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Japan Invades China
In the 1930s, the Japanese controlled the Manchurian railway. On September 18, 1931, the Japanese claimed that the Chinese were sabotaging the railway. The japanese decided to take action. They attacked the Chinese army for doing this. By February of the following year, the Japanese took over all of Manchuria. Thousands of Chinese people died from this event. -
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Holocaust
The Holocaust was the official, state-sponsored torture camp that murdered six million Jews by the Nazi government and its supporters. The Nazis believed that the Jews were inferior to the Germans. The Jews were looked at as a corruption to society. The Nazi Germans would torture, harass, and kill Jews just because of their religious beliefs during the Holocaust. -
Munich Conference
Adolf Hitler wanted to take the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia and make it a part of Germany. Hitler said that the German speaking parts of Sudetenland were being mistreated by the Czechoslovakia government. On september 29, 1938 the Munich Conference came together. There, Hitler met with representatives from France, the United Kingdom, and Italy. An agreement was made that Hitler could take over Sudetenland if he wouldn't invade anywhere else. -
Non-Aggression Pact
Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Non-Aggression Pact which meant that the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years. Joseph Stalin viewed this as a way to keep peace with Germany while also giving him a chance to build up his army. Adolf Hitler used the pact to make sure the Germany was able to invade Poland with no other countries in his way. The Non-Aggression Pact fell apart when the Nazi invaded the Soviet Union. -
Germany Invades Poland
On September 1, 1939, the German army invaded Poland. This triggered the start of World War II. The Nazi Germans won the invasion. The invasion put the world into a war that continued for nearly six years and took the lives of millions of people. -
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Battle of Britian
The Battle of Britain was an air battle fought between the Germans and the British. The two countries faught over Great Britain's airspace from July 1940 to May 1941. The Germans goal was to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force. -
Blitzkrieg
This was a strategy where it starts out as excessive bombing to destroy the enemy's air capacity, railroads, communication lines, etc. Then, it is followed by a massive land ivasion with overwhelming numbers of troops, tankes, and artillery. This strategy was used by the Germans in the invasion of Poland. -
Lend-Lease Act
The Lend-Lease Act provided the U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. This act gave the president, FDR, the right to send things such as tanks, ammunition, airplanes, trucks, and food to the war effort in Europe. By allowing the president to transfer war material to Britain, the act made the British able to keep fighting until some events led America into conflict. -
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during WW II. This invasion was known as the largest in the history of warfare when four million soldiers of the Axis powers invaded the USSR. The operation was created due to Adolf Hitler's need to conquer the Soviet region. -
Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack by the Japanese against the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This attack led the U.S. to enter into World War II. The attack was intended to prevent the U.S from interfering with military actions of Japan. They were planning military actions with Southeast Asia for oversea territories. -
Wannsee Conference
The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of Nazi Germany and was held in the Berlin area of Wannsee. The meeting was called to discuss the final solution of which the Nazis would try and exterminate the Jewish population. The population was estimated to around 11 million peope. The meeting was to tell each of the Nazi members how and when to kill the Jews and to make sure that everyone knew what their job was and what they would do. -
Bataan Death March
After the U.S. and the Filipinos surrendered the Bataan Peninsula to the Japanese, the U.S. and the Philippines were forced to march 65 miles to San Fernando. The march took about five days to complete. The condition of what the men had to go through was excruciating. Once at San Fernando, the troops were put into prison camps. Thousands of men died dur to starvation, mistreatment, and disease. -
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Battle of Midway
Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States defeated Japan in the Battle of Midway. The Japanese planned to draw the U.S. into a battle by invading Midway Island. The U.S. decrypted Japanese radio intercepts and was able to counter this offensive. The U.S. attacked and sunk four Japanese carriers forcing Japan to surrender. This batted is known as the turning point of World War II. -
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Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union. The Germans wanted to secure the oil fields Stalingrad and Hitler was ordered to do so. Stalingrad was named after the Russian leader, Joseph Stalin and the Russians took great pride in it and they would not let the Germans take it over. The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the bloodiest battles in history. The casualties of both military and civilian was around 2 million. -
D-Day
D-Day was also known as Operation Overlord. Around 156,000 American, British, and Canadian troops landed on France’s Normandy region beaches. It was a 50-mile stretch of a heavily armed coast. The invasion required extensive planning and careful precision. The Allies attempted to conduct a campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the invasion. By the following spring, the Allies defeated the Germans. -
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Battle of the Bulge
(a.k.a. The Ardennes Offensive) On December 16, Germany attacked through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. After only one day, hundreds of German tanks and German troops broke through the American lines. The Germans launched Adolf Hitler's last idea to reverse what he had begun when Allied troops landed in France. -
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Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima took place during World War II between the United States and Japan. It was the first major battle of World War II to take place in Japan. The island of Iwo Jima was an ideal location because the United States needed a place for planes and bombers to land and take off when attacking Japan. At the beginning of the battle, 30,000 U.S. marines landed on the shores of Iwo Jima. -
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Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa. The 82-day-long battle lasted from April to June with over 100,000 Japanese casualties and 50,000 casualties for the Allies. The Allies approached Japan by the use of island hopping. They planned to use Okinawa as a base for air tasks on the invasion of Japanese mainland. -
V-E Day
Victory in Europe Day was officially announced as the end of World War Two in Europe. The Nazi Germans surrendered to the Allies of WW II. Adolf Hitler committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin and their surrender was then authorized by its new replacement leader Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz. -
The Bombing of Hiroshima
On August 6, a B-29 plane, known as the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This was Japan's seventh largest city. Within minutes of the dropped bomb, half of the city vanished. About 60,000 to 70,000 people were killed or missing, 140,000 were injured, and many more were made homeless as a result of the bomb. In the blast, thousands of people died instantly. -
V-J Day
On this day, Japan surrendered to the Allies. Since then, August 14 has been known as “Victory over Japan Day,” or simply “V-J Day.” Japan surrendered due to the large atom bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombs cause serious damage and thousands of deaths. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact is the name of a treaty between Czechoslovakia, Albania, East Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Poland, and the Soviet Union. This treaty was signed in Poland in 1955 and was officially known as 'The Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance'. It was a military treaty, which guaranteed the people who signed it to help the others if they are victims of foreign aggression.