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Japanese Invasion of China (1937)
In 1931, Japan, eager for the vast natural resources to be found in China and seeing her obvious weakness, invaded and occupied Manchuria. Japan's invasion of China was due essentially to Japan's desire to be an imperial power. There was both an economic and a militaristic element to this desire. It was to a big impact to both China and Japan. Japan needed more resources and it wanted to be an industrial empire. (http://www.history.co.uk) -
Germany's Invasion of Poland (1939)
The German-Soviet Pact of August 1939, which stated that Poland was to be partitioned between the two powers, enabled Germany to attack Poland without the fear of Soviet intervention. The polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler claimed mass invasion was a defensive action, the Britain and France were not convinced. On September 3, they declared war on Germany, initiating WWII.(http://www.ushmm.org) -
German Blitzkrieg (1939-1940)
Germany quickly overran much of Europe and was victorious for more than two years by relying on a new military tactic called the "Blitzkrieg" (lightning war). The Blitzkrieg happened because Germany wanted to build its empire and felt that other European powers were to build its empire and felt that other European powers were restricting them. The Blitzkrieg tactics pushed the army forward to Poland in 1939, and Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway and France in 1940. (www.history.com) -
Operation Barbarossa (1941)
In Barbarossa's opening mouth, German armies hit into Soviet territory; panzer armies encircled large Soviet forces at Minsk and Smolensk. Armed Spearheads reached two-thirds of the dsitance to Moscow and Leningard. The goal of Hitlerites was to capture the oil fields in Caucasiavs, something vital to carry on an effective war. The oil fields were the prime target and without that, Operation Barbarossa was indeed the second world war and it was a big impact to the world. (http://www.history.com) -
Pearl Harbor (1941)
President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy." Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto insisted on a surprise attack on the U.S fleet based at Pearl Harbor when Japan had resolved to broaden the war into the Pacific by invading Malaya, the Philippines, etc. (http://www.americaslibrary.gov) -
Wannsee Conference (1942)
15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered. They united at villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss the implementation of what they called the "Final Solution of the Jews". At some undetermined time in 1941, Hitler authorized this European-wide scheme fro mass murder. Wannsee protocol outlined the number of Jews in each country of Europe, including 330,000 in England, and also the total number in Europe, 11 million. (http://www.theholocaustexplained.org) -
Battle Stalingrad (1942)
The Battle of Stalingrad is the turning point in WWII in Europe. The battle at Stalingrad bled the German army dry in Russia and after this defeat, the German Army was in full retreat. The German commander of the sixth army, General Paulus´, primary task was to secure the oil fields in the Caucasus and to do this, Paulus was ordered by Hitler to take Stalingrad. The battle for the city descended into one of the most brutal in WWII. (www.historylearningsite.co.uk) -
Battle of Midway (1942)
The United States Navy defeated a Japanese attack against Midway Atoll. Admiral Yamamoto didn't what Midway as a base,he wanted it as bait to draw out the U.S. fleet from Pearl Harbor, so that his superior force could eliminate it as a threat in the pacific, like the Japanese Navy had done to the Russian Navy in 1905. The Japanese were forced to fight to the death to keep any of their empire. Midway altered the course of the war in the pacific. (www.molossia.org) -
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943)
From April 19 to may 16, 1943, during WWII, residents of the Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Poland, staged an armed revolt against deportations to extermination camps. The German authorities murdered around 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, because of leader, Adolph Hitler. In response several Jewish underground organizations created an armed self-defence unit known as the Jewish combat organization. (www.ushmm.org) (www.history.com) -
Operation Gomorrah (1943)
On this day, British bombers raid Hamburg, Germany, by night in operation Gomorrah, while Americans bomb it by day in its own ''blitz week.'' as tales of the bombing spread throughout Germany, it provoked something called the 'November mood'. However, terrible operation Gomorrah was, it did serve a purpose in the end it changed attitude of many Germans, who may Hitherto have been unaffected by the war, discrediting a leadership which was unable to 'protect' the population. (www.history.com) -
Allied Invasion of Italy (1943)
Troops and vehicles being landed under shell fire during the invasion of mainland Italy at Salerno, September 1943. With North Africa secured and Sicily- the stepping stone to Italy September 3, 1943. It began with British forces skipping across the Strait of Messina to Calabria. The Germans held all the defensive positions in Italy anyway and they were the major problem for the Allies even before the Italians surrendered. (www.shmoop.com) -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion-1944)
When some 156,000 american, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile coast of France's Normandy region, the Western Allies of WW2 launched the largest amphibious invasion in history when they assaulted Normandy, located on the northern coast of France. The Invaders were able to establish a beachhead a part of operation overlord after a successful ''D-Day''. On August 25, 1944 came the day that the French had been waiting for, Paris had been liberated. (www.mthlyoke.edu) -
Battle of The Bulge (1945)
The Germans launch the last major offensive of the war, Operation Mist. The Battle of The Bulge in World War II happened because of Hitler's plan to launch a counter-offensive to thrust through the allied armies in the Ardennes region of Northwest Europe and recapture Antwerp in Belgium. The German war machine was starting to fall apart anyway, and the soviets were advancing from the east. (www.worldhistory2battleofthebulge.weebly.com) -
Liberation of Concentration Camps (1945)
On July 23, 1944, soviet soldiers 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 concentration camps were places of appalling suffering and death, the authorities 'merely' incarcerated the inmates. American forces liberated more than 20,000 prisoners at Buchenwald. (www.bbc.co.uk) -
Operation Thunderclap
It was the code for a cancelled operation planned in August 1944 but shelved and never implemented. The proposal of this plan was to bomb the eastern-most cities of Germany to disrupt the transport infrastructure behind what was becoming the eastern front, also to show Germans that air defences of Germany were now of little substances and that the Nazi regime had failed them. The bombing affected more than 80% of the apartments with 75,000 of them being totally destroyed. (www.ww2today.com) -
Battle of Iwo Jima (1945)
One-third of all marine losses during World War II happened at Iwo Jima. 70 years ago U.S. Marines stormed the beaches of the craggy; bombed-out island of Iwo Jima. The islands Japanese defenders had entrenched themselves in a honeycombed network of caves, tunnels, pillboxes and spider holes. U.S. forces would spend the next several weeks advancing inch by bloody inch across unforgiving terrain. (www.history.com) (www.m.recordonline.com) -
Battle of Okinawa (1945)
it was the largest amphibious landing in the pacific theatre of WWII, it also resulted in the largest casualties with over 100,000 Japanese casualties for the allies. The capture of Okinawa was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the far east. Okinawa was to prove a bloody battle even by the standards of the war in the far east but it was to be one of the major battles of WWII. The Americans lost 7,373 men, and Japanese lost 107,000 men. (historylearningsite.com) -
VE Day (1945)
On this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the U.S. celebrate Victory in Europe day putting out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine. To mark the formal acceptance by the allies of WWII of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. Tuesday, May 8, 1945 was 'Victory in Europe' (VE) Day, and it marked the formal end of Hitler's war. With it came the end of six years of misery, suffering, courage and endurance across the world. (www.iwm.org.uk) -
Dropping of the atomic bombs (1945)
The dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War II, many historians argue that it also ignited The Cold War. U.S. President Harry S. Truman, discouraged by the Japanese response to the Potsdam conference's demand for unconditional surrender, made the decision to use the atom bomb to end the war in order to prevent what he predicted would be a much greater loss of life were the united states to invade the Japanese mainland. (www.atomicbombmuseum.org) -
VJ Day (1945)
On august 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the allies, effectively end world war II. ''VJ Day'', September 2, 1945, when Japan's formal surrender took place aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo bay. Coming several months after the surrender of Nazi Germany, Japan's capitulation in the pacific brought 6 years of hostilities to a final highly anticipated close. (www.history.com)
