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1921, Jan. 30 Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the Nazi Party
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1922 Benito Mussolini appointed Prime Minister of Italy
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1929 Josef Stalin sole dictator of the Soviet Union (USSR)
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1931 Japan’s Army seizes Manchuria, China
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1933, March 21 - Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany
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1935 Neutrality Acts passed by US Congress
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1935 Italian Army invades Ethiopia in Africa
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1936 Militarist take control of Japanese Government
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1936 Hitler sends troops into Rhineland of Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty
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1937 Japan’s army pillages Nanjing, China; massacre a quarter of a million people.
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1938 Munich Pact signed giving the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany
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1938 Nazis begin rounding up Jews for labor camps
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1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact signed by Hitler and Stalin
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1939 Sept 1st - Nazis invade Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany
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1940 Nazis invade Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium – take control
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1940 Germany invades France and forces it to surrender
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1940 Battle of Britain – Royal Air Force defeats German Air Force to prevent invasion of their island
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1940 First time Peacetime Draft in US
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1941 Hitler breaks Pact with Stalin’s Russia and invades - USSR which now joins England in fighting the Germans
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1941 Churchill and FDR issue the Atlantic Charter
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1941 Japanese invade French Indochina (Viet. Laos, Cambodia)
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1941, Dec. 7 Pearl Harbor in Hawaii attacked by Japanese Naval and Air forces, US declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy declare war on the US - Dec. 9
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1942 Philippines fall to Japanese – Bataan Death March
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1942 Japanese Americans interned in isolated camps