World War 2 Timeline

By tahjh

  • Japanese invasion of China (1937)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War Japan invaded China in 1931 when it invaded Manchuria. Japan also invaded China in 1937. Japan was a small island that needed important resources. They knew they could get some of these resources, as well as cheap labor, by invading China. In 1937, there was a minor incident between Japan and China near the Marco Polo Bridge where shots were fired between both sides. This allowed Japan to say it was ok to invade China.

  • Germany's invasion of Poland

    http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germans-invade-polandThe invasion was referred to by Germany as the 1939 Defensive War since Hitler proclaimed that Poland had attacked Germany and that "Germans in Poland are persecuted with a bloody terror and are driven from their homes. ... Polish leaders also distrusted HitlerBut when Hitler invaded Poland, they declared war. ... Well... the German invasion of Poland in September of 1939 is one of the most important actions ever taken by a country.

  • German Blitzkrieg

    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). Blitzkrieg tactics required the concentration of offensive weapons (such as tanks, planes, and artillery) along a narrow front.

  • Pearl Harbor

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_HarborEvents leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor. ... A series of events led to the attack on Pearl Harbor. War between Japan and the United States had been a possibility that each nation's military forces planned for in the 1920s, though real tension did not begin until the 1931 invasion of Manchuria by JapanPresident Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy."

  • -Operation Gomorrah (

    On this day in 1943, 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 evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. The explosive power was the equivalent of what German bombers had dropped on London in their five most destr

  • Allied invasion of Italy

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_invasion_of_ItalyThe Germans held all the defensive positions in Italy anyway and they were the major problem for the Allies even before the Italians surrendered. The invasion was significant mostly for the following reasons: It was practice for the D-Day landings, which would be much more important.

  • Warsaw Ghetto uprising

    https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005188The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was nothing less than a revolution in Jewish history. Jews had resisted the Nazis with armed force. The significance and symbolic resonance of the uprising went far beyond those who fought and died. ... They chose to die fighting and to inflict casualties on the enemy.

  • D Day

    http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/d-dayAlthough the term D-Day is used routinely as military lingo for the day an operation or event will take place, for many it is also synonymous with June 6, 1944, the day the Allied powers crossed the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe from NaziIt is the largest military operation by sea in history, and of course it had great significance to the war.

  • Battle of the Bulge

    http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-the-bulgeIn December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. Caught off-guard, American units fought desperate battles to stem the German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and Bastogne. As the Germans drove deeper into the Ardennes in an attempt to secure vital bridgeheads, the Allied line took on the appearance of a

  • VJ Day

    http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/September/vjday.htmVictory Day, also known as VJ Day, marks the anniversary the Allies' victory over Japan during World War II. ... Victory Day is a state holiday in Rhode Island in the United States on the second Monday of August each year.

  • Liberation of concentration camps

    https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005131During the latter half of World War Two, there was present among western public opinion some indistinct awareness of the heinous crimes being committed by the Nazi Third Reich. And this perception was reinforced when newsreels reported the horrors discovered when the Soviets reached the German Majdanek and Sobibor extermination camps in eastern Poland, during summer

  • Battle of Iwo Jima

    http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-iwo-jimaBy 1945, the Allies were gaining ground in the Pacific theater. ... One-third of all Marine losses during World War II happened at Iwo Jima; it was the only large engagement of the war in which Allied forces suffered more casualties (dead plus wounded) than their Japanese counterparts

  • Battle of Okinawa (

    http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/battle-of-okinawa-endsOn the 10th Army, under Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, launched the invasion of Okinawa, a strategic Pacific island located midway between Japan and Formosa. Possession of Okinawa would give the United States a base large enough for an invasion of the Japanese home islands.

  • Dropping of the atomic bombs

    http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasakian 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. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s surrender.

  • Potsdam Declaration

    http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.htmlTruman's atomic bomb decision. As the conference neared its conclusion, Truman, Attlee, and representatives of the Chinese Nationalist government issued the Potsdam Declaration, an ultimatum that called on Japan to surrender or face “prompt and utter destruction.”