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Japan invades Manchuria
Western imperial powers in China were threatening to invade Japan. Japanese militarists hoped to build an empire to rival western colonial empires. Japan wanted to avenge it's defeat by China and the first Sino-Japanese war. -
Night of the Long Knives
The purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler. Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organization's leaders, including Ernst Röhm. -
Italy invades 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 -
Anschluss
Anschluss (German: [ˈʔanʃlʊs] ( listen) "joining") refers to the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938 -
Appeasement (Chamberlain)
Instituted in the hope of avoiding war, appeasement was the name given to Britain's policy in the 1930s of allowing Hitler to expand German territory unchecked. Most closely associated with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, it is now widely discredited as a policy of weakness. -
Kristallnacht
Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses and killed close to 100 Jews. -
Non-Aggression Pact
Shortly before World War II 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 -
Germany invades Poland
The invasion of Poland, marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union. -
France surrenders to Germany
The French government signed an armistice with Nazi Germany just six weeks after the Nazis launched their invasion of Western Europe. -
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. -
Japan Bombs 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. -
Final Solution
The Nazi policy of exterminating European Jews. Introduced by Heinrich Himmler and administered by Adolf Eichmann, the policy resulted in the murder of 6 million Jews in concentration camps. -
Final Solution
The Nazi policy of exterminating European Jews. Introduced by Heinrich Himmler and administered by Adolf Eichmann, the policy resulted in the murder of 6 million Jews in concentration camps. -
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was the largest confrontation of World War II, in which Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was the largest confrontation of World War II, in which Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia. -
D-Day
The day in World War II on which Allied forces invaded northern France by means of beach landings in Normandy. -
D-Day
the day in World War II on which Allied forces invaded northern France by means of beach landings in Normandy. -
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 -
Liberation of Auschwitz
The Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying. It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered -
V-E Day
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as VE Day or V-E Day, or simply as V-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 -
Hiroshima & 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
Victory over Japan Day is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end
