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Japan attacks Manchuria
World War II was fought by millions of people in all corners of the world. There were battles and military posts in surprising places. The Caribbean and Central America, Greenland, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, Iraq, Syria, Burma are a few of the little known places that were involved. -
Japan leaves League of Nations
The Japanese delegation, defying world opinion, withdrew from the League of Nations Assembly today after the assembly had adopted a report blaming Japan for events in Manchuria -
Germany leaves League of Nations
Nine months after Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the German government announced its withdrawal from the League of Nations. -
US Neutrality Acts Signed
In the 1930s, the United States Government enacted a series of laws designed to prevent the United States from being embroiled in a foreign war by clearly stating the terms of U.S. neutrality. Although many Americans had rallied to join President Woodrow Wilson’s crusade -
Japan attacks China
a clash occurred between Chinese and Japanese troops near Peiping in North China. When this clash was followed by indications of intensified military activity on the part of Japan, Secretary of State Hull urged upon the Japanese Government a policy of self-restraint. In a conversation of July 12 with Japanese Ambassador Saito, Secretary Hull elaborated upon the futility of war and its awful consequences, emphasizing the great injury to the victor as well as to the vanquished in case of war. -
Germany takes over Austria
In early 1938, Austrian Nazis conspired for the second time in four years to seize the Austrian government by force and unite their nation with Nazi Germany. Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, learning of the conspiracy, met with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the hopes of reasserting his country’s independence but was instead bullied into naming several top Austrian Nazis to his cabinet. -
Munich Peace Conference Begins
Hitler had previously started rearming Germany in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936 and annexed Austria in 1938. He was now determined to seize the Sudetenland, which was in Czechoslovakia but had a substantial German population and important industrial resources. -
Germany takes over Czechoslovakia
German Wehrmacht moved into the remainder of Czechoslovakia and, from Prague Castle, Hitler proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. -
Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and Soviet Union
On August 23, 1939–shortly before World War II (1939-45) broke out in Europe–enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years. -
Germany Invades Poland
The German invasion of Poland was a primer on how Hitler intended to wage war–what would become the “blitzkrieg” strategy. This was characterized by extensive bombing early on to destroy the enemy’s air capacity, railroad -
France Falls to the Germans
By May 1940, Europe had been at war for nine months. Yet Britain and France, despite having declared war on Germany in September 1939 following Hitler's attack on Poland, had seen little real fighting. This tense period of anticipation – which came to be known as the 'Phoney War' – met an abrupt end on 10 May 1940, when Germany launched an invasion of France and the Low Countries. -
Battle of Britain Begins
On this day in 1940, the Germans begin the first in a long series of bombing raids against Great Britain, as the Battle of Britain, which will last three and a half months, begins.After the occupation of France by Germany, Britain knew it was only a matter of time before the Axis power turned its sights across the Channel. And on July 10, 120 German bombers and fighters struck a British shipping convoy in that very Channel, while 70 more bombers attacked