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Germany Attacks Western Europe
May 10,1940-June 22, 1940. France and the neutral Low Countries. Luxembourg is occupied on May 10; the Netherlands surrenders on May 14; and Belgium surrenders on May 28. On June 22, France signs an armistice agreement by which the Germans occupy the northern half of the country and the entire Atlantic coastline. In southern France, a collaborationist regime with its capital in Vichy is established. -
Italy Enters the War
enters the war. Italy invades southern France on June 21. -
Britain taken by Germany
The air war known as the Battle of Britain ends in defeat for Nazi Germany. July 10, 1940- October 31, 1940. -
Pearl Harbor Attack, Japan at War
Japan wanted the United States to accept domination of the Pacific. -
The U.S. Entering The War
The United States declares war on Japan, entering World War II. Japanese troops land in the Philippines, French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), and British Singapore. By April 1942, the Philippines, Indochina, and Singapore are under Japanese occupation. -
Hitler declares War
Hitler declares war on the United States. -
Battle of Coral Sea
The Japanese were trying to control the Coral Sea with an invasion of Port Moresby in southeast New Guinea, but their plans were intercepted by Allied forces. When the Japanese landed in the area, they came under attack from the aircraft carrier planes of the American task force. Although both sides suffered damages to their carriers, the battle left the Japanese without enough planes to cover the ground attack.Allies won. -
Batle of Midway
Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. defeated Japan. Thanks in part to major advances in code breaking, the U.S. was able to counter Japan’s planned ambush of its few remaining aircraft carriers, inflicting permanent damage on the Japan Navy. An important turning point in the Pacific campaign, the victory allowed the United States and its allies to move into an offensive position. -
Fall of War, Allies in North Africa, war turned against Germans
British and American forces invaded French North Africa and forced the German and Italian troops to surrender. In the summer of 1942, British Forces stopped Rommel’s troops at El Alamein. -
Major Industrial Center
Between Nov. 1942 and Feb. 1943 German troops were stopped, then encircled, and finally forced to surrender on Feb. 2, 1943. Of the German Sixth Army 300,000 soldiers died. -
Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam
The Allied powers, the American President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, met to decide future of war. Agreed to a partition of postwar Germany until denazification could take place. -
D-Day Invasion
In Normandy, France when some 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. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. As a result, in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. -
Battle of the Bulge
Germany was fighting a two front war, Great Britain and the United States come from West, the Soviet Union comes from East. Hitler is then forced to fight both sides. -
The Nuremberg Trials
Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1946. The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers along with German industrialists, lawyers and doctors, were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. -
Yalta
Defeat of Germany was foregone conclusion. Roosevelt pledged to assist liberated Europe in the creation of democratic governments. Roosevelt sought military help vs. Japan. Roosevelt wanted the ‘Big Three’ in a postwar international organization, United Nations. Germany must surrender and create four occupation zones and reparations of $20 billion. -
United States takes Iwo Jima
American soldiers fighting for control of Suribachi's slopes cheered the raising of the flag, and several hours later more Marines headed up to the crest with a larger flag. Joe Rosenthal, a photographer with the Associated Press, met them along the way and recorded the raising of the second flag along with a Marine still photographer and a motion-picture cameraman. -
A Demand For Change
American President Roosevelt died April 12, succeeded by American Vice President Truman. Truman demanded free elections in Europe. The U.S. and Soviet rivalry emerges. -
Hiroshima Attack
An American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. -
Nagasaki Attack
Three days later after the Hiroshima attack, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15. -
The Japanese Surrender
Just a day after the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan submits its acquiescence to the Potsdam Conference terms of unconditional surrender, as President Harry S. Truman orders a halt to atomic bombing. -
The Iron Curtain Speech
This well thought out speech given by Winston Churchill. He suggests the idea that Europe is divided into a free half and a more soviet dominated Eastern half.