WW2 Timeline

  • German Anschluss

  • Treaty of Munich

  • Britain rearms and reassures Poland

    Britain had begun re-arming and a highly secret radar early warning system
  • Russia and Germany sign pact

    Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression pact which included secret clauses for the division of Poland
  • 'Phoney War'

    there was no military action Sept 1939-May 1940
  • Hitler invades Czechoslovakia

    He marched into Czechoslovakia and occupied the country
  • Hitler invades Poland

    invaded Poland
  • Britain and France declare war on

    declared war on Germany
  • Hitler invades Denmark and Norway

    Hitler invaded and occupied Denmark and Norway to safeguard supply routes of Swedish ore
  • British rout Italians in North Africa

    Italian forces in North Africa were routed by the British led by General Wavell
  • Blitzkrieg

    Hitler launched this blitzkrieg (lightning war) against Holland and Belgium
  • Chamberlain resigns

    He resigned after pressure from Labour members
  • Dunkirk

    The commander was forced to retreat to the coast at Dunkirk
  • Italy enter war on side of Axis powers

    There motive to entering the war was the hope of rich pickings from the spoils of war
  • France signs armistice with Germany

  • Battle of Britain

    10 July- 31 October 1940
  • Tripartite Pact

    This pact of mutual alliance was signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan
  • Itlay and Germany attack Yugoslavia

    German field Marshall Erwin Rommel led the axis powers back to North Africa
  • Hitler attacks Russia-Operation Barbarossa

    He sent 3 million soldiers and 3,500 tanks into Russia
  • Pearl Harbor

    Japanese attacked the US pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor
  • Britain and US declare war on Japan

    They declare war
  • Japanese take Singapore

    captured from British
  • Battle of Midway

    The US defeated the Japanese navy
  • Allies in North Africa

    General Alex was given a hand-written directive
  • Allies push into North Africa

    British and American forces landed in NW of Africa
  • Battle of Stalingrad

    Russians won their first victory against Germany
  • Battle of El Alamein

    Montgomery attacked the German-Italian army in North Africa
  • Allies invade Sicily

    British and US forces invaded
  • Allies take Sicily

    The allied troops had won the island
  • Allies meet at Tehran

    Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill met to co-ordinate plans for a simultaneous squeeze on Germany
  • Axis surrender North Africa

    British and American forces managed to defeat the Axis powers
  • Italy surrenders

    Mussolini had been thrown out of office and the new government of Italy surrendered
  • Leningrad relieved

    The siege of Leningrad was lifted by the Soviet army
  • Rome liberated

    The allies were able to liberate Rome from the Germans
  • Japanese evicted from Burma

    British forces evicted the Japanese from Burma
  • Battle of Bulge

    Germany launched its final defensive through the Ardennes region of Belgium
  • D-Day

    Allies launched an attack on Germany's forces in Normandy, Western France
  • Paris liberated

    The french capital of Paris was liberated from the Germans
  • V2 Flying Bombs

    The first V2 flying bombs killed three people in London
  • Allies cross the Rhine

    The allies crossed the Rhine while Soviet forces were approaching Berlin from the East
  • Death of Roosevelt

    Died
  • Russians reach Berlin

    The Russians reached Berlin shortly before the US forces
  • Mussolini captured and executed

    Italian partisans captured Mussolini and executed him
  • Hitler commits suicide

    He committed suicide in his bombproof shelter with his wife
  • German forces surrender

    German forces in Italy surrendered to the Allies
  • German forces surrender

    German forces in north west Germany, Holland, and Denmark surrendered to Montgomery on Luneburg Health
  • Donitz offers unconditional surrender

    Hitler's successor, Admiral Donitz, offered an unconditional surrender to the allies
  • V.E.

    Victory in Europe was celebrated
  • Churchill loses election

    He lost election to Clement Atlee's Labour Party
  • Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima

    The Japanese generals refused to surrender. The US dropped an atomic bomb on the island
  • Russia declares war on Japan

    Russia declared war on Japan and invaded Japanese-ruled Manchuria
  • Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki

    The US dropped an atomic bomb on the island of Nagasaki as the Japanese had not surrendered following Hiroshima
  • Japanese surrender

    The Japanese unconditionally surrendered to the allies ending the second world war
  • MacArthur accepts Japan's surrender

    US General, Douglas MacArthur, accepted Japan's surrender thus formally ending the second world war