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The Great Depression Begins
The fragile American economy worsened when a massive financial panic led to the crash of the the stockmarket. Millions of Americans lost their jobs and their entire lives to the huge economic tragedy. -
Period: to
WWII
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Japan conquers Manchuria in northern China
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Franklin Roosevelt is elected president
He was elected president to take America out of the great depression and bring hope. He introduced america to the New Deal to America. -
Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
President Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany in hope of improving the lives of the German people. -
Nurmemberg Laws
Nazi party members publicly declared their intention to segregate Jews from "Aryan" society and to abrogate Jews' political, legal, and civil rights. -
Hitler & Mussolini form the Rome-Berlin Axis
Hitler followed up his intervention in the Spanish civil war with a warm invitation to the Italian foreign minister to come to Berlin, where on 21 October 1936, Germany and Italy signed a formal alliance which came to be known as the Rome-Berlin Axis. -
Japan joins the axis
Hitler is pleased to accomidate Japan into the axis because Japan was looking for an ally that was willing to use military aggression. -
Japan invades China
Japan invades China, which kicks off World War II in the Pacific. -
Germany invades Austria
Hitler was invited to Austria with cheers and crowds. Austria became part of the German Greater Reich; Schuschnigg was arrested and imprisoned and almost immediately the Austrian Jews lost their rights. -
Britain appeases Germany
At the Munich Conference on 30 September, Britain and France agreed to his demands. Chamberlain was confident that he had secured ‘peace for our time’. -
Kristallnacht
The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place on November 9 and 10, 1938, throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops. -
Germany & Soviet Union have a nonaggression pact
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Germany invades Poland
The German-Soviet Pact of August 1939, which stated that Poland was to be partitioned between the two powers, enabled Germany to attack Poland without the fear of Soviet intervention. -
The Final solution implements ghettos
The Germans think about a new way to get rid of the people that are racially impure. They decide that they will kill Jews and put them in camps to work until they die. Hitler's hatred for Jews was so great that he set to exterminate a whole race of people, in other words, genocide. -
Germany invades Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and France
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The War with Britain begins
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Lend-Lease Act
Seeking to move the nation towards a more active role in the conflict, Roosevelt wished to provide Britain with all possible aid short of war. As such, British warships were permitted to make repairs in American ports and training facilities for British servicemen were constructed in the US. -
Tuskegee Airmen
The segregation of African Americans in the United States army resulted in the creation of the segregated 99th Fighter Squadron, which trained at an airfield adjacent to Alabama's Tuskegee Institute. -
Germany invades the Soviet Union
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Pearl Harbor is bombed
Japan bombs Pearl Harbor and the United States declares war the next day. The bombing creates tension between the U.S. and Japan, leading the Japanese incarceration. -
The Bataan Death Mach begins
The day after the surrender of the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese, the 75,000 Filipino and American troops captured on the Bataan Peninsula begin a forced march to a prison camp near Cabanatuan. -
The Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during World War II. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. -
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway, fought near the Central Pacific island of Midway, is considered the decisive battle of the war in the Pacific. Before this battle the Japanese were on the offensive, capturing territory throughout Asia and the Pacific. By their attack, the Japanese had planned to capture Midway to use as an advance base, as well as to entrap and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet. -
Guadalcanal
The Guadalcanal Campaign was the first major Allied offensive against Imperial Japan. -
British forces stop the German advance at El Alamein
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Panzer Army Africa pressed British forces back across North Africa. Retreating to within 50 miles of Alexandria, General Claude Auchinleck was able to stop the Italo-German offensive at El Alamein. -
German forces surrender at Stalingrad
On this day, the last of the German forces fighting at Stalingrad surrender. -
Rosie the Rivete
Women responded to the call to work differently depending on age, race, class, marital status, and number of children. Half of the women who took war jobs were minority and lower-class women who were already in the workforce. They switched from lower-paying traditionally female jobs to higher-paying factory jobs. -
D-Day
Allied forces invade Normandy, France. After the German conquest of France in 1940, the opening of a second front in western Europe was a major aim of Allied strategy during World War II. -
Battle of the Bulge
Attacking through the Ardennes Forest in eastern Belgium on December 16, hundreds of German tanks and several hundred thousand German troops broke through the thinly held American lines. -
Japanese-American incarceration
Americans felt that all Japanese people were enemies and not trustworthy after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The solution for this problem was to put them in camps where they had to live to keep America safe. Japanese people often were forced to live in stalls and small rooms for a whole family. -
Allied forces advance on Berlin, Germany surrenders
The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II as well as the German surrender to the Western Allies and the Soviet Union took place in late April and early May 1945. -
Yalta Conference
In early 1945, with World War II in Europe drawing to a close, Franklin Roosevelt (United States), Winston Churchill (Great Britain), and Joseph Stalin (USSR) agreed to meet to discuss war strategy and issues that would affect the postwar world. -
Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima took place in February 1945. The capture of Iwo Jima was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the Far East. -
Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa started in April 1945. 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. -
President Roosevelt dies, Truman becomes president
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Formation of the United Nations
All 50 nations ratified the charter, creating a new international peacekeeping body known as the United Nations. President Roosevelt had urged Americans not to turn their nacks on the world again. Unlike the League of Nations, the United States is a member of the United Nations -
Potsdam Conference
Allies held the Potsdam Conference to plan the war's end. Decision was made to put Nazi war criminals on trial. -
Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki
The United States drops the atomic bomb onto Japan, ending the battle between the U.S. and Japan. -
Japanese officials sign an official letter of surrender on the U.S.S. Missouri, ending World War II
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Muremberg Trials
24 defendants, including some of Hitler's top officials. Hermann Goering-creator and head of Gestapo (secret police). Charged with crimes against humanity. 19 found guilty, 12 sentenced to death. People are responsible for their actions, even in wartime. -
Marshall Plan
Congress approved Secretary of State George Marshall's plan to help boost European economies. The U.S. gave more than $13 billion to help the nations of Europe get back on their feet.
