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Mussolini’s March on Rome
The March on Rome was an organized mass demonstration in October 1922 which resulted in Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party ascending to power in the Kingdom of Italy. On 30 October 1922, the King appointed Mussolini as Prime Minister, thereby transferring political power to the fascists without armed conflict. -
Joseph Stalin Takes Control of Soviet Russia
Vladimir Lenin died on January 21, 1924. Stalin was given the honour of organizing his funeral. Because Lenin's didn't have choose an succesor, Stalin was officially hailed as the leader of the ruling Communist Party and of the Soviet Union itself. -
The First Five-Year Plan in the USSR
The Soviet Union entered a series of five-year plans which began in 1928 under the rule of Joseph Stalin. The policies were centered around rapid industrialization and the governmental collectivization of agriculture. Stalin desired to remove and replace any policies created under the New Economic Policy. -
Japan invades Manchuria
The Empire of Japan's Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria on 18 September 1931, immediately following the Mukden Incident. At the war's end in February 1932, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. Their occupation lasted until the success of the Soviet Union and Mongolia with the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation in mid-August 1945, towards the end of the Second World War. -
Holodomor
Holodomor, man-made famine that convulsed the Soviet republic of Ukraine from 1932 to 1933, peaking in the late spring of 1933. It was part of a broader Soviet famine (1931–34) that also caused mass starvation in the grain-growing regions of Soviet Russia and Kazakhstan. The Ukrainian famine, however, was made deadlier by a series of political decrees and decisions that were aimed mostly or only at Ukraine. In acknowledgement of its scale. -
The Massecer of Nanjing
The Rape of Nanjing was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Battle of Nanking in the Second Sino-Japanese War, by the Imperial Japanese Army. Beginning on December 13, 1937, the massacre lasted six weeks. The perpetrators also committed other war crimes such as mass rape, looting, and arson. The massacre was one of the worst atrocities committed during World War II. -
Hitler is appointed chancellor of Germany
After only winning around 40% of the popualr vote, then chancellor Franz von Papen apointed Hitler to power, demoting himself to vice-chancellor. Papen hoped being VC could help him tame Hiltler. Alas, this did not work. -
Night of the Long Knives
The Night of the Long Knives was an attack in which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party targeted members of the Sturmabteilung, the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, as well as past opponents of the party. At least 85 people were murdered in the purge. Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen was killed, and several victims killed because they "knew too much". -
Italian invasion of Ethiopia
Italy invaded Ethiopia in October 1935, launching a war that would drive Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie into exile, pave the way for Italian occupation, and test the capacity and will of the League of Nations to check the aggression of expansionist states. -
Nuremburg Laws Enacted
The Nuremberg Laws were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. The two laws were the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which forbade marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans and the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households. -
The Great Purge and Gulags
The Great Purge a was Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin's campaign to solidify his power over the party and the state. The purges were also designed to remove the remaining influence of Leon Trotsky as well as other prominent political rivals within the party. It occurred from August 1936 to March 1938. -
The Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War was a civil war in Spain fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic, and consisted of various socialist, communist, separatist, anarchist, and republican parties, some of which had opposed the government in the pre-war period. -
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, was a attack against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung paramilitary and Schutzstaffel paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilians throughout Nazi Germany. The German authorities looked on without intervening. The name Kristallnacht comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores were smashed. -
Nazi Germany invades Poland.
Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe. German forces broke through Polish defenses along the border and quickly advanced on the capital Warsaw. -
Japan bombs Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii. The United States was a neutral country at the time; the attack led to its formal entry into World War II the next day. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, and as Operation Z during its planning.