
In a meeting with his leading generals and admirals on 3 February 1933 Hitler spoke of "conquest of Lebensraum in the East and its ruthless Germanisation" as his ultimate foreign policy objectives. -
HITLER BECOMES CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY, ESTABLISHING THE THIRD REICH
On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Although he initially headed a coalition government, he quickly eliminated his government partners. The Nazi regime restored economic prosperity and ended mass unemployment using heavy spending on the military, while suppressing labor unions and strikes. -
HITLER TAKES AUSTRIA
Hitler began his conquests by occupying Austria in March 1938 and annexing it to Germany. -
MUNICH AGREEMENT: SUDETENLAND TO GERMANY
An agreement permitting Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without the presence of Czechoslovakia. -
TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED IN USSR
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. -
FRANCO IS SUCCESFUL IN SPAIN
The regime emerged from the victory in the Spanish Civil War of the rebel Nacionales coalition led by General Franco. Besides the internal support, Franco's rebellion had been backed from abroad by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, while the Second Spanish Republic was increasingly backed by the communist Soviet Union. -
RUSSIAN ARMY INTO FINLAN (FINNS SURRENDER IN 3 MONTHS)
On November 30, the Red Army attacks Finland with 26 divisions; the Finns muster only 9 divisions. The Soviets enjoy a huge advantage in what Stalin calls “machines” - tanks, artillery, and aircraft. But three factors hamper the Soviets: their own lack of training, their failure to prepare for winter fighting, and the fighting ability and indomitable spirit of the Finns. -
CZECHOSLOVAKIA FALLS TO HITLER
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. -
GERMAN INVASION OF POLAND; BLITZKRIEG
Following the annexation of Czechoslovakia, Hitler turned his attention to Poland. In March, 1939, he declared that the non aggression pact signed in 1934 was void and that the issue of ownership of Danzig had to be dealt with. Diplomatic activity heightened as the European powers attempted to prevent a German invasion of Poland. The French had a long standing agreement with the Poles, dating back to 1921. The British sought to discourage German aggression by pledging to use force to protect Pol -
NON-AGRESSION PACT; GERMANY AND RUSSIA; DIVIDE POLAND
People would have been even more shocked if they had known at the time that, in addition, the two countries had made a number of a 'secret protocol' agreeing to 'spheres of influence' in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Poland. It amounted to an agreement to invade and divide the countries of eastern Europe between them ... with Poland first on the list. -
GERMAN INVAISON OF NORWAY AND DENMARK
The German invasion of Norway was a dramatically daring military operation. The decision to embark on the venture was made by Adolf Hitler as Chief of State and also (since December 1938) as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the German Reich. He arrived at it over a period of six months during which the proposal was debated at length in the highest echelons of the German Armed Forces. -
DEFEAT OF NETHERLANDS, BELGIUM AND LUXEMBOURG BY GERMANY
Nazi forces defeated France, took Norway, invaded Yugoslavia and Greece and occupied much of the European portion of the Soviet Union. Germany also forged alliances with Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and later Finland and collaborated with individuals in several other nations. -
BRITISH AND FRENCH DEFEAT AT DUNKIRK
By 14th May, 1940, the German tanks led by General Heinz Guderian had crossed the Meuse and had opened up a a fifty-mile gap in the Allied front. Six days later they reached the Channel. When he heard the news, Winston Churchill ordered the implementation of Operation Dynamo, a plan to evacuate of troops and equipment from the French port of Dunkirk, that had been drawn up by General John Gort, the Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). -
ITALY ENTERS THE WAR ON THE SIDE OF GERMANY AND INVADES FRANCE
Italy enters the war on Germany's side and invades France -
FRANCE SURRENDERS TO GERMANY
France was divided into a German occupation zone in the north and west, a small Italian occupation zone in the southeast and a collaborationist rump state in the south, Vichy France. Southern France was occupied on 10 November 1942 and France remained under German occupation until after the Allied landings in 1944; the Low Countries were liberated in 1944 and 1945. -
PLANS FOR AN INVATION OF GREAT BRITAIN; BEGINNING OF THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN
The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces, and was also the largest and most sustained aerial bombing campaign to that date. From July 1940 coastal shipping convoys and shipping centres, such as Portsmouth, were the main targets; one month later the Luftwaffe shifted its attacks to RAF airfields and infrastructure.
