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Period: to
WW2
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Nanking Massacre
The killing of civilians was widespread. Foreigners who traveled widely through the city Wednesday found civilian dead on every street. Some of the victims were aged men, women and children.The Japanese looting amounted almost to plundering of the entire city. Nearly every building was entered by Japanese soldiers, often under the eyes of their officers, and the men took whatever they wanted. The Japanese soldiers often impressed Chinese to carry their loot -
The Russians send a bombing raid against Berlin
Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany, was subject to 363 air raids during the Second World War. It was bombed by the RAF Bomber Command between 1940 and 1945, and by the USAAF Eighth Air Force between 1943 and 1945, as part of the Allied campaign of strategic bombing of Germany. It was also attacked by aircraft of the Red Air Force, especially in 1945 as Soviet forces closed on the city. British bombers dropped 46,000 tons of bombs, the Americans dropped 23,000 tons. As the bombings continued -
Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt meet in Newfoundland to discuss the war
In late December 1941, shortly after entry of the United States into World War II, Churchill met in Washington, D.C., with Roosevelt in what became known as the First Washington Conference, code name "Arcadia." The conference placed first priority on the Atlantic theater and the defeat of Germany and Italy. On December 24, 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill delivered Christmas greetings to the nation and the world from the South Portico of the White House during the lighting of the National Community -
Russia calls up all men aged 18 or over for military service
This is crucial because the rusian forces became larger which ment longer and harder war. -
Battle of Midway begins
The Battle of Midway, fought over and near the tiny U.S. mid-Pacific base at Midway atoll, represents the strategic high water mark of Japan's Pacific Ocean war. Prior to this action, Japan possessed general naval superiority over the United States and could usually choose where and when to attack. After Midway, the two opposing fleets were essentially equals, and the United States soon took the offensive. -
United States Marines land on Guadalcanal
The Battle of Guadalcanal took place in 1942 when the US Marines landed on August 7th. The landing at Guadalcanal was unopposed - but it took the Americans six months to defeat the Japanese in what was to turn into a classic battle of attrition. -
Battle of Salerno begins
In September 1943, 191 soldiers of Montgomery's 8th Army downed guns and refused to take part in the battle for Salerno in southern Italy. It was the biggest wartime mutiny in British military history. -
Germans surrender Paris
The liberation of Paris, in theory, was only a matter of time after the success of D-Day in June 1944. The taking of Paris and its liberation would have been a massive morale boost not to just those who lived in Paris but to French people in general, but it did not seem to be a high priority to Allied leaders. -
Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan
The United States becomes the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Though the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War II, many historians argue that it also ignited the Cold War. -
Japanese surrender; World War II ends
By the summer of 1945, the defeat of Japan was a foregone conclusion. The Japanese navy and air force were destroyed. The Allied naval blockade of Japan and intensive bombing of Japanese cities had left the country and its economy devastated. At the end of June, the Americans captured Okinawa, a Japanese island from which the Allies could launch an invasion of the main Japanese home islands. U.S. General Douglas MacArthur was put in charge of the invasion, which was code-named "Operation Olympic
