WWII Timeline

  • Invasion of Manchuria

    Invasion of Manchuria
    The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on 18 September 1931, when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria immediately following the Mukden Incident. ... Their occupation lasted until the Soviet Union and Mongolia launched the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation in 1945.
  • Hitler becomes Chancellor

    Hitler becomes Chancellor
    Hitler attained power in March 1933, after the Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act of 1933 in that month, giving expanded authority. President Paul von Hindenburg had already appointed Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933 after a series of parliamentary elections and associated backroom intrigues.
  • Invasion of Ethiopia

    Invasion of Ethiopia
    A border incident between Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland that December gave Benito Mussolini an excuse to intervene. Rejecting all arbitration offers, the Italians invaded Ethiopia on October 3, 1935.
  • Munich Conference

    Munich Conference
    Munich Conference. Conference held in Munich on September 28--29, 1938, during which the leaders of Great Britain, France, and Italy agreed to allow Germany to annex certain areas of Czechoslovakia. The Munich Conference came as a result of a long series of negotiations.
  • Kristallnacht

    Kristallnacht
    Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November Pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by SA paramilitary forces and civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. The German authorities looked on without intervening.
  • Non-Aggression Pact

    Non-Aggression 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.
  • Invasion of Poland

    Invasion of Poland
    On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. ... After heavy shelling and bombing, Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 27, 1939. Britain and France, standing by their guarantee of Poland's border, had declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939
  • Invasion of France (include Dunkirk)

    Invasion of France (include Dunkirk)
    As the Allies were losing the Battle of France on the Western Front, the Battle of Dunkirk was the defense and evacuation to Britain of British and other Allied forces in Europe from 26 May to 4 June 1940. After the Phoney War, the Battle of France began in earnest on 10 May 1940.
  • Battle of Britain

    Battle of Britain
    The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It has been described as the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces
  • Pearl Harbor

    Pearl Harbor
    The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, preemptive military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 08:00, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941.
  • Bataan Death March

    Bataan Death March
    The Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000–80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war from Saysain Point, Bagac, Bataan and Mariveles to Camp O'Donnell, Capas, Tarlac, via San Fernando, Pampanga, where the prisoners were loaded onto trains.
  • Battle of Midway

    Battle of Midway
    The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea.
  • Stalingrad

    Stalingrad
    DescriptionIn the Battle of Stalingrad, Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia
  • Normandy Invasion (D-day)

    Normandy Invasion (D-day)
    The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history.
  • Battle of the Bulge

    Battle of the Bulge
    The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Counteroffensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II, and took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945.
  • V-E Day

    V-E Day
    Victory in Europe Day, generally known as VE Day or V-E Day, is a day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on 8 May 1945.
  • Iwo Jima and Okinawa

    Iwo Jima and Okinawa
    Iwo Jima and Okinawa: Death at Japan's Doorstep. In 1945, US forces bounded forward in the central Pacific as combat reached ever bloodier crescendos. ... On Iwo Jima, Marines achieved a costly victory as they grappled with tenacious Japanese defenders dug into the island's volcanic terrain.
  • The Yalta Conference

    The Yalta Conference
    The Yalta Conference, also known as the Crimea Conference and code-named the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe
  • Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
    The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, with the consent of the United Kingdom, as required by the Quebec Agreement
  • V-J Day

    V-J Day
    Victory over Japan Day is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end.