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Russians and Germans sign a non-aggression pact.
The Russians and the Germans sign a non-aggression pact. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin agree not to invade each other's borders. The two leaders secretly plan to divide Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe between them. -
Invasion of Poland
Nazi Germany invades Poland
Starts World War II
blitkrieg ("lightning war" tactics)
Polish military unprepared for ferocity of German attack -
Period: to
World War II
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Great Britain and France declare war on Germany
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Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Switzerland declare neutrality
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The National Service (Armed Forces) Act of 1939
The National Service (Armed Forces) Act of 1939 was enacted in the UK
-enforced full conscriptionon males between 18 and 41 -
Germany captures Paris
Germany captures Paris, and France surrenders to the Nazis. Exacting revenge for his nation's defeat in the first World War, Hitler forces French officials to sign surrender papers in the same railroad car in which Germans signed the armistice of 1918. -
Battle of Britain
An extended campaign from July 1940 to the spring of 1941 in which British air forces fought off wave after wave of German bombers and denied Germany in its quest to attain air superiority over Britain.
Major cities in England sustained heavy damage, the British resistance forced Germany to abandon its plans to invade across the English Channel. -
Tripartite Pact
The Tripartite Pact, also the Three-Power Pact, Axis Pact, Three-way Pact or Tripartite Treaty was a pact signed in Berlin, Germany on September 27, 1940, which established the Axis Powers of World War II. -
Germany invades the USSR
-Germans initially made swift progress and advanced deep into Russia
-COuntry overall too big
-Downfall of Germany's war effort
-Led Germany into full-scale retreat after -
Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) shoot nearly 3,000 Jews at the Seventh Fort, one of the 19th-century fortifications surrounding Kovno -
Anglo-Soviet Agreement
The Anglo-Soviet Agreement was a formal military alliance signed by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union against Germany on July 12, 1941; shortly after the German invasion of the latter. Both powers pledged to assist each other and not make separate peace with Germany. -
Atlantic Conference
-Churchill, Roosevelt, and Hopkins
-Proposal for Soviet aid conference -
Einsatzgruppen shooting
Einsatzgruppen shoot about 34,000 Jews at Babi Yar, outside Kiev -
Moscow Conference
Stalin, Harriman, Beaverbrook, Molotov
Allied aid to Russia -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack was intended as a preventive action in order to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions -
Thailand and Japan alliance
A Treaty of alliance was signed between Thailand and Japan on December 21, 1941 -
Wannsee Conference
Nazi leaders planned the Holocaust but made no specific mention of the extermination camps that killed millions
-Term "Final Solution" coined -
Mass deportation of 65,000 JEws begin
Germans begin the mass deportation of more than 65,000 Jews from Lodz to the Chelmno killing center -
ALiiance with Iran, Great Britain, and the USSR
Jan 29, 1942:
Iran signs Treaty of Alliance with Great Britain and USSR -
Deportation of Jews in Netherlands
Germans begin mass deportations of nearly 100,000 Jews from the occupied Netherlands to the east (primarily to Auschwitz) -
Battle of the Coral Sea
A battle from May 4–8, 1942
-U.S. naval forces successfully protected the Allied base at Port Moresby, New Guinea, the last Allied outpost standing between the Japanese onslaught and Australia.
The battle, which caused heavy losses on both sides, was the first naval battle in history fought exclusively in the air, by carrier-based planes. -
Second Moscow Conference
-Churchill, Stalin, Harriman
-Discuss reasons for North African Campaign over cross-channel invasion, Anglo-Soviet pact on information and technological exchanges -
Battle of Guadalcanal
- August 1942 to February 1943 -U.S. Marines fought brutal battles to expel Japanese forces from the Solomon Islands, a strategically important island chain in the South Pacific near Australia.
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The Bad Battle
The Axis advance was stopped in 1942 after the defeat of Japan in a series of naval battles and after devastating defeats of European Axis troops in the Mediterranean and at Stalingrad. In 1943, with a series of German defeats in Eastern Europe, the Allied invasion of Italy and American victories in the Pacific the Axis had lost strategic initiative and passed to strategic retreat on all fronts. -
Deportation from Warsaw
Germans complete the mass deportation of about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka -
Battle of El-Alamein
October and November 1942 battle
-climax of the North African campaign.
-victory by the British over the Germans
-the battle paved the way for the Allied takeover of North Africa and the retreat of German forces back across the Mediterranean. -
Soviet counterattack at Stalingrad
Soviet troops counterattack at Stalingrad, trapping the German Sixth Army in the city -
Battle of Stalingrad
A brutal, five-month battle between German and Soviet forces for the important industrial city of Stalingrad that resulted in the deaths of almost 2 million people. The battle involved very destructive air raids by the German Luftwaffe and bloody urban street fighting. In February 1943, despite direct orders from Hitler forbidding it, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered the German forces to the Red Army. -
Warsaw ghetto uprising begins
Warsaw ghetto uprising begins -
Third Moscow Conference
-Foreign ministers Hull, Eden, Molotov, Fu and Stalin
-Come up with Moscow Declaration -
Tehran Conference
First meeting of the Big 3
Plan the final stategy for the war against Nazi Germany and its allies
Set date for Operation overload -
D-Day
-Allied invasion of France via the Normandy coast began
-Allied forces were closing in on Germany from both east and west -
Death March
Death march of nearly 60,000 prisoners from the Auschwitz camp system in southern Poland -
Death march
Death march of nearly 50,000 prisoners from the Stutthof camp system in northern Poland -
Yalta Conference
-Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin
-final plans for defeat of Germany, postwar Europe plans, set date for United Nations Conference, conditions for the Soviet Union's entry in war against Japan -
V-E Day
-Day Allied FOrces declare victory in Europe -
Germany surrenders
Germany surrenders, and Adolf Hitler commits suicide -
Potsdam Conference
-Churchill, Stalin, Truman, Attlee
-Potsdam Declaration for unconditional surrender of Japan, Potsdam Agreement on policy for Germany -
V-J Day
-Day Allied forces declare victory in Japan