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Czar Nicholas II Became the Leader of Russia
Nicholas II, the last czar, is crowned ruler of Russia in the old Ouspensky Cathedral in Moscow. -
Trans-Siberian Railway Built
The Trans-Siberian Railway is one of the longest railways in the world and it connects Moscow with the city of Vladivostok. -
Russian Marxists Split into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks
In 1903, he met with other Russian Marxists in London and established the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP). However, from the start there was a split between Lenin's Bolsheviks (Majoritarians), who advocated militarism, and the Mensheviks (Minoritarians), who advocated a democratic movement toward socialism. These two groups increasingly opposed each other within the framework of the RSDWP, and Lenin made the split official at a 1912 conference of the Bolshevik Party. -
Russo-Japanese War Began
This was a war that arose because of the imperial ambitians between Russia and Japan. -
Bloody Sunday in Russia
Well on its way to losing a war against Japan in the Far East, czarist Russia is wracked with internal discontent that finally explodes into violence in St. Petersburg in what will become known as the Bloody Sunday Massacre. -
Sun Yixian Became President of China
Sun Yixian lead a revolution against China and the emperor eventually gave in and he took power. -
Kuomintang was Created
Chinese political party that ruled China 1927–48 and then moved to Taiwan. The name translates as "China's National People's Party" and was historically referred to as the Chinese Nationalists. The Party was initially founded on August 25, 1912, by Sun Yat-sen but dissolved in November 1913. It reformed on October 10th 1919, again led by Sun Yat-sen, and became the ruling party in China. -
Albert Einstein Developed the Theory of Relativity
In 1915, Einstein published the general theory of relativity, which he considered his masterwork. This theory found that gravity, as well as motion, can affect time and space. -
May Forth Movement Began
The so-called "May 4th Movement" or "new culture" movement began in China around 1916, following the failure of the 1911 Revolution to establish a republican government, and continued through the 1920s. -
March Revolution in Russia
The revolution in which democracy was brought into Russia after Czar Nicholas II abdicated. -
March Revolution ends in Russia
Russians overthrew the czar, took over, and created a new government. -
Czar Nicholas II Abdicated
During the February Revolution, Czar Nicholas II, ruler of Russia since 1894, is forced to abdicate the throne by the Petrograd insurgents, and a provincial government is installed in his place. -
Vladimir Lenin became the leader of Russia
Lenin immediately left Switzerland and crossed German enemy lines to arrive at Petrograd on April 16, 1917. Six months later, under his leadership, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, and Lenin became virtual dictator of the country. However, civil war and foreign intervention delayed complete Bolshevik control of Russia until 1920. -
The Bolshevik Revolution
November 6 and 7, 1917 (or October 24 and 25 on the Julian calendar, which is why this event is also referred to as the October Revolution), leftist revolutionaries led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin launched a nearly bloodless coup d’état against the provisional government. -
Russian Civil War Began
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war in the former Russian Empire fought between the Bolshevik Red Army and the White Army, the loosely allied anti-Bolshevik forces. -
Treaty of Brest-Litvosk
Treaty that Russia signed with Germany that got hem out of World War I. -
Weimar Republic Established in Germany
On August 11, 1919, Friedrich Ebert, a member of the Social Democratic Party and the provisional president of the German Reichstag (government), signs a new constitution, known as the Weimar Constitution, into law, officially creating the first parliamentary democracy in Germany. -
The League of Nations was created
This is a worldwide organization created after World War II whos ultimate goal was peace. -
New Economic Policy in Russia
The New Economic Policy, proposed by Vladimir Lenin, was a policy in which the people would be able to have ownership of some things such as a business, but they would also be taxed more. -
Adolf Hitler became leader of the Nazi Party
Hitler joined the party the year it was founded and became its leader in 1921. -
Washington Conference
This was a military conference held by the U.S. in whic we discussed militariazation. -
Joseph Stalin became leader of USSR
Stalin climbed up the political ladder and eventually took power as leader. -
Russia became the USSR
Lenin's government nationalized industry and distributed land, and on December 30, 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established. -
Dawes Plan Started
This was a program for settling German reparation debts after World War I. -
Benito Mussolini Became the Leader of Italy
Benito slowly rose to power in Italy and finally became it's dictator, who happened to join forces with Hitler. -
Jiang Jieshi Became the leader of the Kuomintang
When Sun Yat-sen died, Jiang took over the Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy and became the leader of the KMT. -
Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf
This is the autobiography HItler writes while he is in prison. -
Hirohito Became the Emperor of Japan
At around the same time, he ended the practice of imperial concubinage. Hirohito officially became emperor when his father died in December 1926. He chose Showa, which roughly translates to “enlightened harmony,” as his reign name. -
Civil War in China Began
The Chinese Civil War[nb 2] was a civil war in China fought between forces loyal to the government of the Republic of China led by the Kuomintang (KMT) and forces of the Communist Party of China (CPC).[7] The war began in April 1927, amidst the Northern Expedition and essentially ended when major active battles ceased in 1950.[8] -
Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic
Charles gained much fame for his continuous days flight across the Atlantic in his plane, the SPirit of Saint Louis. -
Kellogg-Brand Pact Signed
This was a pact to outlaw war signed by France, the U.S., and Germany. -
Five-Year Plan Began
Starting in the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin launched a series of five-year plans intended to transform the Soviet Union from a peasant society into an industrial superpower. His development plan was centered on government control of the economy and included the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, in which the government took control of farms. -
The Great Depression Began
When the stock market crashed, the economy plummeted effecting both the rich and pooor leaving them to suffer. -
Stock Market Crashed in the U.S.
On October 29, 1929, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. -
Japan ivaded Manchuria
Japan invaded Manchuria after the Mukden incedent occured. -
Adolf Hitler Bacame the Chancellor of Germany
On this day in 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader or fÜhrer of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), as chancellor of Germany. -
The New Deal Started
Roosevelt had a plan to give the Americans work to help fix and raise the economy some. -
FDR became president of the U.S.
By the time Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, the Depression had reached desperate levels, including 13 million unemployed. In the first inaugural address to be widely broadcast on the radio, Roosevelt boldly declared that “This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and prosper…[T]he only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” -
The Great Perge Began
It was a widespred period of accusations and imprisonments in Russia. -
The Long March
The Red Army broke the Nationalists lines and fleed as fast as they could from the advancing army. -
Italy Invaded Ethiopia
In the first loss of Ethiopian independence in its long history, tens of thousands of Ethiopians were killed as the Italian army employed poison gas and other modern atrocities to suppress the country. By the end of 1936, the Italian conquest of Ethiopia was complete. -
Adolf Hitler Defied the Treaty of Versailles
Germany moves troops to Rhineland directley defying the treaty's statement of no militariazion. -
Germany Reoccupied the Rhineland
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler violates the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact by sending German military forces into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone along the Rhine River in western Germany. -
Rome-Berlin Axis
This is when the coalition named the Axis Powers was formed between Italy and Germany. -
Rape of Nanking
Japanese took over Nanking and started to massacre everybody there and rape the towns' women. -
Anschluss
This was the annexation and occupation of Austria into Nazi Germany. -
Adolf Hitler took Sudetenland
Germans take the country by force due to it's very high German speaking population. -
Hitler Hosted Munich Conference
On this day in 1938, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sign the Munich Pact, which seals the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in the name of peace. Upon return to Britain, Chamberlain would declare that the meeting had achieved "peace in our time." -
Kristallnacht Began
This is the night of broken glass for Jewish people. -
The Holocauset Began
This culminated in Kristallnacht, or the “night of broken glass” in November 1938, when German synagogues were burned and windows in Jewish shops were smashed; some 100 Jews were killed and thousands more arrested. From 1933 to 1939, hundreds of thousands of Jews who were able to leave Germany did, while those who remained lived in a constant state of uncertainty and fear. -
Nazi-Soviet Pact Signed
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 Invaded Poland(Blitzkrieg)
Using blitzkrieg tactics with over 700,000 men, Germany bombarded Poland and invaded, starting World War II. -
Sitzkrieg Began
The Phoney War was a phase early in World War II that was marked by a lack of major military operations by the Western Allies (the United Kingdom and France) against the German Reich. -
Winston Churchill became the prime minister of Great Britain
Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, is called to replace Neville Chamberlain as British prime minister following the latter's resignation after losing a confidence vote in the House of Commons. -
Auschwitz Death Camp Opened
Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, opened in 1940 and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps. Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz initially served as a detention center for political prisoners. However, it evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state were exterminated, often in gas chambers, or used as slave labor. -
Allies Evacuate Dunkirk
On June 4, 1940, the evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk on the Belgian coast ends as German forces capture the beach port. The nine-day evacuation, the largest of its kind in history and an unexpected success, saved 338,000 Allied troops from capture by the Nazis. -
Battle of Britain
This is the battle in which Britain defended their homeland against the germans and defeated them. -
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. -
Lend-Lease Act
This was the act that allowed the U.S. to aid foreign countries in the war. -
Operation Barbarossa
Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union: three great army groups with over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks smashed across the frontier into Soviet territory. -
Japan invaded China
On July 24, Tokyo decided to strengthen its position in terms of its invasion of China by moving through Southeast Asia. -
Atlantic Charter
From August 9 to August 12, 1941, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) met aboard naval ships in Placentia Bay, off the southeast coast of Newfoundland, to confer on a range of issues related to World War II. -
U.S. Congress Passed the Neutrality Acts
On this day in 1941, the United States Congress amends the Neutrality Act of 1935 to allow American merchant ships access to war zones, thereby putting U.S. vessels in the line of fire. -
Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor
Just before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours, but it was devastating: The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and almost 200 airplanes. -
The US Declared War on Japan
After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the US Congress declared war on Japan. -
Chelmno Concentration Camp Opened
This was a concentration camp that opened after the Nazis invaded Poland. -
Nisei were Interned in Relocation Camps in the U.S.
On February 19, 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which forced all Japanese-Americans, regardless of loyalty or citizenship, to evacuate the West Coast. No comparable order applied to Hawaii, one-third of whose population was Japanese-American, or to Americans of German and Italian ancestry. Ten internment camps were established in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas, eventually holding 120,000 persons. -
Hitler enacted the Final Solution
Large gassings and killings arose at this time to help Hitler destroy the Jewish race. -
Bataan Death March
Many POWs were starved, were mistreated, and were transported almost dead on trips. -
Doolittle Raids Over Japan
On this day in 1942, 16 American B-25 bombers, launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet 650 miles east of Japan and commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, attack the Japanese mainland. -
Battle of Coal Sea
Thid was a blind naval battle fought in the Pacific between the US and Japan. -
Battle of Midway
This was one of the most important nval battles in World War II that turned the tide of the war in the U.S. favor. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942-Feb. 2, 1943), was the successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in the U.S.S.R. during World War II. Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. -
Battle of Guadalcanal
This was a series of battles, land and sea, fought between the US and Japan on the Pacific Front, was the turning point in the war for the US. -
Manhattan Project Began
This was the project for researching and develoing the atomic bomb. -
General Macarthur Returned to the Philippines
After advancing island by island across the Pacific Ocean, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur wades ashore onto the Philippine island of Leyte, fulfilling his promise to return to the area he was forced to flee in 1942. -
Operation Torch
Operation Torch was that compromise. A secret meeting in Algiers, which was also one of the intended landing targets, was planned by an American diplomat stationed in North Africa. -
Battle of El Alamein
The Battle of El Alamein marked the culmination of the World War II North African campaign between the British Empire and the German-Italian army. Deploying a far larger contingent of soldiers and tanks than the opposition, British commander Bernard Law Montgomery launched an infantry attack at El Alamein on Oct. 23, 1942. -
Casablanca Conference
Was an Allied conference held to discuss the next stages of World War II. -
Allies Landed in Sicily
On July 10, 1943, the Allies begin their invasion of Axis-controlled Europe with landings on the island of Sicily, off mainland Italy. Encountering little resistance from the demoralized Sicilian troops, the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery came ashore on the southeast of the island, while the U.S. 7th Army under General George S. Patton landed on Sicily's south coast. -
Island Hopping Campaign
American commanders next set their sights on an island-hopping campaign across the central Pacific. They goal was to take key islands with strategic positions. -
Tehran Conference
On this day in 1943, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt joins British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at a conference in Iran to discuss strategies for winning World War II and potential terms for a peace settlement. -
Operation Overlord(D-day)
Allied forces built up a large invasion force and attacked the beaches of Normandy, turning the tide of the war. -
Kamikaze Pilots Appear in the Pacific
On this day in 1944, during the Battle of the Leyte Gulf, the Japanese deploy kamikaze ("divine wind") suicide bombers against American warships for the first time. It will prove costly--to both sides. -
Battle of the Bulge
In December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. -
Yalta Conference
The February 1945 Yalta Conference was the second wartime meeting of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. During the conference, the three leaders agreed to demand Germany’s unconditional surrender and began plans for a post-war world. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima during World War II stemmed from the need for a base near the Japanese coast. Following elaborate preparatory air and naval bombardment, three U.S. marine divisions landed on the island in February 1945. -
Battle of Okinawa
Allies defested Japan at the island of Okinawa and brougt their forces close to Japan -
Mussolini was Executed
Mussolini attempted to escape, was captuered, and was excecuted before he could escape. -
Hitler Committed Suicide
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 this day in 1945, as his "1,000-year" Reich collapses above him. -
Germany Surrendered
The Germans were slowly getting pushed back by the Allies and they eventually lost the will to fight. -
V-E Day
On this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine. -
Potsdam Conference
Held near Berlin, the Potsdam Conference (July 17-August 2, 1945) was the last of the World War II meetings held by the “Big Three” heads of state. -
Atomic Bomb Dropped on Hiroshima
The United States becomes the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Though the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War II, many historians argue that it also ignited the Cold War. -
Atomic Bomb Dropped on Nagasaki
The Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki Japan in order to get them to surrender. -
VJ Day
This is victory over Japan day in the US. -
Japan Surrendered
Aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan formally surrenders to the Allies, bringing an end to World War II. -
Nuremburg Trials
These werre the trials towards Nazi officers for crimes against humanity. -
Vichy Government Established in France
This was a government system created in the city of Vichy while it was divided by German occupation. -
Fransisco Franco Led a Fascist Revolt in Spain
On July 18, 1936, military officers launched a multipronged uprising that put them in control of most of the western half of the country. Franco’s role was to fly to Morocco and begin transporting troops to the mainland. He also made contacts with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, securing arms and other assistance that would continue throughout the duration of what became known as the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).