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Japanese invasion of China
Japan was a small island that lacked important resources. They knew they could get some of these resources, as well as cheap labor, by invading China. Japan also invaded china as pay back, they fought many little battles but nothing compared to this... Furthermore, because of Japanese advances, many Japanese were killed and Chinese were forced to move their capital from Beijing to Chongqing because of the Japanese invasion. Throughout World War II, Japan controlled Chinese territory. -
Rape of Nanjing
Imperial Japanese Army forces brutally murdered and raped hundreds of thousands of people–including both soldiers and civilians–in the Chinese city of Nanking (or Nanjing). -
German Blitzkrieg
A German term for “lightning war,” blitzkrieg is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower. Its successful execution results in short military campaigns, which preserves human lives and limits the expenditure of artillery. -
Germany's invasion of Poland
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler claimed the massive invasion was a defensive action, but Britain and France were not convinced. On September 3, they declared war on Germany, heavy shelling and bombing were done, initiating World War II. To Hitler, the conquest of Poland would bring Lebensraum, or “living space,” for the German people. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion... -
Fall of Paris
The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries during the Second World War. ... German forces occupied Paris unopposed on 14 June after a chaotic period of flight of the French government that led to a collapse of the French army. -
Barbarossa
This was the code name for the Axis powers invasion of the Soviet Union.....The German invasion of the Soviet Union, which was launched on June 22, 1941. The failure of German troops to defeat Soviet forces in the campaign signaled a crucial turning point in the war. -
Pearl Harbor
The Japanese attack had several major aims. First, it intended to destroy important American fleet units, 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. Because of the attacks Roosevelt signed the declaration of war later the same day. Public opinion had been moving towards support for entering the war, but considerable opposition remained until the attack. -
Bataan Death March
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. Prisoners were forced to march long distances in bitter cold, with little or no food, water, or rest. Those who could not keep up were shot. The largest death marches took place in the winter, when the Soviet army began its liberation of Poland. -
Battle of Midway
The United States Navy defeated a Japanese attack against Midway Atoll, marking a turning point in the war in the Pacific theater. The Battle of Midway was the high water mark for the Japanese. Their navy nearly destroyed was now on the defensive. The battle also marked an important turning point as it showed the importance of aircraft carriers as the key to the Pacific theater of operations. Air power by sea was going to win the war. -
Warsaw Ghetto uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was nothing less than a revolution in Jewish history. Jews had resisted the Nazis with armed force. The significance and symbolic resonance of the uprising went far beyond those who fought and died. ... They chose to die fighting and to inflict casualties on the enemy. -
Operation Thunderclap
Operation Thunderclap was shelved and never implemented. The plan envisaged a massive attack on Berlin that would cause 220,000 casualties with 110,000 killed, many of them key German personnel, which would shatter German morale. -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion)
Allied forces launched a combined naval, air and land assault on Nazi-occupied France. Code-named Operation 'Overlord', the Allied landings on the Normandy beaches marked the start of a long and costly campaign to liberate north-west Europe from German occupation. -
Battle of the Bulge
The attack is strictly known as the Ardennes Offensive but because the initial attack by the Germans created a bulge in the Allied front line, it has become more commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge. The attempt was made to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. -
Liberation of concentration camps
The Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying. It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
It was the first major battle of World War II to take place on Japanese homeland. The island of Iwo Jima was a strategic location because the US needed a place for fighter planes and bombers to land and take off when attacking Japan. It was the only Marine battle where the American casualties, 26,000, exceeded the Japanese -- most of the 22,000 defending the island. -
Battle of Okinawa
The capture of Okinawa was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the Far East. Okinawa was to prove a bloody battle even by the standards of the war in the Far East but it was to be one of the major battles of World War Two. It resulted in the largest casualties with over 100,000 Japanese casualties and 50,000 casualties for the Allies.In the end the Allies ended up winning the battle and occupied Okinawa. -
VE Day
VE Day was the public holiday celebrated to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. -
Potsdam Declaration
This was an agreement between three of the Allies of World War II, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union. It concerned the military occupation and reconstruction of Germany, its borders. -
Dropping of the atomic bombs
President Harry S. Truman, warned by some of his advisers that any attempt to invade Japan would result in horrific American casualties, ordered that the new weapon be used to bring the war to a speedy end. On August 6, 1945, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.The devastation was beyond anything seen before. The city was immediately flattened. ... Shortly afterwards, on 15 August 1945, Japan finally admitted defeat. -
VJ Day
it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. This sparked spontaneous celebrations over the final ending of the war.
