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Start of Great Depression and Rationing
The Wall Street Crash of 1929. On this date, share prices on the New York Stock Exchange completely collapsed, becoming a pivotal factor in the emergence of the Great Depression. -
Starting place of WW2
Germany invades Poland using Blitzkrieg-lightening warfare. -
Final Solution
Nazi plan for the genocide of Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" was the official code name for the murder of all Jews within reach. -
Lend-Lease Act
The Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941, was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. -
World War II War Bonds
Defense Bonds first went on the market on May 1, 1941, and they were renamed War Bonds after the US entered the war in December 1941. When full employment collided with rationing, and war bonds were seen as a way to remove money from circulation as well as reduce inflation. -
Pearl Harbor
A surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii -
Rosie the Riveter
Represents the women who worked in factories and shipyards during World War II. -
Internment of Japanese Americans
Many Americans worried that citizens of Japanese ancestry would act as spies or saboteurs for the Japanese government. Fear — not evidence — drove the U.S. to place over 127,000 Japanese-Americans in concentration camps for the duration of WWII. -
Japanese Atrocities (Bataan Death March)
The forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000–80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war from Saysain Point, Bagac, Bataan and Mariveles to Camp O'Donnell, Capas, Tarlac, via San Fernando, Pampanga, where the prisoners were loaded onto trains. -
Doolittle's raid
An air raid by the United States on the Japanese capital Tokyo and other places on the island of Honshu -
Battle of the Coral Sea
The Battle of the Coral Sea was the first time since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that the enemy’s seemingly relentless advance into the Pacific was checked. It was also the first major U.S. Navy fleet action against Japan. -
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midday, that took place in June 1942, was a turning point in the Pacific front during WWII. The US, using its aircraft power, destroyed the Japanese carriers ending their possibilities of further expansion in the Pacific. -
Guadalcanal Campaign
The World War II Battle of Guadalcanal was the first major offensive and a decisive victory for the Allies in the Pacific theater. With Japanese troops stationed in this section of the Solomon Islands, U.S. Marines launched a surprise attack in August 1942 and took control of an air base under construction. -
S.S. JOHN W. BROWN
The construction of S.S. JOHN W. BROWN started on July 28, 1942, and was launched on September 7, 1942. It is one of only two remaining, fully operational Liberty ships that participated in World War II. -
Aircraft carriers (USS Hornet)
On October 26, 1942, during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) was lost to the Pacific. -
Island Hopping (Gona)
On December 9, 1942, the Allies stormed Gona and captured it during the last week of January 1943. -
Manhattan Project
President Roosevelt authorized the formation of the Manhattan Project to combine these various research efforts with the goal of weaponizing nuclear energy. -
Sicily & Italy
The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II, in which the Allies took the island of Sicily from the Axis powers. -
Operation Fortitude
A plan to convince the German military command that Allied forces will land at Pas de Calais rather than Normandy. -
Operation Overloard
D-Day, when some 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. -
Tunnels (Peleliu)
The Japanese hunkered down in a vast network of underground caves connected by passageways and tunnels in an attempt to protect themselves from Allied bombardment on Peleliu. -
Philippines (Return of MacArthur)
MacArthur waded ashore onto the Philippine island of Leyte. That day, he made a radio broadcast in which he declared, “People of the Philippines, I have returned!” -
Battle of the Bulge
The last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. -
Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz, the largest and arguably the most notorious of all the Nazi death camps. It was liberated by the Soviet Union on January 2, 1945. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
This battle was important because there were two airfields on the island – under Japan’s control; they could be used by Japanese fighter planes to attack American bombers on their flights to Japan. Under American control, the airfields could be used as emergency landing bases for damaged airplanes in the bombing raids. -
Battle of Okinawa
The island lay within 350 miles — easy flight distance — from the Japanese homeland and was, by American design, to be the base from which the southernmost Home Island, Kyushu, would be pummeled to dust ahead of the expected follow-on invasion. It was also one of the bloodiest battles. -
Unconditional Surrender of Germany
May 7 to give in to Allied demands of unconditional surrender. The surrender was made official the following day with a signing at a formal ceremony. May 8 was declared Victory-in-Europe (V-E) Day -
Planned for end of WW2 (Potsdam Conference)
In the Potsdam Conference, they decided to divide Germany up into 4 parts and to help the US in defeating Japan, which would end the war. The Potsdam conference lasted from Jul 17, 1945 – Aug 2, 1945. -
Dropping the A-bomb
The United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug 6, 1945, and Aug 9, 1945. The bombs were known as "Little Boy" and "Fat Man." -
Little Boy
The nuclear bomb that was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the United States. -
Enola Gay
On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. -
Fat Man
The nuclear bomb that was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki by the United States. -
VJ Day and end of WW2
The surrender of Imperial Japan was announced on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close.
