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The Japenese invasion of China
The japenese invasion of China was known as the Second Sino-Japenese war. It was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1945. -
Rape of Nanking
The Rape of Nanking was an episode during the Second Sino-Japanese War of mass murder and mass rape by Japanese troops. It happened because -
Germany Invasion of Poland
The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border and advanced on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack. -
German Blitzkrieg
In the first phase of World War 2 in Europe, Germany sought to avoid a long war. Germany's strategy was to defeat its opponents in a series of campaigns. -
Battle of Midway
Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States defeated Japan in one of the most decisive naval battles of World War II. Thanks in part to major advances in code breaking, the United States was able to preempt and counter Japan’s planned ambush of its few remaining aircraft carriers, inflicting permanent damage on the Japanese Navy. -
Pearl Harbor
The Japanese destroyed almost 20 vessels, and 8 huge battle ships and more than 300 air planes. The attack was a surprise, but for the Japenese they had planned this forever. The Japanese plan was simple: Destroy the Pacific Fleet. That way, the Americans would not be able to fight back as Japan’s armed forces spread across the South Pacific. -
Wannasee Conference
The Wannsee Conference (German: Wannseekonferenz) was a meeting of senior officials of Nazi Germany, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. -
Bataan Death March
A march in the Philippines of 66 miles, that 76,000 prisoners of war were forced to walk by the japenese armies. The prisoners were force-marched north to San Fernando and then taken by rail in cramped and unsanitary boxcars farther north to Capas. The Japanese military had forced marches in other places it had conquered, and it worked to kill thousands of British, Dutch, and Australian prisoners of war, but those did not make headlines until later. -
Operation Barbarossa
Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union: three great army groups with over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks smashed across the frontier into Soviet territory. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was the successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad in the U.S.S.R. during World War II. Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies. -
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
German authorities murdered around 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. The Jews in the ghetto believed that what had happened in January was proof that by offering resistance it was possible to force the Germans to desist from their plans. -
Operation Gomorrah
Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. -
D-Day
Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. -
Liberation of Concentration Camps
Soviet soldiers were the first to liberate concentration camp prisoners in the final stages of the war. On July 23, 1944, they entered the Majdanek camp in Poland, and later overran several other killing centers. -
Battle of the Bulge
In December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. Caught off-guard, American units fought desperate battles to stem the German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and Bastogne. -
Iwo Jima
The American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima during World War II stemmed from the need for a base near the Japanese coast. Following elaborate preparatory air and naval bombardment, three U.S. marine divisions landed on the island in February 1945. -
Battle of Okinawa
Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa Battle involved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. -
Victory in Europe
On this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine. -
Atomic Bomb drop
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. -
Victory over Japan
Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as “Victoryover Japan Day,” or simply “V-J Day.”
