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Japan’s invasion of China
Japan invaded and occupied China. At this time, China was divided and weaker which made it easier for Japan to invade.It was turned into a nominally independent state called Manchukuo, but the Chinese Emperor who ruled it was a puppet of the Japanese -
Germany invades Poland
German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border and advanced on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack. -
Battle of Britain
German air force's attempt to gain air superiority over the RAF. It was a failure and it prevented Germany from invading Britain. -
Tripartite pact
The Axis powers are formed as Germany, Italy, and Japan become allies with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Berlin. -
Lend-Lease Act
The Lend-Lease Act was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. -
German Blitzkrieg on Soviet Union
Germany quickly overran much of Europe and was victorious for more than two years by relying on a new military tactic called the "Blitzkrieg" (lightning war). -
Germany takes Leningrad
As part of their offensive campaign in the Soviet Union, German bombers blast through Leningrad's antiaircraft defenses, and kill more than 1,000 Russians. -
Bombing of Pearl Harbor
Japan launches a surprise attack on American naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii. -
Formation of the U.N
Representatives of 26 nations at war with the Axis powers met in Washington to sign the Declaration of the United Nations endorsing the Atlantic Charter, pledging to use their full resources against the Axis and agreeing not to make a separate peace. -
Wannsee Conference
15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question. -
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway effectively destroyed Japan’s naval strength when the Americans destroyed four of its aircraft carriers. -
D-Day
Some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. By late August 1944, all of northern France have been liberated. -
The Yalta Conference
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin made important decisions regarding the future progress of the war and the postwar world taking place in Russia. -
Iwo Jima and Okinawa
Two small islands that are crucial to an invasion of Japan. -
VE Day
'Victory in Europe' (VE) Day, and it marked the formal end of Hitler's war -
Hitler’s suicide
Der Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany, burrowed away in a refurbished air-raid shelter, consumes a cyanide capsule, then shoots himself with a pistol. -
The Potsdam Conference
The Big Three—Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. President Harry Truman—met in Potsdam, Germany to negotiate terms for the end of World War II -
Atomic bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki
The US used a massive atomic weapon against Japan. This atomic bomb, the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT, flattened the city, killing tens of thousands of civilians. Three days later the US bombed Nagasaki. -
V-J Day
Known as "Victory of Japan Day" when Japan finally surrender to the Allies. -
The Truman Doctrine
President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. -
NATO
Military alliance established by the North Atlantic Treaty, which sought to create a counterweight to Soviet armies stationed in central and eastern Europe after World War II. -
Mao Zedong &People’s Republic of China
Naming himself head of state, communist revolutionary Mao Zedong officially proclaims the existence of the People's Republic of China -
Korean War
the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. -
Stalin’s death; Khrushchev
After Stalin's death, the Soviet government announces that Nikita Khrushchev has been selected as one of five men named to the new office of Secretariat of the Communist Party. He eventually became the secretary of the Communist Party. -
Warsaw Pact
The Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites sign a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. -
Vietnam war
The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States -
Sputnik
The Soviet Union vaulted ahead in the Space Race sent Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, into space on Oct. 4, 1957. -
The Bay of Pigs
1400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. -
Berlin Wall
The Communist government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” or “antifascist bulwark,” between East and West Berlin. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
Leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba -
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev was the last General Secretary of the Soviet Union. He brought about massive economic, social, and political changes and helped bring an end to both the Soviet Union and the Cold War by meeting with Ronald Reagan and developed a relationship with him. -
Soviet Union falls
Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism. -
Marshall Plan
Officially known as the European Recovery Program (ERP), the Marshall Plan was intended to rebuild the economies and spirits of western Europe
