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Japan invades Manchuria.
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Fascist Italy invades, conquers, and annexes Ethiopia.
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Japan invades China, initiating World War II in the Pacific.
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Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich agreement which forces the Czechoslovak Republic to cede the Sudetenland, including the key Czechoslovak military defense positions, to Nazi Germany.
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Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression agreement and a secret codicil dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence.
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Hitler invades Poland
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Italy enters the war. Italy invades southern France on June 21.
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The air war known as the Battle of Britain ends in defeat for Nazi Germany.
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Japan attacks the US.
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December 8, 1941
The United States declares war on Japan, entering World War II. Japanese troops land in the Philippines, French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), and British Singapore. By April 1942, the Philippines, Indochina, and Singapore are under Japanese occupation. -
December 11–13, 1941
Nazi Germany and its Axis partners declare war on the United States. -
June 4, 1944
Allied troops liberate Rome. Within six weeks, Anglo-American bombers could hit targets in eastern Germany for the first time. -
Allied forces storm the beaches of Normandy.
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March 7, 1945
US troops cross the Rhine River at Remagen. -
April 30, 1945
Hitler commits suicide. -
Victory in Europe.
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August 6, 1945
The United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. -
August 8, 1945
The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and invades Manchuria. -
August 9, 1945
The United States drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. -
Japan surrender to Allied forces.
