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Period: to
World War Two Topics
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Japanese invasion of China
In the 1930’s the Chinese suffered continued territorial encroachment from the Japanese, using their Manchurian base. The whole north of the country was gradually taken over. By 1940, the war descended into stalemate. The Japanese seemed unable to force victory, nor the Chinese to evict the Japanese from the territory they had conquered.
http://www.history.co.uk/study-topics/history-of-ww2/sino-japanese-war -
Rape of Nanking
Japanese Imperial Army marched into China's capital city of Nanking and proceeded to murder 300,000 civilians and soldiers in the city. The six weeks of carnage would represent the single worst atrocity during the World War II era in either the European or Pacific theaters of war. After the massacures, soliders went on a vial raping spree of all the remaining women and girls. Not all was lost. Americans came and rebuilt and protected the innocent.
http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genoci -
German Blizkrieg
Blitzkrieg is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower. In Poland in 1939 before successfully employing the tactic with invasions of Belgium, the Netherlands and France in 1940.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/blitzkrieg -
Ribbentrop pact
Hitler and Stalin signed a non-agression pact, called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty. Secret protocols of the treaty defined the territorial spheres of influence Germany and Russia would have after a successful invasion of Poland. According to the agreement, Russia would have control over Latvia, Estonia, and Finland, while Germany would gain control over Lithuania and Danzig. Poland would be partitioned into three major areas.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/molotovpact.html -
Germany's invasion of Poland
Under Hitler's control, the Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion.
Nazi Germany occupied the remainder of Poland when it invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Poland remained under German occupation until January 1945.Poland was to be partitioned between the two powers, enabled Germany to attack Poland without the fear of Soviet intervention. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005070 -
Fall of Paris
German troops enter and occupy Paris. By the time German tanks rolled into Paris, 2 million Parisians had already fled, with good reason. In short order, the German Gestapo went to work: arrests, interrogations, and spying were the order of the day, as a gigantic swastika flew beneath the Arc de Triomphe.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germans-enter-paris -
Pearl Harbor
Just before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii.
Which in the short term killed many Americans. And in the long term, started a war between America and Japan.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor -
Battle of Midway
Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States defeated Japan in one of the most decisive naval battles of World War II. An important turning point in the Pacific campaign, the victory allowed the United States and its allies to move into an offensive position.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-midway -
Bataan Death March
66 miles, 76,000 prisoners of war (Americans and Filipeons) were forced at the hand of the Japanese to march. During the main march, the captives were beaten, shot and in some cases beheaded. After the end of World War II, the Japanese commander of the invasion forces in the Philippines, Lieut. Gen. Homma Masaharu, was charged with responsibility for the march and widespread abuses at Camp O’Donnell. He was tried and convicted by a U.S. military
http://www.britannica.com/event/Bataan-Death-March -
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The German authorities deported or murdered around 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. In response to the deportations, on July 28, 1942, several Jewish underground organizations created an armed self-defense unit known as the Jewish Combat Organization. The Warsaw ghetto uprising was the largest, symbolically most important Jewish uprising, and the first urban uprising, in German-occupied Europe.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005188 -
Operation Gomorrah
British bombers raid Hamburg, Germany, by night in Operation Gomorrah, while Americans bomb it by day in its own “Blitz Week.” Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The explosive power was the equivalent of what German bombers had dropped on London in their five most destructive raids.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/operation-gomorrah-is-launched -
D day
160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. More than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 Soldiers to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe, to defeat Adolf Hitler’s crack troops.
http://www.army.mil/d-day/ -
Liberation of Concentration Camps
Entering Auschwitz camps after liberation, hundreds of sick and exhausted prisoners were found; living skeletons. Sign of abuse was around every corner. Also left behind were victims' belongings: 348,820 men's suits, 836,255 women's coats, and tens of thousands of pairs of shoes.
https://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007724 -
Battle of the Bulge
Attacking on two fronts was Germany's last effort to win the war. Hundreds of German tanks and several hundred thousand German troops broke through the thinly held American lines. During the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans suffered more than 100,000 casualties; the Americans approximately 81,000. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006178 -
Battle of Okinawa
287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. By the end of the 82-day campaign, Japan had lost more than 77,000 soldiers and the Allies had suffered more than 65,000 casualties—including 14,000 dead.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-okinawa -
VE Day
The VE in VE Day stands for Victory in Europe. It was the public holiday of 8th May 1945 to mark the defeat of Germany by the Allied forces in World War 2.
http://primaryfacts.com/959/ve-day-facts/ -
Battle of Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima saw the only major battle in the entire Pacific Campaign where American casualties surpassed the Japanese dead. All the lives lost, on both sides of the battle, for ten square miles; for that very reason, Admiral Richmond Turner was criticized by American press for wasting the lives of his men. However, by war's end, Iwo Jima sure appeared to have saved many Americans, too.
http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=12 -
VJ DAY
On August 15, 1945, news of the surrender was announced to the world. This sparked spontaneous celebrations over the final ending of World War II. On September 2, 1945, a formal surrender ceremony was held in Tokyo Bay aboard the USS Missouri. At the time, President Truman declared September 2 to be VJ Day. -
Dropping the Atomic Bombs
On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
