-
Invasion of Poland
The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, and one day after the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union had approved the pact. The Soviets invaded Poland on 17 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty. -
Germany attacks France
Germany opened fire on 10 May 1940 and, after only six weeks, defeated Allied forces and conquered France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, ending ground operations on the Western Front until the Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944. Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940 and invaded France from the Alps. -
Battle of Britain begins
The battle consisted of several phases, with Germany’s widespread attacks designed to lure British fighter planes into action and inflict heavy losses upon the RAF.Following several weeks of raids that focused on British ports and shipping, the Germans moved inland in mid-August, turning their attention to airfields and other RAF targets. By early September, the Nazis believed the RAF was on the out and so changed focus again, this time concentrating their raids on London and other cities. -
Operation Barbarossa begins
Operation Barbarossa (German: Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, which started on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. The operation put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union so as to repopulate it with Germans. The German Generalplan Ost aimed to use some of the conquered as slave labour for the Axis war effort. -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The Attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, preemptive military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States (a neutral country at the time) against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 08:00, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' formal entry into World War II the next day. -
US and British troops land on the beaches of Algeria and Morocco
Operation Torch (8–16 November 1942) was an Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. The French colonies in the area were dominated by the Vichy French, formally aligned with Germany but of mixed loyalties. Reports indicated that they might support the Allies. The American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, commanding the operation, planned a three-pronged attack on Casablanca (Western), Oran (Center) and Algiers (Eastern), then a rapid move on Tunis. The Allied won. -
Hitler sends the Afrika Korps to North Africa
On 6 March 1943, Rommel was evacuated due to illness and Hitler refused his return to North Africa so on 23 February 1943 he was relieved by von Arnim as Supreme Commander of the Afrika Korps. The surviving Afrika Korps troops, under the command of von Arnim, capitulated in Tunisia on 12 May 1943. -
Allied troops land on the beaches of Salerno
Having driven the German and Italian troops from North Africa and Sicily, the Allies decided to invade Italy in September 1943. Landing in Calabria and south of Salerno, British and American forces pushed inland. The fighting around Salerno proved particularly fierce and ended when British forces from Calabria arrived. -
D-Day
D-Day is a term generically used by the Allied military in World War II to indicate the day an attack or combat operation took place. Historically, the term D-day is used to refer to June 6, 1944 in World War II, the day on which the so-called Operation Overlord began to run. -
Paris liberated by the allies
The liberation of Paris during World War II consisted of the entry of the Allies into the French capital in August 1944. The battle began with a French Resistance uprising in the city, which was soon joined by elements of the 2nd French Armoured Division and, to a much lesser extent, the 4th American Infantry División. -
Japan formally surrenders
Following the signing of the instrument of surrender, many further surrender ceremonies took place across Japan's remaining holdings in the Pacific. Japanese forces in Southeast Asia surrendered on September 2, 1945, in Penang, September 10 in Labuan, September 11 in the Kingdom of Sarawak and September 12 in Singapore. The Kuomintang took over the administration of Taiwan on October 25. It was not until 1947 that all prisoners held by America and Britain were repatriated. -
Hitler commits suicide
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and Führer ('Leader') of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. He killed himself by gunshot on 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. Eva Braun, his wife of one day, committed suicide with Hitler by taking cyanide. -
Dropping of first atom bomb on Hiroshima
On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.
