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Germany Invades Poland; World War II Begins
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. From East Prussia and Germany in the north and Silesia and Slovakia in the south, German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border and advanced on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack. -
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Word War II
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Battle of the Britain
The Battle of Britain was an attack by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) on Great Britain during the summer and autumn of 1940.
The first objective of the campaign was to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), especially Fighter Command.
The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces, and was also the largest and most sustained aerial bombing campaign to that date. -
Germany begins invasions of Belgium, the Netherlands, and France
Led by Hitler and Germany, On 10 May 1940 Germany attacks the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The bombing of Rotterdam results in the Netherlands capitulating on 15 May. On 28 May the Belgian army capitulates after a battle lasting 18 days. Now German troops can surround the Maginot Line. In the south east fascist Italy attacks France. By 22 June sixty percent of France has been occupied and a truce is signed. -
Luftwaffe initiates air raids on Paris
On 10 May 1940, the Wehrmacht launched the invasion of France and the Low Countries. The first phase of the invasion Fall Gelb called for an invasion of Holland and Belgium in which the Germans correctly predicted the French and British Forces would then push into Belgium to stop an advance into France. -
Italy's Entrance into War
On June 10, 1940, Italy enters the war and then begins invasion of southern France on June 21 of the same year. -
France falls to the German army
France signs armistice with Germany, effectively ending the war. -
Soviet Ukraine gains Bessarabia and Bukovina
On June 28, 1940, The Soviet Union forces Romania to cede the eastern province of Bessarabia and the northern half of Bukovina to the Soviet Ukraine. -
Battle of Britain begins
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940. The objective of the campaign was to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force, especially Fighter Command. -
End of Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940. The objective of the campaign was to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force, especially Fighter Command. -
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The Holocaust
The mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime during the period 1941–45. More than 6 million European Jews, as well as members of other persecuted groups, such as gypsies and homosexuals, were murdered at concentration camps such as Auschwitz. -
Germans send Afrika Korps to aid Italians
In the month of February, 1941, the Germans send the Afrika Korps to North Africa to reinforce the faltering Italians. -
Bulgaria joins the Axis
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Germany invades USSR
Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in the largest German military operation of World War II.
The destruction of the Soviet Union by military force, the permanent elimination of the perceived Communist threat to Germany, and the seizure of prime land within Soviet borders for long-term German settlement had been a core policy of the Nazi movement since the 1920s. -
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Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria invade and dismember Yugoslavia
From April 6, 1941 through to the month of June, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria invade and dismember Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia surrenders on April 17. Germany and Bulgaria invade Greece in support of the Italians. Resistance in Greece ceases in early June 1941. -
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
The Attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack by Japan against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on the morning of December 7, 1941. It is what led the United States into World War II. Japan carried out the attack so that the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which was a collection of ships that the United States could use in a war, would not enter the war that Japan was planning in Southeast Asia, against Britain and the Netherlands, as well as the U.S. in the Philippines. -
Japanese attack on Hong Kong
On 8 December 1941, a day after the its Air Force had devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Empire launched an attack on the Britsh Crown Colony of Hong Kong. -
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Battle of Coral Sea
The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from 4–8 May 1942, was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval and air forces from the United States and Australia. The battle was the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other. It was also the first naval battle in history in which neither side's ships sighted or fired directly upon the other. -
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Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. -
British troops defeat Germans and Italians at El Alamein
On October 23 of 1942, British troops defeat the Germans and Italians at El Alamein in Egypt, sending the Axis forces in chaotic retreat across Libya to the eastern border of Tunisia. -
US and British troops storm beaches of French North Africa
US and British troops land at several points on the beaches of Algeria and Morocco in French North Africa. The failure of the Vichy French troops to defend against the invasion enables the Allies to move swiftly to the western border of Tunisia, and triggers the German occupation of southern France on November 11. -
Allied Victory in Africa
During the Second World War, the North African Campaign took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943. It included campaigns fought in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts and in Morocco and Algeria and Tunisia. -
Germans launch attack on Soviet Union nera Kursk
The Germans launch a massive tank offensive near Kursk in the Soviet Union. The Soviets blunt the attack within a week and begin an offensive initiative of their own. -
Invasion of Sicily
The Allied invasion of Sicily was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Nazi Germany and Italy. It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign. It began on the night of July 9th, 1943. Strategically, it achieved the goals set out for it by Allied planners. The Allies drove Axis air, land and naval forces from the island. -
Deposal of Italian Benito Mussolini
The Fascist Grand Council deposes Benito Mussolini, enabling Italian marshall Pietro Badoglio to form a new government. This government eventually surrenders to the Allies on September 8th of 1943. -
Badoglio government of Italy surrenders
The Badoglio government surrenders unconditionally to the Allies. The Germans immediately seize control of Rome and northern Italy, establishing a puppet Fascist regime under Mussolini, who is freed from imprisonment by German commandos on September 12. -
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Allied Conference in Tehran
The Tehran Conference was a strategy meeting held between Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943. It was held in the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran and was the first of the World War II conferences held between all of the "Big Three" Allied leaders. It closely followed the Cairo Conference and preceded both the Yalta and Potsdam Conference. -
Battle of Monte Cassino
In the beginning of 1944, the western half of the Winter Line was being anchored by Germans holding the Rapido, Liri and Garigliano valleys and certain surrounding peaks and ridges, together known as the Gustav Line. The Germans had not occupied the historic hilltop abbey of Monte Cassino and which dominated the town of Cassino and the entrances to the Liri and Rapido valleys, although they manned defensive positions set into the steep slopes below the abbey walls. -
D-Day
June 1944 was a major turning point of World War II, particularly in Europe. Although the initiative had been seized from the Germans some months before, so far the western Allies had been unable to mass sufficient men and material to risk an attack in northern Europe. -
Allies liberate Paris
The Allies liberate Paris on August 4th 1944. After four years under German occupation, Paris is now free from Germany's stronghold. -
Battle of Peleliu
The Battle of Peleliu was fought between the United States and the Empire of Japan in the Pacific Theater of World War II, from September–November 1944 on the island of Peleliu, present-day Palau. U.S. forces fought to capture an airstrip on the small coral island. Major General William predicted the island would be secured within four days. The battle lasted for over two months. -
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Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive, launched toward the end of World War II through the densely forested Ardennes mountain region of Wallonia in Belgium, hence its French name, and France and Luxembourg on the Western Front. -
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Allied Conference in Yalta
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the United States fought for and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Empire of Japan. The U.S. invasion, charged with the mission of capturing the three airfields on Iwo Jima, resulted in some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific Campaign of World War II. -
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945. After a long campaign of island hopping, the Allies were approaching Japan, and planned to use Okinawa, away from mainland Japan, as a base for air operations on the planned invasion of Japanese mainland. The invasion was supported by naval, amphibious, and tactical air forces. -
Hitler Commits Suicide
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Germany Surrenders
The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II as well as the German surrender to the Western Allies and the Soviet Union took place in late April and early May 1945. Generally ended the war. -
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Allied Conference in Potsdam
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from July 16 to August 2, 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The three nations were represented by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and later, Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman. -
Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the Allies of World War II conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date. -
Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki
This nuclear attack on Nagasaki, Japan on the 9th of August in 1945 was a key event because, six days after the explosion over Nagasaki, on August 15, Japan announced that it was surrendering to the Allied Powers. Japan signed the surrender paper on September 2. This officially ended the Pacific War and World War II. -
VJ Day
VJ Day started on August 15th 1945, the day on which the Allies announced the surrender of Japanese forces during World War II.