WWII

By Jett Becker

  • Musslini takes over Italy's government

    Benito Mussolini served as Italy’s 40th Prime Minister from 1922 until 1943. He is considered a central figure in the creation of Fascism and was both an influence on and close ally of Adolf Hitler during World War II. In 1943, Mussolini was replaced as Prime Minister and served as the head of the Italian Social Republic until his execution by Italian partisans in 1945.

  • Beer Hall Putsch

    It was a kidnapping plan to capture Gustav von Kahr

  • Kellogg Briand Pact

    It was created so another world war didnt happen, but failed and WWII happened

  • U.S. Stock Market Crash

    Was known as Black Tuesday, started in late October

  • Japan Invades Manchuria

    Japan defeated China

  • Nazi's reach a political majority in Germany

    When Hitler gained Dictatorship over Germany

  • Hitler becomes Germany's Chancellor

    Between 1929 and 1932, support for the Communist and Nazi parties increased. The less extreme parties were blamed for causing Germany's problems. As these parties had been unable to work together to solve country's problems, people became more afraid that the Communists may take over. The moderate parties turned to the Nazis to keep the Communists out.

  • Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations

    GENEVA, Feb. 24, 1933 -- The Japanese delegation, defying world opinion, withdrew from the League of Nations Assembly today after the assembly had adopted a report blaming Japan for events in Manchuria.

  • First Anti-Semitic Law is passed in Germany

    Antisemitism and the persecution of Jews were central tenets of Nazi ideology. In their 25-point party program published in 1920, Nazi party members publicly declared their intention to segregate Jews from “Aryan” society and to abrogate their political, legal, and civil rights.

  • Nazi invasion of Poland

    One of Adolf Hitler's first major foreign policy initiatives after coming to power was to sign a nonaggression pact with Poland in January 1934. This move was not popular with many Germans who supported Hitler but resented the fact that Poland had received the former German provinces of West Prussia, Poznan, and Upper Silesia under the Treaty of Versailles after World War I.

  • The night of the long knives (Rohm Purge)

    The four million brown shirted Nazi storm troopers, the SA (Sturmabteilung), included many members who actually believed in the 'socialism' of National Socialism and also wanted to become a true revolutionary army in place of the regular German Army.

  • Hitler openly announces to his cabinet he will defy the Treaty of Versailles

    Hitler’s had said in Mein Kampf (1924) that he would abolish the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty had said he could only have an army of 100,000 men. Hitler built up his army in secret, then, in 1935, he openly held a huge rearmament rally. Britain made a naval agreement with Germany (the Treaty had said that Germany could only have 6 battleships). In 1936, Hitler introduced conscription, and war-tested his armed forces in the Spanish Civil War.

  • Creation of the Nuremberg Laws

    On September 15, 1935, the Nazi government passed two new racial laws at their annual NSDAP Reich Party Congress in Nuremberg, Germany. These two laws (the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law to Protect German Blood and Honor) became collectively known as the Nuremberg Laws.

  • Italy invades Ethiopia

    In 1935, the League of Nations was faced with another crucial test. Benito Mussolini, the Fascist leader of Italy, had adopted Adolf Hitler's plans to expand German territories by acquiring all territories it considered German.

  • Hitler Militarizes the Rhineland

    On Friday, March 15, 1935, Hitler departed his mountain retreat and returned to Berlin. He immediately convened a Cabinet meeting and also assembled members of the Army's General Staff. He then announced a major decision he had just come to – Germany would openly defy the military limitations set by the Treaty of Versailles and re-arm.

  • Rape of Nanking

    In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army marched into China's capital city of Nanking and proceeded to murder 300,000 out of 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city.

  • Germany Annexes Austria

    In early 1938, Austrian Nazis conspired for the second time in four years to seize the Austrian government by force and unite their nation with Nazi Germany. Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, learning of the conspiracy, met with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the hopes of reasserting his country’s independence but was instead bullied into naming several top Austrian Nazis to his cabinet.

  • Hitler demands the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia

    In 1938, Adolf Hitler began to support the demands of Germans living in the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia who were seeking closer ties with Germany.

  • Munich Conference

    (September 30, 1938), settlement reached by Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy that permitted German annexation of the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia.

  • Kristallnacht

    All over Germany, Austria and other Nazi controlled areas, Jewish shops and department stores had their windows smashed and contents destroyed. Synagogues were especially targeted for vandalism, including desecration of sacred Torah scrolls. Hundreds of synagogues were systematically burned while local fire departments stood by or simply prevented the fire from spreading to surrounding buildings.

  • Einstein’s letter to FDR, “The Manhattan Project”

    With the 1938 discovery of nuclear fission, Germany had a two-year head start on developing nuclear energy; the Americans' fear was that the Nazis would shape it into a weapon of mass destruction.

  • Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

    On August 23, 1939–shortly before World War II (1939-45) 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.

  • Evacuation of Dunkirk

    The evacuation of Dunkirk, also known by the British code name Operation Dynamo, occurred between May 26th and June 3rd 1940 from the harbor and beaches of Dunkirk, France. The evacuation removed Allied soldiers, primarily Belgian, French, and British, who had been cut off by the German army during the Battle of Dunkirk.

  • France Surrenders

    The German advance continues to sweep southward driving before it not only the retreating French army, but an estimated 10 million refugees fleeing for their lives. The French abandon Paris, declaring it an open city. This allows the Germans to enter the French capital on June 14 without resistance.

  • Battle of Britain

    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. A significant turning point of World War II, the Battle of Britain ended when Germany’s Luftwaffe failed to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force despite months of targeting Britain’s air bases, military posts and, ultimately, its civilian population.

  • The tripartite Pact

    in 1940, the Axis powers are formed as Germany, Italy, and Japan become allies with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Berlin. The Pact provided for mutual assistance should any of the signatories suffer attack by any nation not already involved in the war.

  • Lend Lease Act

    Proposed in late 1940 and passed in March 1941, the Lend-Lease Act was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. It authorized the president to transfer arms or any other defense materials for which Congress appropriated money to “the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.”

  • Creation of the United Nations

    President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issue a declaration, signed by representatives of 26 countries, called the “United Nations.” The signatories of the declaration vowed to create an international postwar peacekeeping organization.

  • Bombing of Pearl Harbor

    Just before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours, but it was devastating: The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and almost 200 airplanes.

  • Operation Torch

    In preparation for Operation Torch, General Henri Giraud was smuggled out of Vichy France with the aid of the resistance. Though Eisenhower had intended to make Giraud the commander of French forces in North Africa after the invasion, the Frenchman demanded that he be given overall command of the operation.

  • 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 (1939-45), the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March.

  • Doolittle Raid

    there were mostly aircraft bombings in this raid

  • Battle of Midway

    Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States defeated Japan in one of the most decisive naval battles of World War II. Thanks in part to major advances in code breaking, the United States was able to preempt and counter Japan’s planned ambush of its few remaining aircraft carriers, inflicting permanent damage on the Japanese Navy.

  • The Wannsee Conference and the “Final Solution”

    On January 20, 1942, 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 Stalingrad

    The Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942-Feb. 2, 1943), was the successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in the U.S.S.R. during World War II. Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict.

  • Operation Barbarossa

    Operation Barbarossa was the name given to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia on June 22nd 1941. Barbarossa the largest military attack of World War Two and was to have appalling consequences for the Russian people.

  • Island Hopping (date for Buna-Gona Campaign)

    After the Battle of Midway, the United States launched a counter-offensive strike known as "island-hopping," establishing a line of overlapping island bases, as well as air control. The idea was to capture certain key islands, one after another, until Japan came within range of American bombers.

  • Operation Overloard and d day

    Operation Overloard and d day
    References:
    It.wikipedia.org,. 'Sbarco In Normandia'. N.p., 2015. Web. 19 Feb. 2015.

  • Operation Valkyrie

    Operation Valkyrie is the title most associated with the attempted assassination of Hitler in July 1944. Ironically Operation Valkyrie was a plan approved by Hitler, which was to be put into operation if there was a breakdown in communication between Hitler and the High Command in Nazi Germany as a result of Allied bombing or an uprising.

  • Discovery of Majdanek

    The Majdanek extermination camp in Lublin was liberated by Soviet troops on July 23, 1944; it was the first of many Nazi concentration camps to be liberated by the Allies.

  • Battle of the Bulge

    In December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. Caught off-guard, American units fought desperate battles to stem the German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and Bastogne.

  • Hitler’s Suicide

    in 1945, holed up in a bunker under his headquarters in Berlin, Adolf Hitler commits suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule and shooting himself in the head. Soon after, Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allied forces, ending Hitler’s dreams of a “1,000-year” Reich.

  • V-E Day

    in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine.

  • Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    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 wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.

  • The Nuremberg Trials

    Series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949. The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers along with German industrialists, lawyers and doctors, were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.

  • The Japanese War Crime Trials

    General Tomoyuki Yamashita was hanged in Manila on February 23, 1946. The fate of this officer, a first-class fighting man,affirmed something new in the annals of war. For Yamashita did not die for murder, or for directing other men to do murder in his name. Yamashita lost his life not because he was a bad or evil commander, but simply because he was a commander, and the men he commanded had done unspeakably evil things. - See more at: http://www.historynet.com/japanese-war-crime-trials.htm#stha

  • V-J Day

    On August 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as “Victoryover Japan Day,” or simply “V-J Day.”

  • The beginning of the Cold War

    Cold War is the conflict between the Communist nations led by the Soviet Union and the democratic nations led by the United States. It is fought by all means - propaganda, economic war, diplomatic haggling and occasional military clashes.