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Germany invades Poland(EU)
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. From East Prussia and Germany in the north and Silesia and Slovakia in the south, German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border and advanced on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack. -
Britain&France declare war on German(EU)
1939: Britain and France declare war on Germany. Britain and France are at war with Germany following the invasion of Poland two days ago. At 1115 BST the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, announced the British deadline for the withdrawal of German troops from Poland had expired. It means that the ww2 has started. -
Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Britain
At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following Neville Chamberlain's resignation in May 1940, Churchill became Prime Minister.
Churchill became the leader of Britain and lead the whole country to fight for peace. -
Operation Sea Lion(EU)
Operation Sealion was the name given by Hitler for the planned invasion of Great Britain in 1940. Operation Sealion was never carried out during the war as the Germans lost the Battle of Britain and it is now believed that Hitler was more interested in the forthcoming attack on Russia as opposed to invading Britain.
Eventual cancellation and diversion of German, Italian, and other Axis forces for Operation Barbarossa -
Evacuation of Dunkirk(Operation Dynamo)
Dunkirk evacuation, (1940) in World War II, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and other Allied troops from the French seaport of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) to England. Naval vessels and hundreds of civilian boats were used in the evacuation, which began on May 26. When it ended on June 4, about 198,000 British and 140,000 French and Belgian troops had been saved. -
Italy enters the war on side of axis power(EU)
On November 1, 1936, Germany and Italy, reflecting their common interest in destabilizing the European order, announced a Rome-Berlin Axis one week after signing a treaty of friendship. Nearly a month later, on November 25, 1936, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan signed the so-called Anti-Comintern Pact directed at the Soviet Union. Finally, Italy entered World War II on the Axis side on June 10, 1940, as the defeat of France became apparent. -
France signs armistice with Germany(EU)
Hitler unleashes his blitzkrieg invasion of the Low Countries and France with a fury on May 10, 1940. The Armistice is signed on June 22. Under its terms, two-thirds of France is to be occupied by the Germans. The French army is to be disbanded. In addition, France must bear the cost of the German invasion. -
Battle of Britain(EU)
The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe). It has been described as the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. -
Tripartite Pact signed
On this day in 1940, the Axis powers are formed as Germany, Italy, and Japan become allies with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Berlin. The Pact provided for mutual assistance should any of the signatories suffer attack by any nation not already involved in the war. This formalizing of the alliance was aimed directly at “neutral” America–designed to force the United States to think twice before venturing in on the side of the Allies. -
Siege of Tobruk(AF)
Between April and August 1941 around 14,000 Australian soldiers were besieged in Tobruk by a German–Italian army commanded by General Erwin Rommel.
Half the Australian garrison was relieved in August, the rest in September-October. However, 2/13 Battalion could not be evacuated and was still there when the siege was lifted on 10 December, the only unit present for the entire siege. -
Operation Barbarossa(EU)
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, starting Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. The operation stemmed from Nazi Germany's ideological aims to conquer the western Soviet Union so that it could be repopulated by Germans, to use Slavs as a slave-labour force for the Axis war-effort, and to seize the oil reserves of the Caucasus and the agricultural resources of Soviet territories. The outcome was that the Soviets defeated the Germans. -
Bombing of Pearl Harbor(AS)
Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, and was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on the base, where they managed to destroy or damage nearly 20 American naval vessels. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. -
Britain and US declare war on Japan(AS)
The declaration of war by the Empire of Japan on the United States and the British Empire was published on December 8, 1941 (Japan time; December 7 in the United States), after Japanese forces had executed an attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor and attacks on British forces in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The declaration of war was printed on the front page of all Japanese newspapers' evening editions on December 8. -
Japan takes Singapore(AS)
The Battle of Singapore, also known as the Fall of Singapore, was fought in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II. Singapore was the major British military base in South-East Asia and was the keystone of British imperial interwar defence planning for South-East Asia as well as the South-West Pacific. The fighting in Singapore lasted from 8 to 15 February 1942. It resulted in the Japanese capture of Singapore and the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. -
Battle of Midway(AS)
The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II which occurred between 4 and 7 June 1942. The United States Navy defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that proved irreparable. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare." -
First Battle of EL Alamein(AF)
The First Battle of El Alamein (1–27 July 1942) was a battle of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, fought in Egypt between Axis forces (Germany and Italy) of the Panzer Army Africa and Allied (British Imperial and Commonwealth) forces of the Eighth Army. -
Battle of Stalingrad(EU)
The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 1942 – 2 February) was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in Southern Russia. Marked by fierce close quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians by air raids, it is often regarded as one of the single largest and bloodiest battles in the history of warfare. It was an extremely costly defeat for German forces. -
Second Battle of EL Alamein(AF)
The Second Battle of El Alamein (23 October–11 November 1942) was a decisive[12][13] battle of the Second World War that took place near the Egyptian railway halt of El Alamein. With the Allies victorious, it marked the watershed of the Western Desert Campaign. The First Battle of El Alamein had prevented the Axis from advancing further into Egypt. -
D-Day Landings(EU)
The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 (termed D-Day) of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control and contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front. It is widely regarded as the single most important event in WWII and led to its conclusion in Europe. It resulted in the freedom of France -
Battle of the Bulge(EU)
The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. American forces bore the brunt of the attack and incurred their highest casualties of any operation during the war. The battle also severely depleted Germany's armored forces. -
Mussolini captured and executed(EU)
On the 28th of April 1945, Benito Mussolini died. The leader of Fascist Italy and longest-ruling of the right-wing dictators who brought destruction to 20th century Europe, died in ignominy, executed on a rural road by his captors. It was a death that brought peace to many oppressed by the man known as Il Duce, and which brought controversy and conspiracy theories in its wake. -
Hitler commits suicide(EU)
Der Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany, burrowed away in a refurbished air-raid shelter, consumes a cyanide capsule, then shoots himself with a pistol, on 30th April 1945, as his “1,000-year” Reich collapses above him. -
German forces surrender(EU)
The German Instrument of Surrender ended World War II in Europe. The definitive text was signed in Karlshorst, Berlin, on the night of 8 May 1945 by representatives of the three armed services of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) and the Allied Expeditionary Force together with the Supreme High Command of the Red Army, with further French and US representatives signing as witnesses. -
V.E. Day(EU)
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day or simply V Day, was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces.[3] It thus marked the end of World War II in Europe. -
Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima(AS)
1945 August 6th, at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world’s first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout. -
Soviet Union declares war on Japan(AS)
1945 August 8th, the Soviet Union officially declares war on Japan, pouring more than 1 million Soviet soldiers into Japanese-occupied Manchuria, northeastern China, to take on the 700,000-strong Japanese army. -
Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki(AS)
1945 August 9th, a second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan’s unconditional surrender. -
Japanese surrender-End of WW2(AS)
The surrender of Imperial Japan was announced on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close. -
United Nations is born
The United Nations, or UN, was born on October 24, 1945. The organization was founded to safeguard democracy, freedom and peace in the aftermath of Nazism and World War Two. The UN was born out of the League of Nations, an organization created after World War One. The name United Nations was first used during World War Two when 26 nations signed the “Declaration of United Nations,” pledging to fight the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan.
