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Geneva Convention Agreement Signed
Its official name is the Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva July 27, 1929. -
Japan Invades Manchuria
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on 18 September 1931, when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria immediately following the Mukden Incident. -
Hitler Invades Poland (Beginning of WWII)
One of Adolf Hitler's first major foreign policy initiatives after coming to power was to sign a nonaggression pact with Poland in January 1934. -
Japan Invades China (Rapes of Nanking)
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from July 7, 1937, to September 9, 1945. -
Battle of Britain Begins
On this day in 1940, the Germans begin the first in a long series of bombing raids against Great Britain, as the Battle of Britain, which will last three and a half months, begins. -
U.S. Began the Use of the Navajo Code
Philip Johnston, a civil engineer for the city of Los Angeles, proposed the use of Navajo to the United States Marine Corps at the beginning of World War II. -
Passing of the Lend-Lease Act
Proposed in late 1940 and passed in March 1941, the Lend-Lease Act was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. -
Hitler Invades the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, starting Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. -
Japanese Attack Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941. -
"Defeat Hitler First" Strategy Started
The policy of considering Germany the primary enemy in the Second World War, and fighting a purely defensive war against Japan until Germany was defeated. -
Battle of Stalingrad (Turning Point Battle in Europe)
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major confrontation of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia. -
Hitler Began the Final Solution (Extermination of the Jews)
The genocide of the Jews was the culmination of a decade of Nazi policy, under the rule of Adolf Hitler. -
Japanese Americans Were put into Internment Camps
Succumbing to bad advice and popular opinion, President Roosevelt signed an executive order in February 1942 ordering the relocation of all Americans of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps in the interior of the United States. -
Bataan Death March
The Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000–80,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war from Saysain Point, Bagac, Bataan and Mariveles to Camp O'Donnell. -
Battle of Midway
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, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. -
Battle of El Alamein (British Prevent the Germans from Gaining Access to Oil at the Suez Canal)
The Second Battle of El Alamein was a battle of the Second World War that took place near the Egyptian railway halt of El Alamein. With the Allies victorious, it was the watershed of the Western Desert Campaign. -
Rosie the Riveter Created
Saturday Evening Post cover artist, Norman Rockwell, is generally credited with creating one of the popular “Rosie the Riveter” images used to encourage women to become wartime workers. Rockwell's “Rosie.” -
General Eisenhower Led the D-Day Invasion
The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. -
First Nisei Regiments Established (Japanese American)
The newly formed Nisei unit went into battle together on 26 June 1944 at the village of Belvedere in Suvereto, Tuscany. -
Island Hopping Campaign Began in the Pacific
Leapfrogging, also known as island hopping, was a military strategy employed by the Allies in the Pacific War against Japan and the Axis powers during World War II. -
Nuremberg Trials Held (High Ranking Nazis put on Trial for Crimes Against Humanity)
Judges from the Allied powers—Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States—presided over the hearings of twenty-two major Nazi criminals. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. -
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Marine and Army forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. -
Atomic Bombs Dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945 the US dropped an atomic bomb (Little Boy) on Hiroshima in Japan. Three days later a second atomic bomb (Fat Man) was dropped on the city of Nagasaki.
