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Invasion of Manchuria
In 1939, the armies of Japan and the Soviet Union clashed in the area of the Khalkin Gol river in Manchuria. -
Hitler Appointed Chancellor
By 1932, the Nazis were the largest political party in the Reichstag. In January of the following year, with no other leader able to command sufficient support to govern, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor of Germany -
Nanjing Massacre
Japanese troops killed remnant Chinese soldiers in violation of the laws of war, murdered Chinese civilians, raped Chinese women, and destroyed or stole Chinese property -
Munich Conference
The Munich Agreement had the opportunity to stop the war and failed due to its weak predecessors and the strong pattern of appeasement towards Hitler that had already been established. -
Kristallnacht
Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, school's and businesses, and killed close to 100 Jews." Kristallnacht is a sad event where Nazis destroyed anything that belongs to the Jewish people. -
Non-aggression Pact
The non-aggression pact allowed Germany to fight these intermediate wars without fear of a Soviet attack, thereby avoiding a two-front war. -
Germany's Invasion
German troops invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, triggering World War II. In response to German aggression, Great Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany. -
Fall of Paris
Paris fell to Nazi Germany on June 14, 1940, one month after the German Wehrmacht stormed into France. Eight days later, France signed an armistice with the Germans, and a puppet French state was set up with its capital at Vichy. -
Dunkirk
Operation Dynamo, the evacuation from Dunkirk, involved the rescue of more than 338,000 British and French soldiers from the French port of Dunkirk between 26 May and 4 June 1940. -
The Blitz
The Blitz began on 7 September, 'Black Saturday', when German bombers attacked London, leaving 430 dead and 1,600 injured. -
Selective Training
On September 16, 1940, the United States instituted the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, which required all men between the ages of 21 and 45 to register for the draft. This was the first peacetime draft in United States history -
Operation Barbarossa
the code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which was launched on June 22, 1941. The failure of German troops to defeat Soviet forces in the campaign signaled a crucial turning point in the war. -
Pearl Harbor
Japan intended the attack as a preventive action. Its aim was to prevent the United States Pacific Fleet from interfering with its planned military actions in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and those of the United States. -
Bataan Death March
They suffered from starvation, having to sleep in the harsh conditions of the Philippines. The prisoners unable to make it through the march were beaten, killed, and sometimes beheaded. -
Battle Of Midway
During the four-day sea-and-air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one of its own, the Yorktown, to the previously invincible Japanese navy. -
Battle Of Stalingrad
The Soviets were successful in denying the Germans the ability to resupply through the air which strained the German forces to their breaking point. -
V-E Day
In Germany, VE Day is not a day of celebration as it is in other countries. Rather it is regarded as a day of somber commemoration when the dead are remembered, and the promise is renewed never to allow such terrible events to repeat themselves. -
Battle Of The Bulge
The Allies won the Battle of the Bulge, resulting in significantly higher casualties on the German side despite their surprise attack on Allied forces. -
D-Day
D-Day marked the turn of the tide for the control maintained by Nazi Germany; less than a year after the invasion, the Allies formally accepted Nazi Germany's surrender -
Yalta Conference
the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France agreed to split Germany into four zones of occupation after the war. -
Battle Of Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima served as an emergency landing site for more than 2,200 B-29 bombers, saving the lives of 24,000 U.S. airmen. -
Battle Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa was a victory for the US but resulted in massive casualties on both sides. Japanese forces fought with the same fanaticism the Americans had witnessed in battles such as Iwo Jima. Rather than be taken prisoner, defenders often chose suicide. -
Adolf Hitler Suicide
On April 30, 1945, holed up in a bunker under his headquarters in Berlin, Adolf Hitler commits suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule and shooting himself in the head. Soon after, Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allied forces, ending Hitler’s dreams of a “1,000-year” Reich -
Dropping The Atomic Bomb
The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict so far. -
VJ Day
V-J Day, or Victory over Japan Day, marks the end of World War II, one of the deadliest and most destructive wars in history.