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Germany invaded Poland
At 4:45 a.m., some 1.5 million German troops invade Poland all along its 1,750-mile border with German-controlled territory. Simultaneously, the German Luftwaffe bombed Polish airfields, and German warships and U-boats attacked Polish naval forces in the Baltic Sea. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler claimed the massive invasion was a defensive action, but Britain and France were not convinced. On September 3, they declared war on Germany, initiating World War II. -
France declared war on Germany
On September 3, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany in response to the German invasion of Poland two days earlier. Addressing Britons from 10 Downing Street 75 years ago today, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain explained that the 11 a.m. deadline the British had set for Germany to begin withdrawing its troops from Poland had passed. "Consequently," Chamberlain announced at around 11:15 a.m. London time, "this country is at war with Germany." -
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USSR invaded Finland
The Winter War[F 7] was a war between the Soviet Union (USSR) and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from the organisation. -
Germany invaded Denmark and Norway
Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. The name comes from the German for "Operation Weser-Exercise", the Weser being a German river.
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Invasion of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg
The German invasion of Luxembourg was part of Case Yellow, the German invasion of the Low Countries—Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands—and France during World War II. The battle began on 10 May 1940 and lasted just one day. Facing only light resistance, German troops quickly occupied Luxembourg. -
Dunkirk
Dunkirk is a small town on the coast of France that was the scene of a massive military campaign during World War II. During the Battle of Dunkirk from May 26 to June 4, 1940, some 338,000 British Expeditionary Force and other Allied troops were evacuated from Dunkirk to England as German forces closed in on them. The massive operation, involving hundreds of naval and civilian vessels, became known as the “Miracle of Dunkirk” and served as a turning point for the Allied war effort. -
Battle of England
The Battle of Britain (10 July – 31 October 1940) ( "the Air Battle for England") was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. -
Invasion of Greece
The Battle of Greece ( 6 april-30 april, 1941) is the common name for the invasion of Allied Greece by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in April 1941 during World War II. German landings on the island of Crete (May 1941) came after Allied forces had been defeated in mainland Greece. These battles were part of the greater Balkan Campaign of Germany. -
Invasion of Crete
The Battle of Crete was fought during the Second World War on the Greek island of Crete. It began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany began an airborne invasion of Crete. https://youtu.be/S985QkNPUoM -
Barbarossa operation
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. The operation put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union so as to repopulate it with Germans. -
Operation Typhoon
The Germans begin their surge to Moscow. Although some German generals had warned Hitler against launching Operation Typhoon as the harsh Russian winter was just beginning. Hitler decided to continue. But the Russians also remembered Napoleon and began destroying everything. Harvested crops were burned, livestock were driven away, and buildings were blown up, leaving nothing of value behind to support exhausted troops. Hitler’s army inherited nothing but ruins. -
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Declaration of the United Nations
Representatives of 26 countries fighting the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis, decide to affirm their support by Signing the Declaration by United Nations. This important document pledged the signatory governments to the maximum war effort and bound them against making a separate peace. -
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Guadalcanal
The Guadalcanal campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by American forces, was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theater of World War II. It was the first major land offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan. -
Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad, (23 August 1942 – 2 February 1943), successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd). Russians consider it to be one of the greatest battles of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entice conflict. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favour of the Allies. -
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Kursk
The Battle of Kursk ( 5 July-23 August, 1943 ) was a Second World War engagement between German and Soviet forces on the Eastern Front near Kursk (450 kilometres or 280 miles south-west of Moscow) in the Soviet Union, during July and August 1943. -
Tarawa
The Battle of Tarawa was a battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that was fought on 20–23 November 1943. It took place at the Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands, and was part of Operation Galvanic, the U.S. invasion of the Gilberts. Nearly 6,400 Japanese, Koreans, and Americans died in the fighting, mostly on and around the small island of Betio, in the extreme southwest of Tarawa Atoll. -
Conference of Tehran
The Tehran Conference was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran. https://youtu.be/QwvuGUqsXwo -
Battle of Montecasino
The Battle of Monte Cassino ( 17 January – 18 May 1944 ) (also known as the Battle for Rome and the Battle for Cassino) was a costly series of four assaults by the Allies against the Winter Line in Italy held by Axis forces during the Italian Campaign of World War II. The intention was a breakthrough to Rome. -
Overold operation (Normandy landing)
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings. -
Saipan
The Battle of Saipan was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on the island of Saipan in the Mariana Islands from 15 June to 9 July 1944. -
The Battle of the Philippine Sea
The Battle of the Philippine Sea (June 19–20, 1944) was a major naval battle of World War II that eliminated the Imperial Japanese Navy's ability to conduct large-scale carrier actions. It took place during the United States' amphibious invasion of the Mariana Islands during the Pacific War. https://youtu.be/0ovXuSBwktM -
Operation Bragation
Operation Bagration was the codename for the Soviet 1944 Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation, a military campaign fought between 22 June and 19 August 1944 in Soviet Byelorussia in the Eastern Front of World War II. https://youtu.be/suhSf2ihp9k -
Paris liberation
The Liberation of Paris was a military battle that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. The liberation began when the French Forces of the Interior—the military structure of the French Resistance—staged an uprising against the German garrison. -
Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden was a failed World War II military operation fought in the Netherlands from 17 to 25 September 1944. It was the brainchild of Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery and strongly supported by Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. The airborne part of the operation was undertaken by the First Allied Airborne Army with the land operation by XXX Corps of the British Second Army. -
Battle of Leyte Gulf
It is considered to have been the largest naval battle of World War II, with over 200,000 naval personnel involved. It was fought in waters near the Philippine islands of Leyte, Samar, and Luzon, from 23–26 October 1944, between combined American and Australian forces and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), which aimed to isolate Japan from the countries it had occupied in Southeast Asia which were a vital source of industrial and oil supplies. -
Conference of Yalta
The Yalta Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three states were represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively. The conference was held near Yalta in Crimea, Soviet Union, within the Livadia, Yusupov, and Vorontsov Palaces. -
Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps and Navy landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II. The American invasion, had the goal of capturing the entire island, to provide a staging area for attacks on the Japanese main islands. This five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the Pacific War of World War II. -
Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Marine and Army forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. The initial invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The 82-day battle lasted from April 1 until June 22, 1945. -
Roosevelt’s death
On March 29, 1945, Roosevelt went to the Little White House at Warm Springs, Georgia, to rest before his anticipated appearance at the founding conference of the United Nations. On the afternoon of April 12, Roosevelt said, "I have a terrific headache." He then slumped forward in his chair, unconscious, and was carried into his bedroom. The president's attending cardiologist, diagnosed the medical emergency as a massive intracerebral hemorrhage.That day, Roosevelt died at the age of 63. -
Battle of Berlin
The Battle of Berlin ( 23 April-2 May 1945 ), designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, and also known as the Fall of Berlin, was one of the last major offensives of the European theatre of World War II. -
Mussolini’s death
The death of Benito Mussolini, the deposed Italian fascist dictator, occurred on 28 April 1945, in the final days of World War II in Europe, when he was summarily executed by an Italian partisan in the small village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy. https://youtu.be/cLvd0dNxsGc -
Hitler’s death
Der Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany, burrowed away in a refurbished air-raid shelter, consumes a cyanide capsule, then shoots himself with a pistol, on April 30, 1945, as his “1,000-year” Reich collapses above him. -
End of WWII in Europe
The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II as well as the German surrender to the Allies took place in late April and early May 1945. -
Conference of Potsdam
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm in Potsdam, Germany, from 17 July to 2 August 1945.The participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Stalin, Churchill, and Truman gathered to decide how to administer Germany. The goals of the conference also included the establishment of postwar order, peace treaty issues, and countering the effects of the war. -
Hiroshima
The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, with the consent of the United Kingdom, as required by the Quebec Agreement. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the first and only uses of nuclear weapons in armed conflict. -
Nagasaki
The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, with the consent of the United Kingdom, as required by the Quebec Agreement. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the first and only uses of nuclear weapons in armed conflict. -
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Japan Surrender
The surrender of Imperial Japan was announced by Japanese Emperor Hirohito on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945.
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