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U.S. convoy system
British Royal Navy introduces a newly created convoy system, whereby all merchant ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean would travel in groups under the protection of the British navy. -
Benito Mussolini's fascist government in Italy
Commonly known as the Fascist Party, Mussolini’s new right-wing organization advocated Italian nationalism, had black shirts for uniforms, and launched a program of terrorism and intimidation against its leftist opponents. -
Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany
Hitler took up political work in Munich in May–June 1919. As an army political agent, he joined the small German Workers’ Party in Munich (September 1919). In 1920 he was put in charge of the party’s propaganda and left the army to devote himself to improving his position within the party, -
Storm troopers
Specialist soldiers of the German Army in World War I. In the last years of the war, they were trained to fight with "infiltration tactics", part of the Germans' new method of attack on enemy trenches. -
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a 1925 autobiographical book by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work outlines Hitler's political ideology and future plans for Germany. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926. -
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco led a successful military rebellion to overthrow Spain's democratic republic in the Spanish Civil War (1936—39), subsequently establishing an often brutal dictatorship that defined the country for decades. -
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
Minister Johnson found no evidence that it was the result of accident or the act of minor and irresponsible officials. He was convinced that the Japanese military operation in Manchuria "must fall within any definition of war" and that this act of aggression had been deliberately accomplished in "utter and cynical disregard" of Japan's obligations. -
Third Reich
The Nazi rise to power marked the beginning of the Third Reich. It brought an end to the Weimar Republic, a parliamentary democracy established in defeated Germany after World War I. The last years of the Weimar Republic were plagued by political deadlock, increasing political street violence, and economic depression. -
Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia
Under Generals Rodolfo Graziani and Pietro Badoglio, the invading forces steadily pushed back the ill-armed and poorly trained Ethiopian army, winning a major victory near Lake Ascianghi on April 9, 1936, and taking the capital, Addis Ababa, on May 5. The nation’s leader, Emperor Haile Selassie, went into exile. In Rome, Mussolini proclaimed Italy’s king Victor Emmanuel III emperor of Ethiopia and appointed Badoglio to rule as viceroy. -
Hitler invades the Rhineland
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler violates the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact by sending German military forces into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone along the Rhine River in western Germany. -
Rome-Berlin Axis
An agreement formulated by Italy’s foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano informally linking the two fascist countries. -
Hitler's Anschluss
On this day, Adolf Hitler announces an “Anschluss” (union) between Germany and Austria, in fact annexing the smaller nation into a greater Germany. -
Munich Agreement
A settlement permitting Nazi Germany's annexation of portions of Czechoslovakia along the country's borders mainly inhabited by German speakers, for which a new territorial designation "Sudetenland" was coined. -
Joseph Stalin's totalitarian government in the Soviet Union
Stalin had firmly established a totalitarian government that tried to exert complete control over its citizens. In a totalitarian state, individuals have no rights, and the government suppresses all opposition. -
War Productions Board
The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in August 1939, with Executive Order 9024. -
Nonaggression pact
An example of non-aggression pact is the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, which lasted until the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. -
Phony war
The Phoney War was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there were no major military land operations on the Western Front. -
Battle of the Atlantic
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest battle of World War II. It began immediately upon the British declaration of war against Germany in September 1939 and ended with Germany's surrender to the Allies in May 1945. -
Britain and France declare war on Germany
He said the British ambassador to Berlin had handed a final note to the German government this morning saying unless it announced plans to withdraw from Poland by 1100, a state of war would exist between the two countries. -
Blitzkrieg
A German term for “lightning war,” blitzkrieg is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower. -
Hitler's military build-up in Germany
The re-armament program quickly increased the size of the German officer corps, and organizing the growing army would be their primary task until the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. -
Hitler's invasion of Denmark and Norway
On this day in 1940, German warships enter major Norwegian ports, from Narvik to Oslo, deploying thousands of German troops and occupying Norway. At the same time, German forces occupy Copenhagen, among other Danish cities. -
Hitler's invasion of the Netherlands
The battle for the Netherlands lasted five days. German paratroopers tried to capture the government precinct in The Hague directly in the morning of 10 May 1940, but failed. Other assaults from the air succeeded. -
Germany and Italy's invasion of France
Mussolini ordered the attack after he saw the brilliant results that Germany was obtaining in the French campaign. Hoping to gain as many benefits as possible from the armistice, Mussolini jumped on the German bandwagon when France was almost beaten. -
Marshal Philippe Petain
Premier Paul Reynaud continued to hold out hope, refusing to ask for an armistice, especially now that France had received assurance from Britain that the two would fight as one, and that Britain would continue to fight the Germans even if France were completely overtaken. -
The Battle of Britain
A significant turning point of World War II, the Battle of Britain ended when Germany’s Luftwaffe failed to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force despite months of targeting Britain’s air bases, military posts and, ultimately, its civilian population. -
Lend-Lease Act
Congress authorized the sale, lease, transfer, or exchange of arms and supplies to 'any country whose defense the president deems vital to the defense of the United States.'" -
Office of Price Administration
The functions of the OPA were originally to control money (price controls) and rents after the outbreak of World War II. -
Pearl Harbor attack
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941. -
Internment
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 ordering all Japanese-Americans to evacuate the West Coast. This resulted in the relocation of approximately 120,000 people, many of whom were American citizens, to one of 10 internment camps located across the country. -
Battle of Stalingrad
It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies. The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the bloodiest battles in history -
Women's Auxiliary Army Corps
Faced with fighting a two-front war and supplying men and materiel for that war while continuing to send lend-lease material to the Allies, realized that women could supply the additional resources so desperately needed in the military and industrial sectors. Given the opportunity to make a major contribution to the national war effort, women seized it. -
Bloody Anzio
The Battle of Anzio was a battle of the Italian Campaign of World War II with the Allied amphibious landing known as Operation Shingle to June 5, 1944, with the capture of Rome. -
D-Day
More than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 Soldiers to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe, to defeat Adolf Hitler’s crack troops. -
Korematsu v. United States
During World War II, Presidential Executive Order 9066 and congressional statutes gave the military authority to exclude citizens of Japanese ancestry from areas deemed critical to national defense and potentially vulnerable to espionage. -
The Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was the last major German offensive campaign of World War II. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg, -
Harry S. Truman
During his few weeks as Vice President, Harry S. Truman scarcely saw President Roosevelt, and received no briefing on the development of the atomic bomb or the unfolding difficulties with Soviet Russia. Suddenly these and a host of other wartime problems became Truman's to solve when, on April 12, 1945, he became President. -
Death of Hitler
Der Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany, burrowed away in a refurbished air-raid shelter, consumes a cyanide capsule, then shoots himself with a pistol, on this day in 1945, as his “1,000-year” Reich collapses above him. -
V-E Day
On this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine. -
Unconditional surrender
No guarantees are given to the surrendering party. In modern times, unconditional surrenders most often include guarantees provided by international law. -
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. -
Operation Torch
Operation Torch was the first time the British and Americans had jointly worked on an invasion plan together. The Soviet Union had pressed the United States and United Kingdom to start operations in Europe and open a second front to reduce the pressure of German forces on the Soviet troops.
