WWII Timeline

Mussolini takes over Italy's Government (March on Rome)

Oct 24, 1922

The 1922 March on Rome was to establish Mussolini and the Fascist Party he led, as the most important political party in Italy.One of Mussolinis quotes was "Either the government will
be given to us or will shall seize it by marching on Rome."
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Beer Hall Putsch

Nov 8, 1923

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From November 8 to November 9, 1923, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and his followers staged the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, a failed takeover of the government in Bavaria, a state in southern Germany. In the aftermath of the failed “putsch,” or coup d’état, Hitler was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years in prison.
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Kellogg-Briand Pact

Aug 27, 1928

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The Kellogg-Briand Pact was an agreement to outlaw war signed on August 27, 1928. Sometimes called the Pact of Paris for the city in which it was signed, the pact was one of many international efforts to prevent another World War, but it had little effect in stopping the rising
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U.S. Stock Market Crash

Nov 2, 1929

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On November 2, 1929, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. In the aftermath of Black Tuesday, America .More info

Japan Invades Manchuria

Sep 19, 1931

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Manchuria, on China’s eastern seaboard, was attacked by Japan in 1931. The League effectively did nothing.Japan was becoming increasingly crowded due to its limited size as a nation and its rapidly increasing population. Manchuria offered nearly 200,000 square kilometres. The most obvious target was a full-scale invasion of Manchuria.
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Hitler becomes Germany's Chancellor

Jan 30, 1933

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In 1933 President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader or fÜhrer of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), as chancellor of Germany.
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Japan Withdraws from the League of Nations

Feb 24, 1933

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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. More info

Nazi's reach a political majority in Germany

Mar 5, 1933

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Nazi Germany under the leadership of Hitler soon became a dictatorship. A dictatorship requires one person and one party to be in control of a nation and a climate of fear - this was provided by Himmler's SS. Personal freedom disappeared in Nazi Germany. More info

First Anti-Semitic Law is passed in Germany

Apr 7, 1933

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Nazi leaders began to make good on their pledge to persecute German Jews soon after their assumption of power. During the first six years of Hitler's dictatorship, from 1933 until the outbreak of war in 1939, Jews felt the effects of more than 400 decrees and regulations that restricted all aspects of their public and private lives. More info

The night of the long knives (Rohm Purge)

Jun 30, 1934

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Known as the “Night of the Long Knives” or “Operation Hummingbird,” the murders cemented an agreement between the Nazi regime and the German Army (Reichswehr) that enabled Hitler to proclaim himself Führer of National Socialist Germany and to claim absolute power. More info

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

Mar 15, 1935

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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. More info

Creation of the Nuremberg Laws

Sep 15, 1935

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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. More info

Italy invades Ethiopia

Oct 3, 1935

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An armed conflict that resulted in Ethiopia’s subjection to Italian rule. Often seen as one of the episodes that prepared the way for World War II, the war demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations when League decisions were not supported by the great powers.More info

Hitler Militarizes the Rhineland

Mar 7, 1936

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Nazi leader Adolf Hitler violates the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact by sending German military forces into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone along the Rhine River in western Germany.More info

Rape of Nanking

Dec 13, 1937

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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. The six weeks of carnage would become known as the Rape of Nanking and represented the single worst atrocity during the World War II era in either the European or Pacific theaters of war.More info

Germany Annexes Austria

Mar 12, 1938

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On March 12, Schuschnigg called a national vote to resolve the question of Anschluss, or “annexation,” once and for all. Before the plebiscite could take place, however, Schuschnigg gave in to pressure from Hitler and resigned on March 11. More info

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

Aug 12, 1938

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In 1938, three chemists working in a laboratory in Berlin made a discovery that would alter the course of history: they split the uranium atom. The energy released when this splitting, or fission, occurs is tremendous--enough to power a bomb. But before such a weapon could be built, numerous technical problems had to be overcome.More info

Hitler demands the Sudetenland from CzechoslovakiaMunich Conference

Sep 30, 1938

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The successful annexation of Austria fueled Adolf Hitler's ambition, and he looked on to the German-populated regions of western Czechoslovakia, a region which the Germans called Sudetenland. More info

Kristallnacht

Nov 9, 1938

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Kristallnacht, literally, "Night of Crystal," is often referred to as the "Night of Broken Glass." 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.More info

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Aug 23, 1939

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August 23 marks 75 years since Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union signed the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It lasted a mere 22 months - and Stalin's motiviations remain disputed.More info

Nazi invasion of Poland

Sep 1, 1939

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Hitler sought the nonaggression pact in order to neutralize the possibility of a French-Polish military alliance against Germany before Germany had a chance to rearm.More info

Lend Lease Act

Mar 11, 1940

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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.More info

Evacuation of Dunkirk

May 27, 1940

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in World War II, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and other Allied troops from the French seaport of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) to England. Naval vessels and hundreds of civilian boats were used in the evacuation, which began on May 26. When it ended on June 4, about 198,000 British and 140,000 French and Belgian troops had been saved.More info

France Surrenders

Jun 17, 1940

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With Paris fallen and the German conquest of France reaching its conclusion, Marshal Henri Petain replaces Paul Reynaud as prime minister and announces his intention to sign an armistice with the Nazis.More info

Battle of Britain

Jul 10, 1940

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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.More info

The tripartite Pact

Sep 27, 1940

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On this day in 1940, the Axis powers signed th tripartite pact n Berlin forming the axis powers and provided mutual assistance in war..More info

Operation Barbarossa

Jun 22, 1941

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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.More info

Bombing of Pearl Harbor

Dec 7, 1941

ReferencesJust 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.More info

Creation of the United Nations

Jan 1, 1942

ReferencesThe United Nations was born of perceived necessity, as a means of better arbitrating international conflict and negotiating peace than was provided for by the old League of Nations. More info

The Wannsee Conference and the “Final Solution”

Jan 20, 1942

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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."More info

Bataan Death March

Apr 10, 1942

References Print Cite 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. More info

Doolittle Raid

Apr 18, 1942

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In the weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a directive that efforts be made to directly attack Japan as soon as possible.More info

Battle of Midway

Jun 4, 1942

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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.More info

Island Hopping (date for Buna-Gona Campaign)

Aug 7, 1942

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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.More info

Battle of Stalingrad

Aug 23, 1942

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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.More info

Operation Torch

Nov 8, 1942

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Operation Torch was the name given to the Allied invasion of French North Africa in November 1942. Operation Torch was the first time the British and Americans had jointly worked on an invasion plan together.More info

Operation Overlord and D-day

Jun 6, 1944

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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.More info

Operation Valkyrie

Jul 20, 1944

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Operation Valkyrie is the title most associated with the attempted assassination of Hitler in July 1944.
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Discovery of Majdanek

Jul 22, 1944

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On 24 Jul 1944, the Soviet army marched near Lublin in Poland as their campaign westward continued. They came across the abandoned Majdanek concentration camp, whose prisoners already had been herded off on a death march away from the advancing Soviet troops.More info

Battle of the Bulge

Dec 16, 1944

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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.More info

Hitler’s Suicide

Apr 30, 1945

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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. More info

V-E Day

May 8, 1945

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On Mar. 7, 1945, the Western Allies—whose chief commanders in the field were Omar N. Bradley and Bernard Law Montgomery—crossed the Rhine after having smashed through the strongly fortified Siegfried Line and overran West Germany.More info

Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Aug 6, 1945

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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. More info

V-J Day

Aug 14, 1945

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On August 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II.More info

The Nuremberg Trials

Nov 20, 1945

ReferencesHeld for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949.More info

The Japanese War Crime Trials

May 3, 1946

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In Tokyo, Japan, the International Military Tribunals for the Far East begins hearing the case against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II.More info

The beginning of the Cold War

Mar 12, 1947

ReferencesGrowing out of post-World War II tensions between the two nations, the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that lasted for much of the second half of the 20th century resulted in mutual suspicions, heightened tensions and a series of international incidents that brought the world’s superpowers to the brink of disaster.More info