World War II Timeline by Faith Drissel

By havefaith

  • Start of WWII

  • France and Great Britain declare war on Germany

  • Germany invades and takes control of Denmark and Norway

  • Germany uses quick strikes called blitzkrieg, to take over much of western Europe including the Netherlands, Belgium, and northern France

  • Winston Churchill becomes leader of the British government

  • Italy enters the war as a member of the Axis powers

  • Germany launches an air attack on Great Britain

  • Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact creating the Axis Alliance

  • Germany and the Axis Powers attack Russia with a huge force of over four million troops

  • The Japanese attack the US Navy in Pearl Harbor

  • The US Navy defeats the Japanese navy at the Battle of Midway

  • The Allies invade and take the island of Sicily

  • Italy surrenders to the Allies, however Germany helps Mussolini to escape and set up a government in Northern Italy

  • D-day and the Normandy invasion. Allied forces invade France and push back the Germans

  • Paris is liberated from German control

  • The Germans launch a large attack in the Battle of the Bulge

  • US Marines invade the island of Iwo Jima. After a fierce battle they capture the island

  • The US Third Army under General Patton crosses the Rhine River

  • US President Franklin Roosevelt dies

  • Adolf Hitler commits suicide as he knows Germany has lost the war

  • Germany surrenders to the Allies

  • The United States drops the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The city is devastated

  • Another atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan

  • Japan surrenders to US General Douglass MacArthur and the Allies

  • End of WWII