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Stalin Becomes Dictator of USSR
In the years following the death of Vladimir Lenin, he became the dictator of the Soviet Union, by manipulating and terrorizing others in order to destroy his opponents. Stalin industrialized the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, forcibly collectivized its agriculture, consolidated his position by intensive police terror, helped to defeat Germany in 1941–45, and extended Soviet controls to include a belt of eastern European states. -
Mussolini’s March on Rome
The 1922 March on Rome was to establish Mussolini and the Fascist Party he led, as the most important political party in Italy. Benito Mussolini's Blackshirts infamously March on Rome, seizing total control over the Italian government. The March on Rome marked the beginning of Fascist rule over Italy, ending all social-liberal parliamentary regimes. -
Hitler Writes Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germany. Hitler began Mein Kampf while imprisoned for what he considered to be "political crimes" following his failed Putsch in Munich in November 1923. -
First “Five Year Plan” in USSR
The first five year plan was created in order to initiate rapid and large-scale industrialization across the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The largest success of the first five-year plan, however, was the Soviet Union beginning its journey to become an economic and industrial superpower. -
Japan Invades Manchuria
During 1931 Japan had invaded Manchuria without declarations of war, breaching the rules of the League of Nations. Japan had a highly developed industry, but the land was scarce of natural resources. Japan turned to Manchuria for oil, rubber and lumber in order to make up for the lack of resources in Japan. -
Holodomor
The Holodomor, also known as the Terror-Famine and sometimes referred to as the Great Famine, was a famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. In spring 1933 death rates in Ukraine spiked. Between 1931 and 1934 at least 5 million people perished of hunger all across the U.S.S.R. -
Hitler Appointed Chancellor of Germany
Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933 following a series of electoral victories by the Nazi Party. He ruled absolutely until his death by suicide in April 1945. Hitler's emergence as chancellor on January 30, 1933, marked a crucial turning point for Germany and, ultimately, for the world. His plan, embraced by much of the German population, was to do away with politics and make Germany a powerful, unified one-party state. -
“Night of the Long Knives” In Germany
Night of the Long Knives, in German history, purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler on June 30, 1934. Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organization's leaders, including Ernst Röhm. The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point for the German government. It established Hitler as the supreme administrator of justice of the German people, as he put it in his July 13 speech to the Reichstag. -
Nuremberg Laws Enacted
The Nuremberg Race Laws were two in a series of key decrees, legislative acts, and case law in the gradual process by which the Nazi leadership moved Germany from a democracy to a dictatorship. Adolf Hitler announced the Nuremberg Laws on September 15, 1935. Germany’s parliament then made up entirely of Nazi representatives, passed the laws. Antisemitism was of central importance to the Nazi Party, so Hitler had called parliament into a special session. -
Italian Invasion of Ethiopia
Rejecting all arbitration offers, the Italians invaded Ethiopia on October 3, 1935. In response to Ethiopian appeals, the League of Nations condemned the Italian invasion in 1935 and voted to impose economic sanctions on the aggressor. The sanctions remained ineffective because of general lack of support. -
The Great Purge and Gulags
The Great Purge, also known as the “Great Terror,” was a brutal political campaign led by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to eliminate dissenting members of the Communist Party and anyone else he considered a threat. Although estimates vary, most experts believe at least 750,000 people were executed during the Great Purge, which took place between about 1936 and 1938. -
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War was a civil war in Spain fought from 1936 to 1939. Republicans loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic. The outcome of the Spanish Civil War altered the balance of power in Europe, tested the military power of Germany and Italy, and pushed ER "away from the peace movement and into the ranks of the anti-fascists" fighting for democracy. -
The Rape of Nanking
In what became known as the “Rape of Nanking,” the Japanese butchered an estimated 150,000 male “war prisoners,” massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed in the process. -
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November Pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by SA paramilitary forces and civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. The German authorities looked on without intervening. -
Nazi Germany Invades Poland.
The invasion of Poland, also known as September campaign, 1939 defensive war and Poland campaign, was an attack on the Second Polish Republic by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. -
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, just before 08:00, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. In all, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor crippled or destroyed nearly 20 American ships and more than 300 airplanes.