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Attack of Manchuria
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on September 18, 1931, when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria immediately following the Mukden Incident. The Japanese established a puppet state called Manchukuo, and their occupation lasted until the end of World War II. -
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany. They were introduced on 15 September 1935 by the Reichstag at a special meeting convened at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. -
Kristallnaucht
Also known as The Night of the Broken Glass, almost 200 synagogues were destroyed, over 8,000 Jewish shops were sacked and looted, and tens of thousands of Jews were removed to concentration camps. -
Invasion of Poland
Germany invaded Poland only days after signing the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, under which the Soviet Union agreed not to defend Poland from the east if Germany attacked it from the west. -
Soviet Union invaded E. Poland
On 17 September 1939, early in the morning, the Soviet Union invaded Poland. Poland was already in the state of war with Nazi Germany that had started on 1 September 1939. The Soviet invasion of Poland was a direct result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. -
France surrenders
On June 22, 1940, France signed an armistice with Germany. Hitler insisted that it be done in the same railway car in which Germany had surrendered to France in 1918, at the end of World War I. -
Lend Lease Act
Military aid to Britain was greatly facilitated by the Lend-Lease Act, in which Congress authorized the sale, transfer, or exchange of arms and supplies to any country whose in need of help. -
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the Second World War defence of the United Kingdom by the Royal Air Force against an onslaught by the German Air Force. -
German Invasion of Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. -
Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration released by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The Atlantic Charter provided a broad statement of U.S. and British war aims. -
Pearl Harbor
A major United States naval base in Hawaii that was attacked without warning by the Japanese air force on December 7, 1941, with great loss of American lives and ships. -
Japanese Internment
During World War II, the American government put Japanese-Americans in internment camps, fearing they might be loyal to Japan. -
Battle of Midway
A naval and air battle fought in World War II in which planes from American aircraft carriers blunted the Japanese naval threat in the Pacific Ocean after Pearl Harbor. -
Allied invasion of Italy
The Allied invasion of Italy was the Allied amphibious landing on mainland Italy that took place on 3 September 1943 during the early stages of the Italian Campaign of World War II. -
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord. -
German surrender
V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May, 1945, to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. -
Bombing of Hiroshima
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was almost completely destroyed by the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a populated area. -
Bombing of Nagasaki
Nagasaki suffered the same fate as Hiroshima in August 1945. The bombing of Nagasaki on August 9th was the last major act of WWII and within days the Japanese had surrendered. -
Japanese Surrender
By the summer of 1945, the defeat of Japan was a foregone conclusion. The Japanese navy and air force were destroyed. The Allied naval blockade of Japan and intensive bombing of Japanese cities had left the country and its economy devastated.
