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Japan quits the League of Nations
Japan withdrew from the league of nations as a result of the Manchurian Railway Incident in northen China. When the league did not support them, and they were under pressure from other nations, Japan withdrew as it no longer supported the concepts of the League. -
Cash and Carry Plan
A policy requested by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a special session of the United States Congress. It replaced the Neutrality Acts of 1936. -
Bases for Destroyers Deal
It was a deal the United States made with Britain before they entered World War II. It gave the British 50 old destroyer ships for US right to build ports in the Caribbean. -
US Draft Bill Enacted
On this day in 1940, Congress passed the first peacetime draft in U.S. history. The lawmakers acted soon after the German and Soviet invasion of Poland prompted Britain and France to declare war against Nazi Germany. -
Axis Powers Act is signed
etablished the Axis Powers of World War II. The pact was signed by representatives of Germany, Italy and Japan. -
Lend Lease Plan
The plan proposed by FDR was to "lend-lease" or otherwise "dispose of arms" and other supplies needed by any country whose security was vital to the defense of the United States. Following two months of debate, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, meeting Great Britain’s deep need for supplies and allowing the United States to prepare for war while remaining officially neutral. -
Atlantic Charter
It was a pivotal policy statement first issued in August 1941 that early in World War II defined the Allied goals for the post-war world. The Charter stated the ideal goals of the war. It inspired many of the international agreements that shaped the world. -
Pearl Harbor
It was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The base was attacked by 353 Japanese fighters, bombers and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. -
Gen. MacArthur evacuates the Philipines
A Presidential cable ordering MacArthur’s evacuation from the Philippines had reached MacArthur’s Philippine headquarters on Corregidor Island. -
Battle of Midway
It is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated an Imperial Japanese Navy attack against Midway Atoll, inflicting great damage on the Japanese fleet. -
Guadalcanal
Allied forces, predominantly American, landed on the islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida in the southern Solomon Islands with the objective of denying their use by the Japanese to threaten the supply and communication routes between the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. -
Allies Invade Sicily
The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis powers. It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign. -
D-Day
160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. It was the largest amphibious invasion in world history and was executed by land, sea, and air elements. -
Roosevelt is re-elected for the 3rd time
Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt is reelected president of the United States for a record third time, handily defeating his Republican challenger, Thomas Dewey, the governor of New York, and becoming the first and only president in history to win a fourth term in office. -
Yalta Conference
It was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. It was held for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. Yalta was the second of three wartime conferences among the Big Three (Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin). -
FDR Dies
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage. He passes away after four momentous terms in office, leaving Vice President Harry S. Truman in charge of a country still fighting the Second World War. -
V-E Day
Victory in Europe Day is when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. -
Hiroshima
It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M.near the end of World War II. the Atomic Bomb "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima by an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, directly killing an estimated 80,000 people. -
Nagasaki
"Fat Man" is the codename for the atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, by the United States. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons to be used in warfare to date. Because of poor visibility due to cloud cover, the bomb missed its intended detonation point, and damage was somewhat less extensive than that in Hiroshima. -
V-J Day
Victory over Japan Day is a name chosen for the day on which the Surrender of Japan occurred, effectively ending World War II. Emperor Hirohito's announcement of Japan's acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration was broadcast to the Japanese people over the radio.
