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Japanese invasion of china
In 1937 a minor engagement between Chinese and Japanese troops at the Marco-Polo Bridge, near Peking, led to undeclared war between the two nations. The China Incident' and the creation of a New Order in East Asia in 1938 dominated Japanese military thinking until the summer of 1940, when the declaration of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere anticipated the expansion of Japan's empire into southeast Asia. -bbc.com- -
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Rape of Nanking
More than 20,000 females (with some estimates as high as 80,000) were gang-raped by Japanese soldiers, then stabbed to death with bayonets or shot so they could never bear witness. Also pregnant women were not spared. In several instances, they were raped, then had their bellies slit open and the fetuses torn out. Sometimes, after storming into a house and encountering a whole family, the Japanese forced Chinese men to rape their own daughters, sons to rape their mothers, and bro's their sis's -
Germany's invasion of Poland
At 4:45 a.m. on September 1st, 1939 the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish garrison of the Westerplatte Fort, Danzig (modern-day Gdansk), in what was to become the first military engagement of World War Two. Simultaneously, 62 German divisions supported by 1,300 aircraft commenced the invasion of Poland -
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German Blitzkrieg
The invasion of Belgium by Germany instead of repeating the tatic Germany did in WWI like the Americans were thinking Hitler had Germany bomb Belgium with tanks rolling in. This was called Blitzkrieg (lighting war) -
Pearl Harbor
At 7:55am on Sunday 7 December 1941, the first of two waves of Japanese aircraft began their deadly attack on the US Pacific Fleet, moored at Pearl Harbor on the Pacific island of Oahu. Within two hours, five battleships had been sunk, another 16 damaged, and 188 aircraft destroyed. Only chance saved three US aircraft carriers, usually stationed at Pearl Harbor but assigned elsewhere on the day. The attacks killed under 100 Japanese but over 2,400 Americans, another 1,178 injured. -
Battaan Death March
After the April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II (1939-45), the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March. -
Warsaw Ghetto uprising
Between July 22 and September 12, 1943, the German authorities deported or murdered around 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. SS and police units deported 265,000 Jews to the Treblinka killing center and 11,580 to forced-labor camps. The Germans and their auxiliaries murdered more than 10,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during the deportation operations. The German authorities granted only 35,000 Jews permission to remain in the ghetto, while more than 20,000 Jews remained in the ghetto in hiding. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The battle was marked by changes in Japanese defense tactics–troops no longer defended at the beach line but rather concentrated inland; consequently, the marines experienced initial success but then got bogged down in costly attritional warfare. The Japanese fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels, and underground installations that were difficult to find and destroy. Except for 1,083 prisoners the entire garrison was wiped out. -
D-Day
The Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944 were among the most desperate undertakings in the history of war. Amphibious operations against an enemy in a strong defensive position will almost always lead to heavy casualties. -
Battle of the Bulge
A crucial German shortage of fuel and the gallantry of American troops fighting in the frozen forests of the Ardennes proved fatal to Hitler’s ambition to snatch, if not victory, at least a draw with the Allies in the west. Lieutenant General George S. Patton’s remarkable feat of turning the Third Army ninety degrees from Lorraine to relieve the besieged town of Bastogne was the key to thwarting the German counteroffensive. The Battle of the Bulge was the costliest action ever fought by the U.S. -
Liberation of concentration camps
Soviet soldiers were the first to liberate concentration camp prisoners in the final stages of the war. On July 23, 1944, they entered the Majdanek camp in Poland, and later overran several other killing centers. On January 27, 1945, they entered Auschwitz and there found hundreds of sick and exhausted prisoners. The Germans had been forced to leave these prisoners behind in their hasty retreat from the camp. -
Battle of Okinawa
Japanese forces changed their typical tactics of resisting at the water’s edge to a defense in depth, designed to gain time. In conjunction with this, the Japanese navy and army mounted mass air attacks by planes on one-way “suicide” missions; the Japanese also sent their last big battleship, the Yamato, on a similar mission with a few escorts. Okinawa was a mass bloodletting both on land and sea. -
VE Day
Allied bombing raids had devastated many German cities, paving the way for invasion. The Western Allies raced the Russians to Berlin but the Russians made it first, entering the German capital on 21 April 1945. Russian troops formed a ring around the inner city and held it under siege. By 27 April, the area still held by the Germans amounted to a strip measuring only 16km by 5km (ten by three miles). Hitler killed himself in the Führer's Bunker on 30. -
Dropping of the atomic bombs
American B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. In a split second 100,000 people ceased to exist. Three days later another B-29 dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, killing another 40,000. -
VJ Day
The United States waited three days before dropping a second bomb on Nagasaki. The Japanese then began talks directly with the United States and, although their government's decision was not unilateral, Japan had little choice but to surrender. The Soviet declaration of war on Japan (on 8 August 1945) and the nuclear attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima forced Japan to face the facts, and the Empire disintegrated
