-
Nazi Germany Invaded Poland
German tanks and planes began a full-scare invasion of Poland forcing Britain and France to declare was against Germany; commencing the beginning of World War II -
Sitzkrieg
The Phoney War ( Sitzkrieg ) was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germany's Saar district. -
France Fell to Germany
German forces defeated Allied forces by mobile operations and conquered France. -
Destroyers-for-Bases Deal
Roosevelt arranged a trade with Great Britain so that Britain received 50 older, serviceable U.S. destroyers in exchange for giving the U.S. the right to build military bases on British islands in the Caribbean. -
America First Committee Launched
To mobilize American public opinion against war, isolationists formed the American First Committee and engaged speakers like Charles Lindbergh to travel the county warning against the folly of getting involved a second time in Europe's troubles. -
Battle of Britain
The Royal Air Force defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by the German Air Force. -
Congress Instituted the Draft
The Selective Training and Service Act provided for the registration of all American men between the ages of 21 and 36 and for the training of 1.2 million troops in just one year. -
Four Freedoms
The president addressed Congress by delivering a speech that proposed lending money to Britain for the purchase of U.S. war materials and justified such a policy because it was in defense of "four freedoms"; the U.S. must stand behind those nations that were committed to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. -
Lend-Lease
Roosevelt proposed ending the cash-and-carry requirement of the Neutrality Act and permitting Britain to obtain all the U.S. arms it needed on credit. -
USS Kearny Attacked
A United States Navy warship during World War who was noted for being torpedoed by a German U-boat before the U.S. had entered the war. -
Reuben James Sank
The USS Reuben James became the first United States warship to be sunk by Germany as a result of hostile action in WWII. -
Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor
Japanese planes from aircraft carriers flew over Pear Harbor bombing every ship in sight leading to United States to declare war on Japan. -
Battle of Bataan
Represented the most intense phase of Imperial Japan's invasion of the Philippines during World War II which resulted in a Japanese victory and the Bataan Death March -
Bataan Death March
Japanese troops who won the Battle of Bataan forced their prisoners to walk,over five days through Philippines jungle with little food or water to be shipped to prison camps. -
Battle of Coral Sea
U.S. aircraft carriers stopped a Japanese invasion of Australia. -
Battle of Midway
The interception and decoding of Japanese messages enabled U.S. forces to destroy four Japanese carriers and 300 planes. -
Island Hopping Campaign Begins
Naval commanders adopted a strategy called "island-hopping", in which they bypassed strongly held Japanese islands and isolated them with naval and air power; this strategy allowed Allied forces to move rapidly toward Japan -
Battle of Stalingrad
Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia; Soviet victory ended the high tide of the German advance. -
Manhattan Project Began
The project employed over 100,000 people and spent $2 billion to develop a weapon whose power came from the splitting of the atom, the atomic bomb. -
Battle of El Alamein
Marked the culmination of the WW II North African campaign between the British Empire and the German-Italian army -
Casablanca Conference
Only involved Roosevelt and Churchill who agreed to invade Sicily and to demand "unconditional surrender" from Axis powers. -
Tehran Conference
The Big Three - Roosevelt Churchill, and Stalin - met for the first time and agreed that the British and Americans would begin their drive to liberate France in the spring of 1944 and that the Soviets would invade Germany and eventually join the war against Germany. -
FDR Elected to a 4th Term
Many felt that in a war emergency, there should be no change in leadership, so Roosevelt is reelected as president -
D-Day
The allied drive to liberate France carried by British, Canadian, and U.S. forces under the command of General Eisenhower; this attack was successful. -
MacArthur Returned to the Philippines
A few hours after his troops landed, MacArthur waded ashore onto the Philippine island of Leyte and made a radio broadcast in which he declared, “People of the Philippines, I have returned!” -
Battle of the Bulge
The Germans launched a desperate counterattack in Belgium in response to D Day. -
Yalta Conference
The Big Three conferred at Yalta and agreed that Germany would be divided into occupation zones, there would be free elections in the liberated countries of Eastern Europe, the Soviets would enter the war against Japan, the Soviets would control the southern half of Sakhalin island and the Kurile Islands in the Pacific and would also have special concessions in Manchuria, and a new world peace organization (future UN) would be formed at a conference in San Francisco. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
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 WW II. -
Battle of Okinawa
The last sea battle in WWII that was considered one of the bloodiest battles; the Japanese used kamikaze pilots to make suicide attacks on U.S. ships and they inflicted major damage during this battle. -
FDR Died / Harry Truman Became President
F.D.R. died less than 3 months after his inauguration, so Vice President Truman served most of his term -
VE Day
Victory in Europe Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. -
Little Boy Dropped on Hiroshima
Harry Truman called on Japan to surrender unconditionally or face "utter destruction", and when Japan gave an unsatisfactory reply, Truman decided to use the atomic bomb little boy on Hiroshima. -
Fat Man Dropped on Nagasaki
A second atomic bomb called Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. -
VJ Day
Victory over Japan Day is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect ending the war. -
Potsdam conference
Truman, Stalin, and Clement Attlee (the new British prime minister) met in Postdam, Germany and agreed (1) to issue a warning to Japan to surrender unconditionally, and (2) to hold war-crime trials of Nazi leaders. -
Nuremberg Trials
Judges from the Allied powers presided over the hearings of twenty-two major Nazi criminals. -
Japanese War Crime Trials
A military trial convened to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for "Class A" crimes,
