-
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sign a treaty of cooperation
-
Axis announced
-
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, directed against the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement.
-
France and Great Britain guarantee the integrity of the borders of the Polish state.
-
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression agreement and a secret codicil dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence.
-
Invasion of Poland by Germany
This is the Start of World War II -
Honoring their guarantee of Poland’s borders, Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.
-
Warsaw surrenders on September 27. The Polish government flees into exile via Romania. Germany and the Soviet Union divide Poland between them.
-
Period: to
The Soviet Union invades Finland
Iitiating the so-called Winter War. The Finns sue for an armistice and have to cede the northern shores of Lake Lagoda and the small Finnish coastline on the Arctic Sea to the Soviet Union. -
Period: to
Germany invades Denmark and Norway.
Denmark surrenders on the day of the attack; Norway holds out until June 9. -
Period: to
Germany attacks western Europe
France and the neutral Low Countries. Luxembourg is occupied on May 10; the Netherlands surrenders on May 14; and Belgium surrenders on May 28. On June 22, France signs an armistice agreement by which the Germans occupy the northern half of the country and the entire Atlantic coastline. In southern France, a collaborationist regime with its capital in Vichy is established. -
Italy enters the war. Italy invades southern France on June 21.
-
Period: to
The air war known as the Battle of Britain ends in defeat for Nazi Germany.
-
Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact.
-
Period: to
Axis invades Soviet Union
Nazi Germany and its Axis partners (except Bulgaria) invade the Soviet Union. Finland, seeking redress for the territorial losses in the armistice concluding the Winter War, joins the Axis just before the invasion. The Germans quickly overrun the Baltic States and, joined by the Finns, lay siege to Leningrad (St. Petersburg) by September. In the center, the Germans capture Smolensk in early August and drive on Moscow by October. In the south, German and Romanian troops capture Kiev (Kyiv) in Sep -
Bombing of Pearl Harbor
Day that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor -
The United States declares war on Japan
-
Nazi and Axis Declare War on US
-
British and US troops successfully land on the Normandy beaches of France, opening a “Second Front” against the Germans.
-
Anglo-American forces break out of the Normandy beachhead and race eastward towards Paris.
-
Battle of the Bulge
The Germans launch a final offensive in the west, known as the Battle of the Bulge, in an attempt to re-conquer Belgium and split the Allied forces along the German border. By January 1, 1945, the Germans are in retreat. -
Yalta Conference
-
The Soviets launch their final offensive, encircling Berlin.
-
Hitler commits suicide.
-
Germany surrenders to the western Allies.
-
The United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
-
The United States drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
