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World War II
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Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the Nazi Party
Adolf Hitler was the Dictator of Nazi Germany, and he wanted to erradicate the Jews. -
Benito Mussolini appointed Prime Minister of Italy
Mussolini was one of the key figures in the creation of fascism. -
Josef Stalin sole dictator of the Soviet Union (USSR)
Under Stalin's rule, the concept of "socialism in one country" became a central tenet of Soviet society. -
Japan’s Army seizes Manchuria, China
This region is the traditional homeland of the Xianbei, Khitan, and Jurchen peoples, who built several states historically. The region is also the home of the Manchus, after whom Manchuria is named. -
Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany
As chancellor, Hitler worked against attempts by the NSDAP's opponents to build a majority government. -
Neutrality Acts passed by US Congress
The Neutrality Acts were passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to World War II. -
Italian Army invades Ethiopia in Africa
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. -
Militarist take control of Japanese Government
In the First World War, Japan joined the Allied powers, but played only a minor role in fighting German colonial forces in East Asia. -
Hitler sends troops into Rhineland of Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty
Beginning at dawn on Saturday, March 7, 1936, three battalions of the German Army crossed the bridges over the Rhine and entered into the industrial heartland of Germany known as the Rhineland. -
Japan’s army pillages Nanjing, China; massacre a quarter of a million people.
The Nanjing Massacre is also known as the Nanking Massacre, or The Rape of Nanking. -
Munich Pact signed giving the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany
The agreement averted the outbreak of war but gave Czechoslovakia away to German conquest. -
Nazis begin rounding up Jews for labor camps
The Nazis methods for rounding up jews varied by areas. In Poland for example, they would pass legislation restricting where Jews could live, forming a ghetto that could be walled in. In Russia, they would just post a notice that all Jews within a certain area were required to assemble at a prescribed location from which they would board the deportation trains. -
Nazi-Soviet Pact signed by Hitler and Stalin
On August 23, 1939, representatives from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union met and signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, which guaranteed that the two countries would not attack each other. -
Nazis invade Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany
The Invasion of Poland is also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War. -
Nazis invade Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium – take control
Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway -
Germany invades France and forces it to surrender
In the Second World War, the Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the successful German invasion of France and the Low Countries -
Battle of Britain – Royal Air Force defeats German Air Force to prevent invasion of their island
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the Second World War air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom -
First time Peacetime Draft in US
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, also known as the Burke-Wadsworth Act, enacted September 16, 1940 -
Hitler breaks Pact with Stalin’s Russia and invades - USSR which now joins England in fighting the Germans
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, officially the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact or Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939. -
Japanese invade French Indochina (Viet. Laos, Cambodia)
French Indonicha is officialy know as the Indochinese Federation. -
Churchill and FDR issue the Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a pivotal policy statement issued in August 14, 1941 that, early in World War II, defined the Allied goals for the post-war world. -
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Pearl Harbor in Hawaii attacked by Japanese Naval and Air forces, US declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy declare war on the US
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Russians stop Nazi advance at Stalingrad save Moscow
The Battle of Moscow is the name given by Soviet historians to two periods of strategically significant fighting on a 370 mi sector of the Eastern Front during World War II. -
Philippines fall to Japanese – Bataan Death March
The Bataan Death March, which began on April 9, 1942, was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000–80,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II. -
Japanese Americans interned in isolated camps
The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States was the forced relocation and incarceration during World War II of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast in camps in the interior of the country. -
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Battle of Midway, turning point of war in the Pacific
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British and US forces defeat German and Italian armies in North Africa
During the Second World War, the North African Campaign took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943. -
Zoot Suit Riots – Los Angeles, CA
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots in 1943 during World War II that broke out in Los Angeles, California, between Anglo American sailors and Marines stationed in the city, and Latino youths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored. -
Italy surrenders, Mussolini dismissed as Prime Min.
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician, journalist, and leader of the National Fascist Party, ruling the country as Prime Minister from 1922 until his ousting in 1943. -
D-Day invasion of France at Normandy by Allies
Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the go-ahead for the largest amphibious military operation in history: Operation Overlord, code named D-Day, the Allied invasion of northern France. -
Paris retaken by Allied Forces
The Liberation of Paris (also known as the Battle for Paris) was a military conflict that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. -
Battle of the Bulge – last offensive of German Forces
The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was a major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. -
US forces return to recapture the Philippines
More than 100,000 American soldiers landed on Leyte Island in the Philippines as preparation for the major invasion by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The ensuing battles of Leyte Island proved among the bloodiest of the war in the Pacific and signaled the beginning of the end for the Japanese. -
FDR dies, Harry S. Truman becomes President
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd President of the United States (1945–53). As the final running mate of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, Truman succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when Roosevelt died after months of declining health. -
V-E Day, war ends in Europe
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day, or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. -
V-J Day, Japan surrenders to Allied Forces
Victory over Japan Day (also known as Victory in the Pacific Day, V-J Day, or V-P Day) is a name chosen for the day on which Japan surrendered, in effect ending World War II, and subsequent anniversaries of that event. -
First Atomic Bombs dropped
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. -
War Crimes Trials held in Nuremburg, Germany; Manila, Philippines and Tokyo, Japan.
General Tomoyuki Yamashita was hanged in Manila on February 23, 1946. The fate of this officer, a first-class fighting man,affirmed something new in the annals of war. For Yamashita did not die for murder, or for directing other men to do murder in his name. Yamashita lost his life not because he was a bad or evil commander, but simply because he was a commander, and the men he commanded had done unspeakably evil things. -
WW2 in three minutes.
