WW2 General Info Timeline

  • Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini ordered the Italian army to invade Ethiopia in 1935

    Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini ordered the Italian army to invade Ethiopia in 1935
    The first act of European aggression was not committed by Nazi Germany. The League of Nations refused to act, despite the desperate pleas from Ethiopia's leader Haile Selassie.
  • The Neutrality Act

    The Neutrality Act
    Prohibited the shipping of arms to nations at war, including the victims of aggression. This would reduce the possibility of maritime attacks on American vessels.
  • Hitler marched troops into the Rhineland of Germany

    Hitler marched troops into the Rhineland of Germany
    Hitler directly breached the Treaty of Versailles
  • The Neutrality Act

    The Neutrality Act
    Renewed the law of the previous year with the additional restrictions — no loans could be made to belligerent nations.
  • The Neutrality Act

    The Neutrality Act
    limited the trade of even non-munitions to belligerent nations to a "cash and carry basis."
  • Quarantine Speech

    Quarantine Speech
    In Chicago for the first time, Roosevelt advocated collective action to stop the epidemic aggression. But his hopes of igniting American sensibilities failed. Even when a Japanese plane bombed the USS panay on December 12, there was no cry for a response.
  • Skirmish between Chinese and Japanese troops

    Skirmish between Chinese and Japanese troops
    Broke out at Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing.The cause of the fracas is unknown, but the Japanese government used it as a pretext to launch a full-scale invasion of China. Hoping to deliver a quick knockout punch, the Japanese furiously bombed Chinese cities and advanced with their better-equipped army.
  • Nonaggression Pact

    Nonaggression Pact
    Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin agreed to put their mutual hatred aside. Germany and the Soviet Union signed a ten-year Nonaggression Pact. Hitler was now free to seize the territory Germany had lost to Poland as a result of the Treaty of Versailles.
  • Nazi Troops

    Nazi Troops
    Nazi troops crossed into Poland from the west.
  • WW2

    WW2
    France and Great Britain declared war on Germany. World War II had begun.