-
Paris Peace Conference
click here for more info.
The Allied Powers met at the Palace of Versailles to create the Treaty of Versailles ending WWI. The treaty created the League of Nations the was supposed to keep peace after WWI. -
Nine Power Treaty
click here for more info.
China, United States, Great Britain, Japan, Italy, France, Belgium, Portugal, and the Netherlands signed a treaty saying that they would respect China's sovereignty. As long as it's doors were open to the U.S. -
Mussoulini takes over Italy's government
Benito Mussolini served as Italy’s 40th Prime Minister from 1922 until 1943. He is considered a central figure in the creation of Fascism and was both an influence on and close ally of Adolf Hitler during World War II. -
Beer Hall Putsch
Bavarian Prime Minister, Gustav Kahr, addressed a meeting of around 3000 businessmen at a beer hall in Munich. Hitler used the anger felt against the Berlin government in Bavaria to attempt an overthrow of the regional government in Munich in prelude to the take-over of the national government. -
Kellogg-Briand Pact
This was an agreement to outlaw war. But it had little effect on stopping the rise of dictators in the 1930's or WWII. -
U.S. stock market crash
"Black Tusday" was the day that investors traded about 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollaars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. -
Nazi's reach a political majority in Germany
Nazi's finally gained the political majority of Germany, -
Japan invades Manchuria
The League of Nations didn't do anything about his. They said that they did not expect any war to happen, but a week later it did. The depression was hard on Japan, and with their over-crowded poulation, they needed more room. -
Rohm Purge
Hitler killed over 200 of his own soldiers because he thought they might be a political threat to him in the future. -
Period: to
Hitler openly defies the Treaty of Versailles
At first, Hitler broke the Treaty’s terms by building up his army in secret, drilling volunteers with spades instead of rifles. Then, in 1935, he openly held a huge rearmament rally. The other nations let him get away with it. -
Nuremberg Laws
Hitler made laws that prohibited Jews from doing many of the things that Germans could do. -
Italy invades Ethiopia
Mussolini ivaded Ethipoia becasue of border lines. They couldnt make an agreement on where it should be and that gave him a reeason to attack. -
Hitler militarizes the Rhineland
In March 1936, Hitler took what for him was a huge gamble - he ordered that his troops should openly re-enter the Rhineland thus breaking the terms of Versailles once again. He did order his generals that the military should retreat out of the Rhineland if the French showed the slightest hint of making a military stand against him. This did not occur. Over 32,000 soldiers and armed policemen crossed into the Rhineland -
Franco becomes dictator of Spain
During the Spanish Civil War, General Francisco Franco is named head of the rebel Nationalist government in Spain. It would take more than two years for Franco to defeat the Republicans in the civil war and become ruler of all of Spain. He served as a dictator until he died in 1975. -
Germany annexes Austria
In early 1938, Austrian Nazis conspired for the second time in four years to seize the Austrian government by force and unite their nation with Nazi Germany. Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, learning of the conspiracy, met with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the hopes of reasserting his country's independence but was instead bullied into naming several top Austrian Nazis to his cabinet. -
Hitler demands Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia
British and French prime ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier sign the Munich Pact with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The agreement averted the outbreak of war but gave Czechoslovakia away to German conquest. -
Munich Conference
Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sign the Munich Pact, which seals the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in the name of peace. Upon return to Britain, Chamberlain would declare that the meeting had achieved "peace in our time." -
Rome-Berlin Axis
On this day in 1939, Italy and Germany agree to a military and political alliance, forming the Axis powers, which will ultimately include Japan. -
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
click here for more infoOn this day in 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact, stunning the world, given their diametrically opposed ideologies. -
Nazi invasion of 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. Also, 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. -
Japan withdrawls from the League of Nations
Japan voluntarily withdrew from the LON, and started and alliance with Germany. -
Battle of Britain
the Germans begin the first in a long series of bombing raids against Great Britain, as the Battle of Britain, which will last three and a half months, begins. -
Lend Lease Act
The act authorized the president to transfer arms or any other defense materials for which Congress appropriated money to “the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” Britain, the Soviet Union, China, Brazil, and many other countries received weapons under this law. -
Operation Barbarossa
Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union: three great army groups with over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks smashed across the frontier into Soviet territory. -
Pearl Harbor Bombing
December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. -
Wannsee Conference
Heydrich met with Adolf Eichmann, chief of the Central Office of Jewish Emigration, and 15 other officials from various Nazi ministries and organizations at Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin. The agenda was simple and focused: to devise a plan that would render a "final solution to the Jewish question" in Europe -
Doolittle Raid
16 American B-25 bombers, launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet 650 miles east of Japan and commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, to attack the Japanese mainland. -
Battle of Midway
one of the most decisive U.S. victories against Japan during World War II--begins. During the four-day sea-and-air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one of its own, the Yorktown, to the previously invincible Japanese navy. -
Period: to
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was the successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad in the U.S.S.R. during World War II. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies. -
D-Day and Operation Overlord
Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle, also known as D-Day, occured when about 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. -
Operation Valkyrie
Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, chief of the army reserve, had been given the task of planting a bomb in Hitler's suitcase during a conference that was to be held at Berchtesgaden. The bomb went off, but didnt kill him. -
Battle of the Bulge
an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans created a "bulge" around the area of the Ardennes forest in pushing through the American defensive line, was the largest fought on the Western front. -
Adolf Hitler commits suicide
holed up in a bunker under his headquarters in Berlin, Adolf Hitler commits suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule and shooting himself in the head. Soon after, Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allied forces, ending Hitler's dreams of a "1,000-year" Reich. -
V-E Day
Both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine. -
Little Boy Dropped
at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world's first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout. -
Fat Man Dropped
A second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan's surrender. -
V-J Day
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,” or simply “V-J Day.” -
Nuremberg Trials
It was the first trial of its kind in history, and the defendants faced charges ranging from crimes against peace, to crimes of war, to crimes against humanity. Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence, the British member, presided over the proceedings, which lasted 10 months and consisted of 216 court sessions. -
Japanese War Crime Trials
In Tokyo, Japan, the International Military Tribunals for the Far East begins hearing the case against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II.
On November 4, 1948, the trial ended with 25 of 28 Japanese defendants being found guilty. Of the three other defendants, two had died during the lengthy trial, and one was declared insane.
