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Germany Invaded Poland (Blitzkrieg)
Hitler was convinced that the deployment of the world's first armoured corps would swiftly defeat the Polish armed forces in a blitzkrieg offensive. Secondly, he judged the British and French prime-ministers, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, to be weak, indecisive leaders who would opt for a peace settlement rather than war. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/invasion_poland_01.shtml -
Germany Invade France
The Germans goal was to crush any allied resistance. This would be achieved using Blitzkrieg.
https://www.secondworldwarhistory.com/invasion-of-france.asp -
Germany Bombs London, Battle of Britain
On September 7, 1940, 300 German bombers raided London in what would be the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. This "blitzkrieg" would continue until May 1941.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-britain -
Lend Lease
The Lend-Lease Act was a compromise that allowed the United States to provide aid to England while avoiding full involvement in World War II.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/lend-lease-act -
Germany Invades Soviet Union
The destruction of the Soviet Union by military force, the permanent elimination of the perceived Communist threat to Germany, and the seizure of prime land within Soviet borders for long-term German settlement had been core policy of the Nazi movement since the 1920s.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005164 -
Operation Barbarossa
On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union: three great army groups with over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks smashed across the frontier into Soviet territory. The invasion covered a front from the North Cape to the Black Sea, a distance of two thousand miles.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/operation-barbarossa -
Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor
The United States was particularly unhappy with Japan’s increasingly belligerent attitude toward China. The Japanese government believed that the only way to solve its economic and demographic problems was to expand into its neighbor’s territory and take over its import market.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor -
Germany Declares War on the Us
The bombing of Pearl Harbor surprised even Germany. Although Hitler had made an oral agreement with his Axis partner Japan that Germany would join a war against the United States, he was uncertain as to how the war would be engaged. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor answered that question.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germany-declares-war-on-the-united-states -
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. -
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.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bataan-death-march -
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
From April 19 to May 16, 1943, during World War II (1939-45), residents of the Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Poland, staged an armed revolt against deportations to extermination camps. The Warsaw ghetto uprising inspired other revolts in extermination camps and ghettos throughout German-occupied Eastern Europe.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/warsaw-ghetto-uprising -
Liberation of Western Europe
During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/d-day -
Battle of 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.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-the-bulge -
Liberation of Concentration Camps
Soviet forces were the first to approach a major Nazi camp, reaching Majdanek near Lublin, Poland, in July 1944. Surprised by the rapid Soviet advance, the Germans attempted to hide the evidence of mass murder by demolishing the camp.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005131 -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima during World War II stemmed from the need for a base near the Japanese coast.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-iwo-jima -
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.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
