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German Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower between 1918 and 1939 very effective against the allies and helped win many battles for the axis powers -
Rape of Nanking
Set up a neutral area of the city that would provide refuge for Nanking’s citizens Following a bloody victory in Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese turned their attention towards Nanking death toll in the Nanking Massacre, though estimates range from 200,000 to 300,000 -
Japanese invasion of China
Japanese military wanted permission to enter the Chinese city of Wanping to search for a missing soldier the Chinese refused. Later that night, a unit of Japanese infantry attempted to breach Wanping and were unsuccessful. During the Marco Polo Bridge Incident Japanese military demanded permission to enter the Chinese city of Wanping Surrender of all Japanese forces in mainland China
China was one of the Big Four of the Allies and became a member of the UN Security Council. -
Germany's invasion of Poland
Adolf Hitler invades poland for more land and power. Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes
Britain and France had declared war on Germany -
Fall of Paris
curfew was being imposed for 8 p.m. that evening-as German troops enter and occupy Paris.
By the time German tanks rolled into Paris, 2 million Parisians had already fled German Gestapo went to work: arrests, interrogations, and spying were the order of the day, as a gigantic swastika flew beneath the Arc de Triomphe.
The United States did not remain completely idle,President Roosevelt froze the American assets of the Axis powers, Germany and Italy. -
Pearl Harbor
Sunday morning, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on the base Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii 20 American naval vessels
eight enormous battleships
300 airplanes
2,400 Americans died in the attack
1,000 people were wounded -
Bataan Death March
April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon forced the people to be under axis control 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps believed that thousands of troops died because of the brutality of their captors -
Battle of Stalingrad
On September 3, 1942, the German Sixth Army under Paulus reached the outskirts of Stalingrad, expecting to take the city in short order.
This monumental battle is justly considered a turning point in the war on the Eastern Front and one of the most crucial engagements of World War II.
The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the bloodiest battles in history, with combined military and civilian casualties of nearly 2 million. -
Warsaw Ghetto uprising
residents of the Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Poland, staged an armed revolt against deportations to extermination camps disease and starvation killed thousands each month ZOB unit ambushed them. Fighting lasted for several days before the Germans withdrew. Nazis suspended deportations from the Warsaw ghetto for the next few months. -
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.” 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. More than 1,500 German civilians were killed in that first British raid. -
Allied invasion of Italy
Allied invasion of the Italian peninsula, crossing the Strait of Messina from Sicily and landing at Calabria–the “toe” of Italy landings on the island of Sicily, off mainland Italy. Within three days, 150,000 Allied troops were ashore.
On September 3, Montgomery’s 8th Army began its invasion of the Italian mainland and the Italian government agreed to surrender to the Allies. -
Battle of the Bulge
A major German offensive is launched against the Allies in the Ardennes Mountains region split the Allied armies by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp U.S. Army suffered over 100,000 casualties. -
Liberation of concentration camps
The first camp was liberated by the soviets They helped save people that were in camps but many died because they were so underfeed and worked to death The Allies entered Auschwitz and there they found hundreds of sick and exhausted prisoners.
They also left behind 348,820 mens suits and 836,255 womens coats and tens of thousands of shoes -
D-Day
Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. more than 9,300 U.S. servicemen died in the D-Day invasion -
Battle of Iwo Jima
American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima key island in the Bonin chain Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese
American losses included 5,900 dead and 17,400 wounded. -
Battle of Okinawa
last major battle of World War II more than 180,000 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps troops descended on the Pacific island of Okinawa for a final push towards Japan. 36 sunk ships
368 damaged ships
4,900 men killed or drowned
4,800 men wounded
763 lost aircraft -
VE Day
German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms
About 1 million Germans attempted a mass exodus to the West when the fighting in Czechoslovakia ended, but were stopped by the Russians and taken captive. The Russians took approximately 2 million prisoners in the period just before and after the German surrender. 13,000 British POWs were released and sent back to Great Britain. -
Potsdam Declaration
Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender
Issued, 1.Japan shall be given an opportunity to end this war. The time has come for Japan to decide whether she will continue to be controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers whose unintelligent calculations have brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of annihilation, or whether she will follow the path of reason. -
Dropping of the atomic bombs
first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima
15,000 tons of TNT reduced four square miles of the city to ruins and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more died in the following weeks from wounds and radiation poisoning. Three days later, another bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, killing nearly 40,000 more people. A few days later, Japan announced its surrender. -
VJ Day
Japan had surrendered effectively ending World War II.
“This is the day we have been waiting for since Pearl Harbor. This is the day when Fascism finally dies, as we always knew it would.”
