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Japanese invasion of China
Also known as the Second Sino- Japanese War, the Republic of China and the Emperor of Japan were involved in a military conflict. -
Rape of Nanking
The Rape of Nanking refers to the widespread atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in and around Nanking at that time in the capital of China, after it fell to Japanese troops on 13 December 1937. -
Germany's invasion of Poland
Also known as the September Campian, or the 1939 Defensive war in Poland, was a joined invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, sparking World War 2 in Europe. -
German Blitzkrieg
A Military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower. -
Fall of Paris
The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries during the Second World War. -
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which began on 22 June 1941. -
Pearl Harbor
On December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The attack lasted two hours, but it was devastating. The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and more than 300 airplanes. More than 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan. -
Wannsee Conference
On January, 20, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich convened the Wannsee Conference in Berlin with 15 top Nazi politicians to coordinate the Final Solution in which the Nazis would attempt to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe, an estimated 11 million persons. -
Battaan Death March
After the April 9, 1942 U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island to the Japanese during World War II, the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia, on the eastern boundary of Europe. -
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining Ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp. -
Operation Gomorrah
Operation Gomorrah was a campaign of air raids beginning July 24, 1943 and lasting for 8 days. It was at the time the heaviest assault in the history of aerial warfare and was later called the Hiroshima of Germany by British officials. -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion)
The Western Allies of World War II launched the largest invasion in history when they assaulted Normandy, located on the northern coast of France, on June 6th, 1944. -
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive campaign launched through Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. -
Liberation of Concentration Camps
Soviet soldiers were the first to liberate concentration camp prisoners in the final stages of the war. On July 23, 1944, they entered the Majdanek camp in Poland, and later overran several other killing centers. On January 27, 1945, they entered Auschwitz and there found hundreds of sick and exhausted prisoners. -
Operation Thunderclap
Operation Thunderclap was the code for a cancelled operation planned in August 1944 but was never carried out. -
Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the U.S. Marines landed on and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. -
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa was a series of battles fought on the island of Okinawa that was an 82- day long batte -
VE Day
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as VE Day, was the public holiday celebrated on May 8, 1945 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. -
Dropping of Atomic Bombs
President Harry S. Truman ordered that the atomic bomb be used to bring the war to an end. On August 6, 1945, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. -
VJ Day
On August 15, 1945, news of the Japanese surrender was announced to the world. This sparked spontaneous celebrations over the final ending of World War II. On September 2, 1945, a formal surrender ceremony was held in Tokyo Bay aboard the USS Missouri. At the time, President Truman declared September 2 to be VJ Day.
