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Germany invades Poland.
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U.S is still neutral.
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Hitler takes neutral Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg.
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France surrenders to Germany and signs an armistice. Great Britain now stands alone against the Axis powers.
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Responding to the embargoes imposed by the United States, Japan joins the German-Italian coalition.
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Germany invades the Soviet Union violating the Nonaggression Pact.
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Japanese fighter planes attack the American base at Pearl Harbor destroying U.S. aircraft and naval vessels, and killing 2,355 U.S. servicemen and 68 civilians.
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Germany and Italy, Japan's axis partners, declare war on the United States. The United States declares war on Germany, Italy, and Japan.
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In the first major Allied offensive, British and U.S. armies attack Germany's Africa Korps on the Mediterranean chasing forces back toward Libya.
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The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia.
Results: Decisive Soviet victory, Destruction of the German 6th Army, Axis powers lose strategic initiative on the Eastern Front -
The Italian government officially surrenders to the Allied powers; still, German forces occupy much of Italy.
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The Allied Powers announce their intention for a international peace and security organization.
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In England, the Allied powers assemble 2.9 million men, 2.5 million tons of supplies, 11,000 airplanes, and hundreds of ships in preparation for D-Day.
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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. By late August 1944, all of northern France had been liberated, and by the following spring the Allies had defeated the Germans. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe.
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U.S. forces, aided by a Free French division, liberate Paris from Nazi control
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Allied powers met to negotiate with Soviet Union. This eventually led to the break up of Germany, and the prosecution of war criminals.
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia.
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Italian insurgents capture Mussolini, murder him, and mutilate his body.
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Adolf Hitler commits suicide in Berlin.
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The German army signs an unconditional surrender.
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The American air force in Europe heads for the war in the Pacific.
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The United States drops an atomic bomb—the first to be used in warfare—on Hiroshima, killing 75,000 people instantly, and injuring more than 100,000.
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With still no surrender from Japan, the Soviet Union enters the Pacific war as promised in Yalta, defeating Japanese forces in Manchuria.
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A second atomic bomb is dropped in Nagasaki.
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A formal surrender ceremony is conducted in Tokyo Bay on the U.S. battleship Missouri. World War II officially ends.
