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HItler invades Poland
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated ina couple weeks of the invasion. German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border -
France falls to the Nazis
The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries during the Second World War. In six weeks from 10 May 1940, German forces defeated Allied forces by mobile operations and conquered France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, bringing land operations on the Western Front to an end until 6 June 1944. Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940 and attempted an invasion of France. -
Miracle of Dunkirk
the Miracle of Dunkirk, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers during World War II from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The operation commenced after large numbers of Belgian, British, and French troops were cut off and surrounded by German troops around the mid-point of the six-week long Battle of France. -
The Blitz
300 German bombers raid London, in the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. This bombing “blitzkrieg” (lightning war) would continue until May 1941. -
FDR “Four Freedoms” Speech
Roosevelt insisted that people in all nations of the world shared Americans' entitlement to four freedoms: the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom to worship God in his own way, freedom from want and freedom from fear. -
Lend Lease Act
Proposed in late 1940 and passed in March 1941, the Lend-Lease Act was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. It authorized the president to transfer arms or any other defense materials for which Congress appropriated money to “the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” -
The Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a pivotal policy statement issued during World War II on 14 August 1941, which defined the Allied goals for the postwar world. The leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States drafted the work and all the Allies of World War II later confirmed it. -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by Im Japan against the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941. This attack was meant to make sure that the U.S would not interfere with japans actions in the pacific. -
Baatan Death March
The surrendered Filipinos and Americans soon were rounded up by the Japanese and forced to march some 65 miles from Mariveles, on the southern end of the Bataan Peninsula, to San Fernando. The men were divided into groups of approximately 100, and what became known as the Bataan Death March typically took each group around five days to complete. -
Doolittle Raid
An air raid by the United States on the Japanese capital Tokyo and other places on the island of Honshu during World War II, the first air operation to strike the Japanese Home Islands. It demonstrated that Japan itself was vulnerable to American air attack, served as retaliation for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and provided an important boost to American morale. -
Battle of Coral Sea
The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces from the United States and Australia, taking place in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War. -
The Neutrality Acts
In the 1930s, the United States Government enacted a series of laws designed to prevent the United States from being embroiled in a foreign war by clearly stating the terms of U.S. neutrality.
