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Mussolini’s March on Rome
Mussolini's Blackshirts conquered strategic points across the country and gathered outside Rome. King Victor Emmanuel III refused to declare the state of emergency and implemented the bloodless transfer of power to the Fascists. -
Stalin becomes dictator of USSR
Joseph Stalin was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. However, he ruled by terror, and millions of his own citizens died during his brutal reign. -
Hitler writes Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf shows Hitler's personal grievances and his ambitions for creating a New Order. Hitler also wrote that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabricated text which purported to expose the Jewish plot to control the world, was an authentic document. -
1st “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. -
Japan invades Manchuria
Seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industries, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. By 1937 Japan controlled large sections of China, and accusations of war crimes against the Chinese became commonplace. -
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 that also caused mass starvation in the grain-growing regions of Soviet Russia and Kazakhstan.This suggests that the famine was caused by a combination of a severe drought, chaotic implementation of forced collectivization of farms, and the food requisition program carried out by the Soviet authorities. -
Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany
Hitler attained power in March 1933, after the Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act of 1933 in that month, giving expanded authority. President Paul von Hindenburg had already appointed Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933 after a series of parliamentary elections and associated backroom intrigues. -
“Night of the Long Knives” in Germany
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. -
Nuremburg Laws enacted
The Nazis enacted the Nuremberg Laws, because they wanted to put their ideas about race into law. They believed in the false theory that the world is divided into distinct races that are not equally strong and valuable. The Nazis considered Germans to be members of the supposedly superior “Aryan” race. They saw the so-called Aryan German race as the strongest, and most valuable race of all. -
Italian invasion of Ethiopia
The aim of invading Ethiopia was to boost Italian national prestige, which was wounded by Ethiopia's defeat of Italian forces at the Battle of Adowa in the nineteenth century, which saved Ethiopia from Italian colonisation. ... This was used as a rationale to invade Abyssinia. A border incident between Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland that December gave Benito Mussolini an excuse to intervene. Rejecting all arbitration offers, the Italians invaded Ethiopia -
Spanish civil war
a military revolt against the Republican government of Spain, supported by conservative elements within the country. When an initial military coup failed to win control of the entire country, a bloody civil war ensued, fought with great ferocity on both sides. -
The Great Purge and gulags
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, More than a million other people were sent to forced labor camps, known as Gulags. This ruthless and bloody operation caused rampant terror throughout the U.S.S.R. and impacted the country for many years. -
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
Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses and killed close to 100 Jews. In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, also called the “Night of Broken Glass,” some 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. -
Nazi Germany invades Poland
Germany invaded Poland to regain lost territory and ultimately rule their neighbor to the east. The German invasion of Poland was a primer on how Hitler intended to wage war–what would become the “blitzkrieg” strategy. -
Japan bombs Pearl Harbor
It was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces ,hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on the base, where they managed to destroy or damage nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, and over 300 airplanes. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.