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Rape of Nanking
In what became known as the "Rape of Nanking," the Japanese butchered an estimated 150,000 male "War prisoners," massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed in the process. -
Germany's invasion of Poland
Germany invaded Poland on September 1st 1939. Adolf Hitler said the invasion was a defensive action. But Britain and France did not believe that. Hitler thought that invading Poland would bring living space for the German people. On September 3, they declared war on Germany, initiating World War II. -
German Blitzkrieg
The term "Blitzkrieg" is German for Lightning War. Blitzkrieg is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower. They would push people off there land then surprised them with fast attacks. German forces tried the strategy blitzkrieg in Poland in 1939 before successfully employing the tactic with invasions of Belgium, the Netherlands and France in 1940. -
Fall of Paris
When British and adjacent French forces were pushed back to the sea by the highly mobile and well-organized German operation, the British government decided to evacuate the British Expeditionary Force as well as several French divisions at Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. -
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was the German air force's trying to gain air superiority over the RAF from July to September 1940. Their failure was one of the turning points of World War Two and pstopped Germany from invading Britain. -
Pearl Harbor
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. on December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu Hawaii. the bombing lasted two hours. The Japanese destroyed 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, and 200 airplanes. 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. -
Battle of Midway
On 1942, the Battle of Midway was one of the most decisive U.S. victories against Japan during World War II. The U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one of its own, the Yorktown, to the previously invincible Japanese navy. -
Bataan 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, 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. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942-Feb. 2, 1943), was the successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in the U.S.S.R. during World War II. Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies. The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the bloodiest battl -
Battle of the Coral Sea
The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought during 4-8 May 1942, was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and naval and air forces from the United States and Australia.The battle was the first action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other, as well as the first in which neither side's ships sighted or fired directly upon the other. -
Warsaw Ghetto upspring
Between July 22 and September 12, 1942, 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. -
D-Day
With Hitler's armies in control of most of mainland Europe, the Allies knew that a successful invasion of the continent was central to winning the war.Hitler knew this too, and was expecting an assault on northwestern Europe in the spring of 1944.He hoped to repel the Allies from the coast with a strong counterattack that would delay future invasion attempts, giving him time to throw the majority of his forces into defeating the Soviet Union in the east. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima was defended by 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops, who fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations. Despite the difficulty of the conditions, the marines wiped out the defending forces after a month of fighting, and the battle earned a place in American lore with the publication of a photograph showing the U.S. flag being raised in victory. -
Battle of Okinawa
Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa campaign involved the 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.. -
Dropping of the atomic bombs
At approximately 8.15am on 6 August 1945 a US B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing around 80,000 people.Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, causing the deaths of 40,000 more. -
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. Eric von Manstein planned the offensive with the primary goal to recapture the important harbor of Antwerp.The surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard.
