-
Mussolini’s March on Rome -outcome
March on Rome, the insurrection by which Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy in late October 1922. The March marked the beginning of fascist rule and meant the doom of the preceding parliamentary regimes of socialists and liberals. -
Stalin becomes dictator of USSR
1924-Serving in the Russian Civil War before overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in 1922, Stalin assumed leadership over the country following Lenin's death in 1924. Under Stalin, socialism in one country became a central tenet of the party's ideology. -
Hitler writes Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf, (German: “My Struggle”) political manifesto written by Adolf Hitler. It was his only complete book, and the work became the bible of National Socialism (Nazism) in Germany’s Third Reich. It was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1927, and an abridged edition appeared in 1930 -
1st “five year plan” in USSR– purpose
In 1928, Stalin launched his First Five-Year Plan to speed up the process of industrialization in the Soviet Union so that it could compete with output levels in developed capitalist economies. -
Japan invades Manchuria – why?
Seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industries, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. By 1937 Japan controlled large sections of China, and war crimes against the Chinese became commonplace. -
Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany
Following several backroom negotiations – which included industrialists, Hindenburg's son, the former chancellor Franz von Papen, and Hitler – Hindenburg acquiesced and on 30 January 1933, he formally appointed Adolf Hitler as Germany's new chancellor. -
Nuremburg Laws enacted - what were they?
The Nazis enacted the Nuremberg Laws because they wanted to put their ideas about race into law. They believed in the false theory that the world is divided into distinct races that are not equally strong and valuable. -
“Night of the Long Knives” in Germany - purpose
The Night of the Long Knives represented a triumph for Hitler, and a turning point for the German government. It established Hitler as "the supreme leader of the German people", as he put it in his 13 July speech to the Reichstag. -
Holodomor begins- why?
The term Holodomor (death by hunger, in Ukrainian) refers to the starvation of millions of Ukrainians in 1932–33 as a result of Soviet policies. The Holodomor can be seen as the culmination of an assault by the Communist Party and Soviet state on the Ukrainian peasantry, who resisted Soviet policies. -
The Great Purge begins
In 1934, Stalin used the murder of Sergey Kirov as a pretext to launch the Great Purge, in which about a million people perished (see § Number of people executed). Some later historians came to believe that Stalin arranged the murder, or at least that there was sufficient evidence to reach such a conclusion. -
Anti-Comintern Pact
The Anti-Comintern Pact was an agreement between Germany, Italy and Japan, that they would work together to stop the spread of Communism around the globe. This was aimed squarely at the USSR. Germany and Italy had worked well during the Spanish Civil War and had brought about a fascist victory over communism. -
Italian invasion of Ethiopia
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression which was fought between Italy and Ethiopia from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Italian Invasion, and in Italy as the Ethiopian War. -
The Rape of Nanking happen
The Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Battle of Nanking in the Second Sino-Japanese War, by the Imperial Japanese Army. Beginning on December 13, 1937, the massacre lasted six weeks. -
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung paramilitary and Schutzstaffel paramilitary forces -
Spanish civil war
Revolutions of 1917–1923 Aftermath of World War I 1918–1939 Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War 1918–1925 Province of the Sudetenland 1918–1920 1918–1920 unrest in Split Soviet westward