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1921, Jan. 30 Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the Nazi Party
Hitler joined the party the year it was founded and became its leader in 1921. In 1933, he became chancellor of Germany and his Nazi government soon assumed dictatorial powers. -
1922 Benito Mussolini appointed Prime Minister of Italy
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini rose to power in the wake of World War I as a leading proponent of Fascism. Originally a revolutionary Socialist, he forged the paramilitary Fascist movement in 1919 and became prime minister in 1922. -
1929 Josef Stalin sole dictator of the Soviet Union (USSR)
Joseph Stalin was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. However, he ruled by terror, and millions of his own citizens died during his brutal reign. -
1931 Japan’s Army seized Manchuria, China
Japan invaded Manchuria because they stated that the Chinese soldiers in Manchuria had ruined the Manchurian railway, which belonged to and was controlled by the Japanese.The invasion of Manchuria took place on September 18, 1931. -
1933, March 21 - Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany
In the July 1932 Reichstag elections, the Nazi party gained almost 40% of the vote making it the most powerful party in Germany. Then in, 1933, March 21, Hitler is named chancellor for Germany. -
1935 Neutrality Acts passed by US Congress
The Neutrality Acts, 1935 On August 31, Congress passed the first Neutrality Act prohibiting the export of “arms, ammunition, and implements of war” from the United States to foreign nations at war and requiring arms manufacturers in the United States to apply for an export license -
1935 Italian Army invaded Ethiopia in Africa
Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935 - 1936, an armed conflict that resulted in Ethiopia’s subjection to Italian rule. Often seen as one of the episodes that prepared the way for World War II, the war demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations when League decisions were not supported by the great powers. -
1936 Militarist take control of Japanese Government
Japanese militarism refers to the ideology in the Empire of Japan that militarism should dominate the political and social life of the nation, and that the strength of the military is equal to the strength of a nation. -
1936 Hitler sends troops into Rhineland of Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty
The occupation of the Rhineland took place following the Armistice with Germany of 11 November 1918. The occupying armies consisted of American, Belgian, British and French forces. Under the Treaty of Versailles, German troops were banned from all territory west of the Rhine and within 50 kilometres east of the Rhine. -
1937 Japan’s army pillages Nanjing, China; massacre a quarter of a million people.
The Nanking Massacre was described as a minor incident which occurred because the Japanese soldiers were too frustrated by the strong resistance from the Chinese Army. -
1938 Munich Pact signed giving the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany
The Munich Agreement was an agreement between France, Italy, Nazi Germany and Britain. After Germany invaded the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, the British and French prime ministers tried to get Hitler to agree not to use his military in the future in return for the land he had taken. Hitler agreed. -
1938 Nazis begin rounding up Jews for labor camps
Hitler rounded up many jews and put them in camps. 1938 - 1945 Hitler put jews in labor camps. -
1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact signed by Hitler and Stalin
On August 23, 1939–shortly before World War II broke out in Europe–enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years. -
1939 Sept 1st - Nazis invade Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany
Hitler declined to respond. On September 3, Prime Minister Chamberlain went to the airwaves to announce to the British people that a state of war existed between their country and Germany. World War II had begun. -
1940 July 10 Battle of Britain begins – Royal Air Force defeats German Air Force to prevent invasion of their island
In the summer and fall of 1940, German and British air forces clashed in the skies over the United Kingdom, locked in the largest sustained bombing campaign to that date. -
1940 July 14 - 22 Germany invades France and forces it to surrender
During World War II, Germany overran much of Europe using a new tactic called the Blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg involved the massing of planes, tanks, and artillery. These forces would break through enemy defenses along a narrow front. Air power prevented the enemy from closing the breach. German forces encircled opposing troops, forcing them to surrender. -
1940 May 10 Nazis invade Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium – take control
Blitzkrieg A Polish town lies in ruins following the German invasion of Poland, which began on September 1, 1939. -
1940 Sept 16 - First time Peacetime Draft in US
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, also known as the Burke-Wadsworth Act, Pub.L. 76–783, 54 Stat. 885, enacted September 16, 1940, was the first peacetime conscription in United States history. -
1941 Hitler breaks Pact with Stalin’s Russia and invades - USSR which now joins England in fighting the Germans
German–Soviet Union relations date to the aftermath of the First World War. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, dictated by Germany ended hostilities between Russia and Germany. It was signed on March 3, 1918. A few months later, the German ambassador to Moscow, Wilhelm von Mirbach, was shot dead by Russian Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in an attempt to incite a new war between Russia and Germany. -
1941 Churchill and FDR issue the Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration released by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on August 14, 1941 following a meeting of the two heads of state in Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter provided a broad statement of U.S. and British war aims. -
1941 Japanese invade French Indochina (Viet. Laos, Cambodia)
In September 1941, the Japanese invaded Vichy French Indochina to prevent the Republic of China from importing arms and fuel through French Indochina along the Sino-Vietnamese Railway, from the port of Haiphong through Hanoi to Kunming in Yunnan. -
1941, Dec. 7 Pearl Harbor in Hawaii attacked by Japanese Naval and Air forces, US declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy declare war on the US - Dec. 9
The Japanese attack had several major aims. First, it intended to destroy important American fleet units, thereby preventing the Pacific Fleet from interfering with Japanese conquest of the Dutch East Indies and Malaya and to enable Japan to conquer Southeast Asia without interference. -
1942 Russians stop Nazi advance at Stalingrad save Moscow
Fresh Soviet forces marching to the front from Moscow. The Battle of Moscow is the name given by Soviet historians to two periods of strategically significant fighting on a 600 km sector of the Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between October 1941 and January 1942. -
1942 Philippines fall to Japanese – Bataan Death March
After the April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II , the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. -
1942 Japanese Americans interned in isolated camps
The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in camps in the interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens. -
1942, June 4-7 Battle of Midway, turning point of war in the Pacific
On this day in 1942, the Battle of Midway–one of the most decisive U.S. victories against Japan during World War II–begins. During the four-day sea-and-air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one of its own, the Yorktown, to the previously invincible Japanese navy. -
1943 British and US forces defeat German and Italian armies in North Africa
The North African Campaign of the Second World War took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943. It included campaigns fought in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts and in Morocco and Algeria and Tunisia. -
1943 Zoot Suit Riots – Los Angeles, CA
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of racist attacks in June 1943 in Los Angeles, California, United States, between Mexican American youths and European American servicemen stationed in Southern California. -
1943 July - Italy surrenders, Mussolini dismissed as Prime Min.
On this day in 1943, Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy, is voted out of power by his own Grand Council and arrested upon leaving a meeting with King Vittorio Emanuele, who tells Il Duce that the war is lost. Mussolini responded to it all with an uncharacteristic meekness. -
1944 June 6 - D-Day invasion of France at Normandy by Allies
The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. -
1944 Aug. - Paris retaken by Allies Forces
The Liberation of Paris was a military action that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. -
1944 Dec. Battle of the Bulge – last offensive of German Forces
The Battle of the Bulge, fought over the winter months of 1944 – 1945, was the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies in World War Two. The battle was a last ditch attempt by Hitler to split the Allies in two in their drive towards Germany and destroy their ability to supply themselves. -
1945 Jan. – US forces return to recapture the Philippines
The Philippines campaign, the Battle of the Philippines or the Liberation of the Philippines was the American and Filipino campaign to defeat and expel the Imperial Japanese forces occupying the Philippines, during World War II. -
1945 April 16th - FDR dies, Harry S. Truman becomes President
On this day in 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passes away after four momentous terms in office, leaving Vice President Harry S. Truman in charge of a country still fighting the Second World War and in possession of a weapon of unprecedented and terrifying poor. -
1945 May 8th - V-E Day, war ends in Europe
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. It thus marked the end of World War II in Europe. -
1945 Aug. - First Atomic Bombs dropped
On August 6, 1945, during World War II, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. -
1945 Aug. 14th – V-J Day, Japan surrenders to Allied Forces
On this day in 1945, an official announcement of Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allies is made public to the Japanese people. -
1946 War Crimes Trials held in Nuremberg, Germany; Manila, Philippines and Tokyo, Japan.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo Trials or the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was convened on April 29, 1946, to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of war crimes. Class A crimes were reserved for those who participated in a joint conspiracy to start and wage war, and were brought against those in the highest decision-making bodies. Class B crimes were reserved for those who committed conventional atrocities or crimes against humanity.
