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German Blitzkrieg (1939-1940)
blitzkrieg describes the successful tactics used by Nazi Germany in the early years of World War II, as German forces swept through Poland, Norway, Belgium, Holland and France with astonishing speed and force.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/blitzkrieg -
Fall of Paris (1940)
the German invasion of France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands during the Second World War. On 3 September 1939, France declared war on Germany following the German invasion of Poland.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-France-World-War-II/The-fall-of-France-June-5-25-1940 -
Operation Barbarossa (1941)
Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Operation-Barbarossa -
Pearl Harbor (1941)
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 8:00 a.m., on Sunday, December 7, 1941
https://www.nps.gov/perl/ -
Wannsee Conference (1942)
The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel leaders, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/wannsee-conference-and-the-final-solution -
Bataan Death March (1942)
The Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of between 60,000 and 80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war from Saysain Point, Bagac, Bataan and Mariveles to Camp O'Donnell, Capas, Tarlac, via San Fernando, Pampanga, the prisoners being forced to march despite many dying on the journey.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Bataan-Death-March -
Battle of Midway (1942)
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/battle-midway -
Battle of Stalingrad (1942)
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Stalingrad -
Operation Thunderclap
The idea was to bomb Berlin, which would inflict many casualties. However, the project was never put into action.
https://codenames.info/operation/thunderclap-ii/ -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion - 1944)
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/d-day -
Battle of the Bulge (1945)
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in Europe.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-the-bulge -
Liberation of concentration camps (1945)
On 27 January 1945, Auschwitz concentration camp—a Nazi concentration camp and extermination camp in occupied Poland where more than a million people were murdered as part of the Nazi's "final solution" to the Jewish question—was liberated by the Red Army during the Vistula–Oder Offensive.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/liberation-of-nazi-camps -
Battle of Iwo Jima (1945)
The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps and United States Navy landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Battle-of-Iwo-Jima -
VE Day (1945)
On Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day, Germany unconditionally surrendered its military forces to the Allies, including the United States. On May 8, 1945 - known as Victory in Europe Day or V-E Day - celebrations erupted around the world to mark the end of World War II in Europe.
https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Experience/VE-Day/#:~:text=On%20Victory%20in%20Europe%20Day,World%20War%20II%20in%20Europe. -
Dropping of the atomic bombs (1945)
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 immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki#:~:text=Contents&text=On%20August%206%2C%201945%2C%20during,later%20die%20of%20radiation%20exposure. -
VJ Day (1945)
Victory over Japan Day is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/v-j-day