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Japanese Invasion Of China
Imperial Japanese Army forces brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of people–including both soldiers and civilians–in the Chinese city of Nanking. Japanese declared that order had been restored in the city, and dismantled the safety zone; killings continued until the first week of February. A puppet government was installed, which would rule Nanking until the end of World War II. -
Rape of Nanking
During the Sino-Japanese War, Nanking, the capital of China, falls to Japanese forces. To break the spirit of Chinese resistance, Japanese General Matsui Iwane ordered that the city of Nanking be destroyed. Much of the city was burned, and Japanese troops launched a campaign of atrocities against civilians. -
Germany's Invasion Of Poland
Germany's leader Adolf Hitler had a conquest to take over Europe. It ended with a near-perfect divison of Poland with the Soviet Union. -
German Blitzkrieg
A German term 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. In that sense blitzkrieg is best understood as a post facto construction for explaining a complex structure of events and ideas. -
Fall of Paris
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had tried for days to convince the French government to hang on, not to sue for peace, that America would enter the war and come to its aid. By the time German tanks rolled into Paris, 2 million Parisians had already fled, with good reason. -
Operation Barbarossa
Hitler had a vison that the Soviet Union and its varied peoples were to be subdued if a new "German Empire" was to be relized. Wanted to capture Moscow. Winter came along and the war was very brutal. -
Pearl Harbor
Japan wanted to incorprate much of the Pacific ring into a sphere. The attack resulted in the declaration of war on the Empire of Japan by the US and Great Britain . -
Wannsee Conference
Nazi officials meet to discuss the details of the “Final Solution” of the “Jewish question.” ordered Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and Heinrich Himmler’s number-two man, to submit “as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative, material, and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.” anyone who survived the egregious conditions of a work camp would be “treated accordingly.” -
Battle of Stalingrad
It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad was a great humiliation for Hitler, who had elevated the battle’s importance in German opinion. Germans in Stalingrad were forbidden to try to reach their would-be rescuers. General Paulus surrendered what remained of his army-some 91,000 men. -
Japanese Internment
The relocation of Japanese-Americans into internment camps. Early in 1945, Japanese-American citizens of undisputed loyalty were allowed to return to the West Coast, but not until March 1946 was the last camp closed. -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion)
resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. The Normandy invasion began to turn the tide against the Nazis. the Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. Hitler had committed suicide a week earlier, on April 30. -
Battle of Bulge
Its objective was to split the Allied armies by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp, marking a repeat of what the Germans had done three times previously–in September 1870, August 1914, and May 1940. The Battle of the Bulge was the costliest action ever fought by the U.S. Army, which suffered over 100,000 casualties. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
the need for a base near the Japanese coast. sparked by the desire for a place where B-29 bombers damaged over Japan could land without returning all the way to the Marianas, and for a base for escort fighters that would assist in the bombing campaign. -
Battle of Okinawa
Japanese defended the island against the countless American assaults. In the end true grit triumphed as the island fell into the ultimate control og the Allies. Japanese defenders were divided into 3 groups. With it came victory that the Allies would need in final conquest of Japan proper. -
VE Day
both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. V-E Day was not celebrated until the ninth in Moscow, with a radio broadcast salute from Stalin himself: “The age-long struggle of the Slav nations… has ended in victory. Your courage has defeated the Nazis. The war is over.” -
Dropping of the Atomic Bombs
Since 1940, the United States had been working on developing an atomic weapon, after having been warned by Albert Einstein that Nazi Germany was already conducting research into nuclear weapons. By 1949, the Soviets had developed their own atomic bomb and the nuclear arms race began. -
VJ Day
On August 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as “Victoryover Japan Day,”
