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Mussolini’s March on Rome
The insurrection by which Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy in late October 1922. The March marked the beginning of fascist rule and meant the doom of the preceding parliamentary regimes of socialists and liberals -
Hitler writes Mein Kampf
On July 18, 1925, Volume One of Adolf Hitler’s philosophical autobiography, Mein Kampf, is published. It was a blueprint of his agenda for a Third Reich and a clear exposition of the nightmare that will envelope Europe from 1939 to 1945. The book sold a total of 9,473 copies in its first year. -
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 (USSR). Having begun on October 1st, 1928, the plan was already in its second year when Harry Byers first set foot in the Soviet Union. -
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. 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
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. -
“Night of the Long Knives” in Germany
The Night of the Long Knives represented a triumph for Hitler, and a turning point for the German government. It established Hitler as "the supreme leader of the German people", as he put it in his July 13 speech to the Reichstag. -
Nuremberg Laws enacted
The Nuremberg Race Laws did not identify a “Jew” as someone with particular religious convictions but instead as someone with three or four Jewish grandparents. Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism or who had not done so for many years found themselves still subject to legal persecution under these laws. Even people with Jewish grandparents who had converted to Christianity could be defined as Jews. -
Italian invasion of Ethiopia
On 3 October 1935, the leader of Fascist Italy, Benito Mussolini, ordered Italian troops to invade Ethiopia. The Italian Fascist government had embarked upon a policy of colonial expansion in northeast Africa. Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, appealed to the League of Nations for assistance to halt Italian aggression. -
Spanish civil war
On July 18, 1936, the Spanish Civil War begins as a revolt by right-wing Spanish military officers in Spanish Morocco and spreads to mainland Spain. From the Canary Islands, General Francisco Franco broadcasts a message calling for all army officers to join the uprising and overthrow Spain’s leftist Republican government. Within three days, the rebels captured Morocco, much of northern Spain, and several key cities in the south. -
The Great Purge and gulags
The Gulag was a system of forced labor camps established during Joseph Stalin's long reign as dictator of the Soviet Union. ... Conditions at the Gulag were brutal: Prisoners could be required to work up to 14 hours a day, often in extreme weather. Many died of starvation, disease or exhaustion—others were simply executed. -
The Rape of Nanking
To break the spirit of Chinese resistance, Japanese General Matsui Iwane ordered that the city of Nanking be destroyed. Much of the city was burned, and Japanese troops launched a campaign of atrocities against civilians. 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
On the night of November 9, 1938, violent anti-Jewish demonstrations broke out across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Nazi officials depicted the riots as justified reactions to the assassination of German foreign official Ernst vom Rath, who had been shot two days earlier by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old Polish Jew distraught over the deportation of his family from Germany. -
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. -
Stalin becomes dictator of USSR
In the years following the death of Vladimir Lenin, he became the dictator of the Soviet Union. After growing up in Georgia, Stalin became a political activist, conducting discreet activities for the Bolshevik Party for twelve years before the Russian Revolution in 1917. -
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
Just before 8 a.m. on that Sunday morning, 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.