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Germany invades Poland
The Nazis invaded Poland with air strike bombings and ground forces. In this battle, Hitler revealed a strategy that would be used for later wars to come, and it was soon known as the 'Blitzkrieg' strategy. Hitler setup an operation base where he could beging sending out security forces to annihilate everyone that didnt believe in the Nazi ideology. This war is believed to be the starting point of World War II -
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World War II
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Britain & France declare War on Germany
Britain and France who were 2 of the major war countries in the allies declared war againt Germany. -
Churchill Becomes Prime Minister of Britain
Winston Churchill replaces Neville Chamberlain as the British prime minister. In 1938 Chamberlain signed the Munich Pact with Hitler, allowing the Nazis to control Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain believed that this agreement would bring peace, but he was mistakenly wrong. He soon resigned from his position when the Nazis started to begin their rein of terror. Churchill was elected not long after because he was known for his military leadership. -
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Evacuation of Dunkirk (Operation Dynanmo)
Operation Dynamo was one of the biggest successess for the British in WWII. The British and French armies were cornered by the advancing German lines near Dunkirk. The British sent ships famously known as the 'Little Ships' which returned over 330,000 French and British troops. -
Italy enters war on side of Axis powers
On the 10th of June, 1940, Italy entered the war allied with the Axis powers. Italy and the rest of the Axis powers had common interests. One of these common interests was the expansion of territory, and the other interest was the extermanation of the Soviet Union. -
France signs armistice with Germany
The German advance had pushed the French forces further back southward to the city of Bordeaux where a new goverment was formed and Marshall Petain appointed as the leader. Petain broadcasted a message to the French people that "It is with a heavy heart that I tell you today that we must stop fighting." Petain askes the Germans for an Armistice and oon the 22nd of June the Armistice was signed. The Armistice was signed at the same spot the Germans signed one 20 years ago. -
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Battle of Britain
The battle of Britain was mainly fought in the skies as the German's Luftwaffe and the British Air Force went head to head. Hitler knew that to defeat the British, he would have to get through their air force first but this turned out to be more of a struggle than Hitler imagined. Britain was able to fend off the Nazi air raids which meant that Hitler couldn't infiltrate with his infantry, leading to Britain winning the battle. -
Tripartite Pact Signed
The Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by Germany, Italy and Japan. There were two agreements that the countries had to agree with before signed. One of them was that if a nation that was not already involved in the war, attack one of the countries involved in the Tripartite Pact, they would get assistance. This was aimed at the U.S so they thought twice about entering the war. Germany and Italy were also given Europe while Japan could take East Asia. -
Operation Sea Lion
Operation Sea Lion was a planned invasion on Great Britain in 1940 but the plan never went ahead as the Germans lost the war. -
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Siege of Tobruk
The Siege of Tobruk was a vital battle for the allies because it meant that the allies could control the town that harboured the Suez Canal, making the Axis Powers have to transport their supples over land, through 1500km of desert. Tobruk was subjected to constant infantry attacks and bombings. Half of the garrison in Tobruk was evacuated in August and many more in September -
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa is the largest military operation in history, with more 3 million axis troops and 3,500 tanks. Hitler believed that the Soviet Unions were slaves, and that he should have "lebensraum" (living space) in the East. Hitler believed that they would only have to "we have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down". The Soivet Union stood their ground and as Winter set in, the Germans operation was abandoned. -
Britain and US declare war on Japan
The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt completed a 10-minute speech, stating that the United States had declared war on Japan, ending with an oath "so help us God". -
Bombing of Pearl Harbor
In the early morning of December the 7th, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes bombed the Naval Base near Honolulu, Hawaii. The bombings lasted nearly two hours with the Japanese fighter planes bombing nearly 20 American naval vessels, eight battleships and almost 200 airplanes. More than 2,000 American's died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. The next day, the President, Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war against Japan. -
Japan takes Singapore
The fall of Singapore to the Japanse Army was considered one of the worst defeats in the British Army's history and the worst defeat in World War 2. A combination of speed and ferocious attacks left the British stunned. The war only ended with the use of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945, but the damgage had been done, the British got humiliated. -
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Battle of Midway
The Japanese fleet commander, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku wanted to destroy the remaining American aircraft carriers tha thad excaped the destruction at Pearl Harbor. The admiral wanted to bait out the fleet and set up an ambush, but American intelligence solved the Japense fleet codes and the torpedo bomber found the Japanese fleet and sunk them. -
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First Battle of El Alamein
In June Rommel and his men repelled attackes from the British and forced them to retreat, soon ending up in El Alamein, 60 miles west of Alexcandria, a British naval base. The Italian troops marched on towards El Alamein as Mussolini saw an opportunity to strike when the enemy were weak. Reinforcements soon started coming in for the Allies and the Italians were forced to retreat, leaving Egypt in the hands of the Allies. -
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Battle of Stalingrad
The fast German advance frightened Stalin so much that he brought into play his 'Not One Step Back', odering execution for the slightest sign of surrender. The Germans had infiltrated with the help of air support and infantry, but as winter set in, many troops died due to insufficient amount of ammunition, food, dressings or drugs. Hitler refused defeat and would not surrender, and soon appointed Paulus as the German Field Marshal because no Marshal had ever surrendered, but on 31st Jan, he did. -
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Second Battle of El Alamein
Rommel knew that a major attack was coming to happen eventually and he knew he had to prepare for it. Lack of fuel and transport meant he had to change his preferred, forcing him to shleter his troops behind a big and complex minefield. Rommel got orders to withdraw from Hitler on the 4th of November. This battle was a huge turning point as it ending the battle for the Western Desert. -
D-Day Landings
156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches, the whole beach was heavily guarded by the French. The planning of D-Day was a large project that took a lot of time to plan, and before the landing of the troops, the Allies conducted a decpetion to mislead the Germans of the intended target.The D-Day Landings was one of the largest water military assaults in history, and was believed to have been the beginning of the end of war in Europe. -
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Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was also known as the Ardennes Offensive, which was the largest fought battle on the Wesern Front. The German offensive was intented to recapture the port of Antwerp in the Netherlands. 200,000 troops combined from both sides died during the battle, with the Germans losing yet another battle, badly. -
Mussolini Captured and Executed
The Italian fascist leader died in the final days of World War 2. Mussolini was executed by an anti-fascist partisans in Guilino di Mezzegra, northern Italy. -
Hitler commits suicide
The Fuhrer and dictator of Germany, drunk a cyanide capsule and then shot himself with a pistol in his bunker, below the chancellery headquarters. -
German forces surrender
General Alfred Jodl officially signs the surrender of all German troops in the East and the West in France. Jodl wanted to limit the terms of only those forces still fighting the Western Allies, but General Dwight Eisenhower denied any chance of this. -
V.E. Day
The United States and Great Britain both celebrate the surrender of the Germans in Europe day. Cities in both nations and former occupied cities in Western Europe had flags and banners everywhere. -
Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
At the start of 1940, Albert Einstein warned the U.S. that the Nazis had started conducting research for atomic weaponary. The American bomber Enola Gay dropped the five-ton atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Killing 80,000 people instantly and tens of thousands more from wounds and radiation poisoning. -
Soviet Union declares war on Japan
The Soviet Union deploy over 1 million troops into Japanese-occupied Manchuria, China. Out of the 850 Japanese soldiers, 650 of them died within the first few days. Emperor Hirohito pleaded with his War Council to surrender. -
Atomic bomb dropped on Nagaski
The devastation of Hiroshima was not enough to get the Japanese War Council to surrender so the Americans unleashed another atomic bomb on the Japanese. At 11:02am the Bock's Car dropped an atomic bomb on Nagaski, killing anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 people. Another bomb was waiting to be used if the Japanese didnt surrender but this wasnt needed as the Emperor of Japan gave his permission for surrender. -
Japanese surrender - End of WW2
The Japanese navy and air force were oblitorated, and their economy destroyed by the bombings. With no real army left, and the threat of another atomic bomb being unleashed, the Japanese surrendered. -
United Nations is born
The United Nations was born as a means to negotiate peace with international conflict. The United Nations Charter replaced the old League of Nations, in hope of preventing another war.
