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Japanese Invasion of Manchuria
Before the war started there was already conflict in Asia over the want for raw materials. By 1937 Japan controlled large parts of China and in 1939 Japanese armies and the Soviet Union clashed in Manchuria with a battle lasting 4 months with a big defeat for the Japanese. -
The Rape of Nanking
While in the Sino-Japanese War, the capital of China Nanking goes upon Japan and Chinese government flees to Hankow. To try and stop the Chinese resistance the Japanese General ordered that Nanking is to be destroyed. Once most the city was burned the Japanese killed around 200,000 men, war prisoners and civilians. They also raped at least 20,000 women and girls of no specific age were most were killed within the process. -
Munich Conference
On September 30th France, Italy, Germany, and Great Britain signed the Munich agreement. Which stated that Czechoslovakia has to surrender its defences and border regions to Nazi Germany. Hitler then later threatened to start a European war unless a border area to Czechoslovakia, Sudetenland surrender to Germany. The main leaders of the different countries agreed with Germany for a peace pledge from Hitler. Czechoslovakia had to agree due to major pressure from Britain and France. -
Invasion of Poland
On the 1st Germany invaded Poland and to justify their actions the Nazi's accused Poland of persecuting enthnic Germans who had currently been living in Poland. The Nazi's also claimed that Poland was planding to dismember Germany with France and Britain. -
Battle of Moscow
The Battle of Moscow started on Oct. 2 and ended Jan. 7. After multiple months of attacks and counter attacks Germany was still trying to overrun Moscow. But after a major Russian winter and Soviet reinforcements Germany had a major toll taken on them ruining what they had planned. For this prolonged the struggle on the Eastern Front and took a majority of Germany's manpower and resources. With about 2 million deaths on both sides. -
Pearl Harbor
On December 7th Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor and their goal was to destroy and cause as much damage as possible before the U.S. could even truly respond. The series of attacked persisted of bombing the hangers, destroying a total of 18 warships about 200 aircrafts being destroyed and about 3,000 Americans killed. -
Women in the War
In WWII the U.S. needed all the help they could get so while the men went into battle some women would stay home, take care of their families, and learn how to do the things the men would normally do like fix cars and work in a defense plant. Around 350,000 women served in uniform, away and at home. When in uniform women had their own official corps and would do jobs like repairing vehicles, flying the aircrafts, and some served on the front lines as Army Nurse Corps. -
Battle of Midway
The U.S. Navy's victory in the air-sea battle from June of the same year and the successful defense of the major base at Midway Island dismissed any hopes from Japan that they could neutralize the U.S. naval power and turn the tables of WW2 in the way for the Pacific. -
Battle of Stalingrad
In the beginning of the battle Stalin forces were able to hold back German soldiers with a lost of over 200,000 men. Couple days later Germany ordered an attack resulting in many more deaths. No matter what Russia did they continued to suffer many losses and by the fall Stalingrad was completely destroyed -
Tunisia Campaign
On the 7th th British Armoured Division captured Tunis, capital of Tunisia and the US II Army Corps captured Bizerte which were the last ports controlled by the Axis. 6 days later the Axis force in North Africa had about 40,000 casualties in just Tunisia and about 300,000 Germans, Italian soldiers became prisoners. Closer to the end of the campaign there was about 900,000 casualties. Then there was later a second front opened against the Axis and removed their threat in the Middle East. -
Invasion of Italy
Haven already driven German and Italian troops from North Africa and Sicily the Allies had decided they were going to invade Italy. When arrived American and British forces pushed into the island in Calabria. The fighting was major and had ended when Calabria British forces arrived and once defeated at the beaches Germans withdrew themselves from the front lines. -
Genocide
The word Genocide was created by a Polish Jewish lawyer who formed it by combining geno- which mean race in Greek and -cide which is Latin for killing. Genocide was different actions and plans for the destruction of major national groups. Genocide was later turned into a complete crime and anyone who committed it would suffer different punishments. -
D-Day
Germans had knew that Britain was planning to invade but they didn't know about the Allies also coming just heading a different way to trick them. Resulting in a series of attacks upon their land. At the end of D-Day over 150,000 troops were in Normandy allowing them to begin pushing the Germans out of France.