-
Joseph Stalin became the leader of the USSR
Serving in the Russian Civil War before overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in 1922, Stalin assumed leadership over the country following Lenin's death in 1924. Under Stalin, socialism in one country became a central tenet of the party's ideology. -
Benito Mussolini became the leader of Italy
Benito Mussolini was an Italian political leader who became the fascist dictator of Italy from 1925 to 1945. Originally a revolutionary socialist and a newspaper journalist and editor, he forged Italy's violent paramilitary fascist movement in 1919 and declared himself prime minister in 1922. -
European appeasement of Hitler began
Instituted in the hope of avoiding war, appeasement was the name given to Britain's policy in the 1930s of allowing Hitler to expand German territory unchecked. Most closely associated with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, it is now widely discredited as a policy of weakness. -
Japan invaded Manchuria
The Empire of Japan's Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria on 18 September 1931, immediately following the Mukden Incident. At the war's end in February 1932, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. -
Adolf Hitler became the leader of Germany
Following several backroom negotiations – which included industrialists, Hindenburg's son, the former chancellor Franz von Papen, and Hitler – Hindenburg acquiesced and on 30 January 1933, he formally appointed Adolf Hitler as Germany's new chancellor. -
Congress passed the Neutrality Acts
Between 1935 and 1937 Congress passed three "Neutrality Acts" that tried to keep the United States out of war, by making it illegal for Americans to sell or transport arms, or other war materials to belligerent nations. -
Germany began the blitzkrieg into Poland
Germany launched the unprovoked attack at dawn on September 1, 1939, with an advance force consisting of more than 2,000 tanks supported by nearly 900 bombers and over 400 fighter planes. In all, Germany deployed 60 divisions and nearly 1.5 million men in the invasion. -
Italy invaded Ethiopia
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression which was fought between Italy and Ethiopia from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Italian Invasion, and in Italy as the Ethiopian War. -
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung paramilitary and Schutzstaffel paramilitary forces -
Germany and Russia signed a nonaggression pact
In the night of 23-24 August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact., known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The countries agreed that they would not attack each other and secretly divided the countries that lay between them. Germany claimed Western Poland and part of Lithuania. -
The Tripartite Pact was signed
With pomp and circumstance, Hitler, Imperial Japan's Ambassador to Germany, Saburō Kurusu (later a central figure in diplomatic talks between Japan and the United States prior to Pearl Harbor), and Count Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law, gathered in Berlin. On September 27, 1940, they signed the Tripartite Pact. -
Holocaust began
The term Holocaust (with a capital H) is commonly used to refer to the systematic murder by Nazi Germany of approximately six million Jews and the destruction of their communities, representing one-third -
Churchill became the Prime Minister of Great Britain
Winston Churchill is forever remembered for his contributions as Prime Minister (PM) during World War II. On May 10, 1940, with the Germans attacking western Europe, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned and King George VI asked Churchill to become Prime Minister and form a government. -
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain, was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. -
Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a statement issued on 14 August 1941 that set out American and British goals for the world after the end of World War II -
OPA created
he Office of Price Administration was established within the Office for Emergency Management of the United States government by Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. The functions of the OPA were originally to control money and rents after the outbreak of World War -
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia -
Battle of Okinawa
the Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army and United States Marine Corps forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. -
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project is one of the most transformative events of the 20th century. It ushered in the nuclear age with the development of the world's first atomic bombs. The building of atomic weapons began in 1942 in three secret communities across the nation -
Four Freedoms
His "four essential human freedoms" included some phrases already familiar to Americans from the Bill of Rights, as well as some new phrases: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear -
Bataan Death March
The Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of between 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war from Saysain Point, Bagac, Bataan and Mariveles to Camp O'Donnell, Capas, Tarlac, via San Fernando, Pampanga. -
Tehran Conference
The Tehran Conference was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. It was held at the Soviet Union's embassy at Tehran in Iran -
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted for five weeks from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in Europe -
Battle of the Atlantic
The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II -
Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African American soldiers to successfully complete their training and enter the Army Air Corps . Almost 1000 aviators were produced as America's first African American military pilots. -
Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The two aerial bombings together killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict -
V-E Day
Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the official end of World War II in Europe in the Eastern Front, with the last shots fired on the 11th. -
V-J DAY
V-J Day, or Victory over Japan Day, marks the end of World War II, one of the deadliest and most destructive wars in history. When President Harry S. Truman announced on Aug. 14, 1945, that Japan had surrendered unconditionally, war-weary citizens around the world erupted in celebration. -
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II