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Mussolini takes power in Italy
An Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party, ruling the country from 1922 to his ousting in 1943. Mussolini has been credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of fascism, and joined sides with the likewise fascists: Germany. -
Stalin comes to power in Russia
Entered into a pact with Nazi Germany that divided their influence in Eastern Europe and allowed the USSR to regain some of its lost territories. However, German forces violated the agreement and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of war in history. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after victory in the decisive battles of Moscow and Stalingrad. -
U.S. stock market crash
The most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, but also affected the world. The crash signaled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries -
Japan invades Manchuria
The Japanese established a puppet state, called Manchukuo, and their occupation lasted until the end of World War II. This state gave them the resources they needed to stage a war with America. -
Hitler named chancellor of Germany
Hitler's emergence as chancellor on January 30, 1933, marked a crucial turning point for Germany and, ultimately, for the world. His plan, embraced by much of the German population, was to do away with politics and make Germany a powerful, unified one-party state. -
FDR takes office.
A central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war. Ultimately was the greatest leader the U.S. has ever had in time of war. -
The U.S. passes the First Neutrality Act
Congress passed the first Neutrality Act prohibiting the export of “arms, ammunition, and implements of war” from the United States to foreign nations at war and requiring arms manufacturers in the United States to apply for an export license. -
Italy invades Ethiopia
The aim of invading Ethiopia was to boost Italian national prestige, which was wounded a few years earlier by Ethiopia's defeat of Italian forces at the Battle of Adowa in the nineteenth century (1896), which saved Ethiopia from Italian colonisation. -
Germany Remilitarizes the Rhineland
This was significant because it violated the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties, marking the first time since the end of World War I that German troops had been in this region. -
Civil war begins in Spain
With the establishment of a Fascist dictatorship led by General Francisco Franco in the aftermath of the Civil War, all right-wing parties were fused into the structure of the Franco regime, another Fascist movement. -
The Munich Conference
A settlement permitting Nazi Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia's areas along the country's borders. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without the presence of Czechoslovakia. Today, it is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement toward Germany. -
Anschluss
Although the Allies were committed to upholding the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and St. Germain, which specifically prohibited the union of Austria and the German Empire, their reaction was only verbal and moderate. No military confrontation took place. Hitler could now do what he pleased. -
Germany occupies the Sudetenland
Germany stated that the incorporation of Austria into the Reich resulted in borders with Czechoslovakia that were a great danger to German security, and that this allowed Germany to be encircled by the Western Powers. German armies entered then Prague and it became a protectorate of the Third Reich -
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht was followed by further economic and political persecution of Jews, and is viewed by historians as part of Nazi Germany's broader racial policy, and the beginning of the Final Solution and The Holocaust. -
The Nazi-Soviet Pact
The Pact assured a non-involvement of the Soviet Union in a European War, as well as separating Germany and Japan from forming a military alliance, thus allowing Stalin to concentrate on Japan. -
Germany invades Poland
This was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the beginning of World War II in Europe. -
The beginning of the "Phony War"
War was declared, but no Western power had committed to launching a significant land offensive, ignoring the terms of the Anglo-Polish military alliance and the Franco-Polish military alliance, which obliged the United Kingdom and France to assist Poland. -
Miracle at Dunkirk
A total of 338,226 soldiers had been rescued by the hastily assembled fleet of 850 boats, most of which were ran by civillian crews on civillian boats. -
France surrenders
By the time of the liberation, some 580,000 French had been killed. Military deaths were 92,000 in 1939-1940. Some 58,000 died from 1940-1945 fighting in the Free French forces. -
The Battle of Britain
The failure of Germany to achieve its objectives of destroying Britain's air defences, or forcing Britain to negotiate an armistice or an outright surrender, is considered its first major defeat and a crucial turning point in the Second World War. -
Japan seizes French Indo-China
A move by the Empire of Japan in September 1940, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, to prevent China from importing arms and fuel through French Indochina, via the Sino-Vietnamese Railway. This made continuation of the drawn out Battle of South Guangxi unnecessary. -
The Lend-Lease Act
The program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, Free France, and other Allied nations with materiel between 1941 and 1945. Formaly, An Act to Further Promote the Defense of the United States -
The Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a pivotal policy statement first issued in August 1941 that early in World War II defined the Allied goals for the post-war world. Set up the basis for the creations of the United Nations too. -
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
This Event is the last straw for America, and it enters the war. War between Japan and the United States had been a possibility of which each nation had been aware (and developed contingency plans for) since the 1920s, though tensions did not begin to grow seriously until Japan's 1931 invasion of Manchuria. -
Churchill is elected prime minister of England
Best known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War, and widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century, he served as Prime Minister of Britain twice. He was also an officer in the British Military
