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Period: to
THE ROAD TO WORLD WAR II
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The Treaty of Versailles signed
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. -
The Global Depression begins
The depression originated in the United States, after a fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s. It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. -
Hitler becomes 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 Spanish Civil War
The war began after a pronunciamiento (declaration of opposition) by a group of generals of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces, originally under the leadership of José Sanjurjo, against the elected, leftist government of the Second Spanish Republic, at the time under the leadership of President Manuel Azaña. -
Rome Berlin Axis: Hitler-Mussolini Alliance
The Italian invasion and annexation of Abyssinia had strained relations between Italy and its allies Britain and France, and Benito Mussolini finally repudiated Italy's alliance with them. Hitler then began planning to draw fascist Italy into an alliance with Nazi Germany. -
Anschluss with Austria
On this day, Adolf Hitler announces an “Anschluss” (union) between Germany and Austria, in fact annexing the smaller nation into a greater Germany. -
The Munich Agreement
The Munich Agreement was a settlement permitting Nazi Germany's annexation of portions of Czechoslovakia along the country's borders mainly inhabited by German speakers, for which a new territorial designation "Sudetenland" was coined. -
Nazis invade Czechoslovakia
Their pretext was the alleged needs suffered by the Germanic populations which inhabited regions bordering Czechoslovakia in the north and west , collectively known as the Sudetenland. The incorporation of the Czechoslovak border territories to Nazi Germany, would leave the rest of the country unable to resist the subsequent occupation . -
The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
On August 23, 1939, representatives from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union met and signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, which guaranteed that the two countries would not attack each other. -
Nazis invade Poland
German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west the morning after the Gleiwitz incident. As the Wehrmacht advanced, Polish forces withdrew from their forward bases of operation close to the Polish–German border to more established lines of defence to the east.
