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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. -
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. -
Holocaust began
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. -
Adolf Hitler became the leader of Germany
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Being one of its best speakers, he was made the party leader after he threatened to otherwise leave. -
Congress passed the Neutrality Acts
The Neutrality Acts were a series of acts passed by the US Congress in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939 in response to the growing threats and wars that led to World War II. -
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 -
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. -
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. -
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. -
The Tripartite Pact was signed
Leaders of the Axis powers, Japan, Italy and Germany, sign the Tripartite Pact, creating an alliance between the three countries, Sept. 1940. -
Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of African American military pilots and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332d Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Forces. -
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. -
OPA created
The 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 II. -
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. -
Four Freedoms
The Four Freedoms were goals articulated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Monday, January 6, 1941. -
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. -
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. -
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 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. -
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
Victory over Japan Day is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end.