WWII Timeline

  • Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power in Germany

    Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power in Germany
    At the end of World War I, Hitler had been
    a jobless soldier drifting around Germany. In 1919, he joined a struggling group
    called the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, better known as the Nazi
    Party. Despite its name, this party had no ties to socialism.
    Hitler proved to be such a powerful public speaker and organizer that he
    quickly became the party’s leader. Calling himself Der Führer—“the Leader”—he
    promised to bring Germany out of chaos
  • Mein Kampf

    Mein Kampf
    In Hitler's book Mein Kampf [My Struggle], Hitler set forth the basic beliefs of
    Nazism that became the plan of action for the Nazi Party.
  • Benito Mussolini's fascist government in Italy

    Benito Mussolini's fascist government in Italy
    By 1921, Mussolini had established the Fascist
    Party. Fascism stressed nationalism and
    placed the interests of the state above those of individuals.
    To strengthen the nation, Fascists argued, power
    must rest with a single strong leader and a small group
    of devoted party members.
  • Japanese Invasion of Manchuria

    Japanese Invasion of Manchuria
    Japanese officials, the militarists launched a surprise attack and seized control of
    the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. Within several months, Japanese
    troops controlled the entire province, a large region about twice the size of Texas,
    that was rich in natural resources
  • Storm Troopers

    Storm Troopers
    By 1932, some 6 million Germans were unemployed. Many men who
    were out of work joined Hitler’s private army, the storm troopers (or Brown Shirts).
    The German people were desperate and turned to Hitler as their last hope.
  • Third Reich

    Third Reich
    In January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor (prime minister). Once in power,
    Hitler quickly dismantled Germany’s democratic Weimar Republic. In its place he
    established the Third Reich, or Third German Empire. According to Hitler, the Third
    Reich would be a “Thousand-Year Reich”—it would last for a thousand years.
  • Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia

    Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia
    Meanwhile, Mussolini began building his new Roman
    Empire. His first target was Ethiopia, one of Africa’s few
    remaining independent countries. By the fall of 1935, tens
    of thousands of Italian soldiers stood ready to advance on
    Ethiopia. The League of Nations reacted with brave talk of
    “collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression.”
  • Hitler's military build-up in Germany

    Hitler's military build-up in Germany
    Hitler pulled Germany out of the League. In 1935, he began a military
    buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. A year later, he sent troops into
    the Rhineland, a German region bordering France and Belgium that was demilitarized
    as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop Hitler.
  • Hitler invades the Rhineland

    Hitler invades the Rhineland
    He sent troops into
    the Rhineland, a German region bordering France and Belgium that was demilitarized
    as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop Hitler.
  • Rome-Berlin Axis

    Rome-Berlin Axis
    The war forged a close
    relationship between the German and Italian dictators, who
    signed a formal alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
    After a loss of almost 500,000 lives, Franco’s victory in 1939
    established him as Spain’s fascist dictator. Once again a
    totalitarian government ruled in Europe.
  • Francisco Franco

    Francisco Franco
    In 1936, a group of
    Spanish army officers led by General Francisco Franco,
    rebelled against the Spanish republic. Revolts broke out all
    over Spain, and the Spanish Civil War began. The war
    aroused passions not only in Spain but throughout the
    world. About 3,000 Americans formed the Abraham
    Lincoln Battalion and traveled to Spain to fight against
    Franco
  • Hitler's Anschluss

    Hitler's Anschluss
    On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into
    Austria unopposed. A day later, Germany announced that its
    Anschluss, or “union,” with Austria was complete.
  • Munich Agreement

    Munich Agreement
    On
    September 30, 1938, daladier and chaimberlin signed the Munich Agreement, which turned the
    Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired.
  • Joseph Stalin's Totalitarian Government in the Soviet Union

    Joseph Stalin's Totalitarian Government in the Soviet Union
    By 1939, Stalin had firmly established a totalitarian government that tried
    to exert complete control over its citizens. In a totalitarian state, individuals have
    no rights, and the government suppresses all opposition.
  • Nonaggression Pact

    Nonaggression Pact
    As tensions rose over Poland, Stalin surprised everyone by signing a
    nonaggression pact with Hitler. Once bitter enemies, on August 23, 1939 fascist
    Germany and communist Russia now committed never to attack each other.
  • Blitzkrieg

    Blitzkrieg
    This invasion was the first
    test of Germany’s newest military strategy, the blitzkrieg, or lightning war.
    Blitzkrieg made use of advances in military technology—such as fast tanks and
    more powerful aircraft—to take the enemy by surprise and then quickly crush all
    opposition with overwhelming force. On September 3, two days following the terror
    in Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany.
  • Britain and France declare war on Germany

    Britain and France declare war on Germany
    On September 3, two days following the terror
    in Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany.
    The blitzkrieg tactics worked perfectly. Major fighting was over in three
    weeks, long before France, Britain, and their allies could mount a defense. In the
    last week of fighting, the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the east, grabbing
    some of its territory. By the end of the month, Poland had
    ceased to exist and World War II had begun
  • The Battle if Britain

    The Battle if Britain
    Germans began to assemble an invasion fleet along the
    French coast. Because its naval power could not compete
    with that of Britain, Germany also launched an air war at
    the same time. The Luftwaffe began making bombing runs over Britain. To gain total control of the
    skies by destroying Britain’s Royal Air Force. Hitler
    had 2,600 planes at his disposal. The Battle of Britain raged through the summer and
    fall. German planes pounded British targets.
    Luftwaffe concentrated on airfields and aircraft.
  • Hitler's invasion of the Netherlands

    Hitler's invasion of the Netherlands
    Next, Hitler turned against the Netherlands,
    Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May. The phony
    war had ended.
  • Phony War

    Phony War
    For the next several months after the fall of Poland,
    French and British troops on the Maginot Line, a system of fortifications
    built along France’s eastern border (see map on p. 538), sat
    staring into Germany, waiting for something to happen. On the
    Siegfried Line a few miles away German troops stared back. The
    blitzkrieg had given way to what the Germans called the sitzkrieg
    (“sitting war”), and what some newspapers referred to as the
    phony war.
  • Germany and Italy's invasion of France

    Germany and Italy's invasion of France
    France’s Maginot Line proved to be ineffective; the German army threatened to
    bypass the line during its invasion of Belgium. Hitler’s generals sent their tanks
    through the Ardennes, a region of wooded ravines in northeast France, thereby
    avoiding British and French troops who thought the Ardennes were impassable.
    The Germans continued to march toward Paris
  • Marshal Philippe Petain

    Marshal Philippe Petain
    Germans would occupy the northern part of
    France, and a Nazi-controlled puppet government, headed
    by Marshal Philippe Pétain, would be set up at Vichy,
    in southern France.
  • Hitler's invasion of Denmark and Norway

    Hitler's invasion of Denmark and Norway
    Suddenly, on April 9, 1940, Hitler launched a surprise invasion
    of Denmark and Norway in order “to protect [those countries’] freedom
    and independence.” But in truth, Hitler planned to build bases along the
    coasts to strike at Great Britain. Next, Hitler turned against the Netherlands,
    Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May. The phony
    war had ended.
  • Pearl Harbor attack

    Pearl Harbor attack
    a Japanese dive-bomber swooped low over Pearl Harbor—
    the largest U.S. naval base in the
    Pacific. The bomber was followed by
    180 Japanese warplanes. As
    the first Japanese bombs found their
    targets, a radio operator flashed this
    message: “Air raid on Pearl Harbor.
    This is not a drill.”
    Japanese planes were barely disturbed
    by U.S. antiaircraft guns and
    blasted target after target. By the
    time the last plane soared off around
    9:30 A.M., the devastation was
    appalling.
  • Battle of the Atlantic

    Battle of the Atlantic
    The German
    aim in the Battle of the Atlantic was to prevent food and war materials from
    reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Britain depended on supplies from
    the sea. The 3,000-milelong
    shipping lanes from
    North America were her
    lifeline. Hitler knew that
    if he cut that lifeline,
    Britain would be starved
    into submission.
  • Lend-Lease Act

    Lend-Lease Act
    Under this plan, the president would lend
    or lease arms and other supplies to “any country whose defense was vital to the
    United States.”
    Roosevelt compared his plan to lending a garden hose to a neighbor whose
    house was on fire. He asserted that this was the only sensible thing to do to prevent
    the fire from spreading to your own property. Isolationists argued bitterly
    against the plan, but most Americans favored it, and Congress passed the LendLease
    Act in March 1941.
  • Office of Price Administration

    Office of Price Administration
    Roosevelt responded to this threat by creating the
    Office of Price Administration (OPA). The OPA fought inflation by freezing
    prices on most goods. Congress also raised income tax rates and extended the tax
    to millions of people who had never paid it before. The higher taxes reduced consumer
    demand on scarce goods by leaving workers with less to spend
  • Internment

    Internment
    To remove them would have destroyed the islands’ economy
    and hindered U.S. military operations there. However, he was eventually forced
    to order the internment, or confinement, of 1,444 Japanese Americans, 1 percent
    of Hawaii’s Japanese-American population.
  • Manhatten Project

    Manhatten Project
    Hoping to shorten that time, the OSRD set
    up an intensive program in 1942 to develop a bomb as quickly as possible. Because
    much of the early research was performed at Columbia University in Manhattan,
    the Manhattan Project became the code name for research work that extended
    across the country
  • Operation Torch

    Operation Torch
    They launched
    Operation Torch, an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa, commanded by
    American General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
  • Battle of Stalingrad

    Battle of Stalingrad
    For weeks the Germans pressed in on Stalingrad, conquering it house by
    house in hand-to-hand combat. By the end of September, they controlled
    nine-tenths of the city. The
    Soviets saw the cold as an opportunity to roll fresh tanks across the frozen landscape
    and begin a massive counterattack. The Soviet army closed around
    Stalingrad, trapping the Germans in and around the city and cutting off their supplies.
  • Women's Auxiliary Army Corps

    Women's Auxiliary Army Corps
    The military’s work force
    needs were so great that Army Chief of Staff General
    George Marshall pushed for the formation of a Women’s
    Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC). “There are innumerable
    duties now being performed by soldiers that can be done
    better by women,” Marshall said in support of a bill to
    establish the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps. Under this
    bill, women volunteers would serve in noncombat positions.
  • U.S. convoy system

    U.S. convoy system
    At the same time, the United States launched a crash shipbuilding program.
    By early 1943, 140 Liberty ships were produced each month. Launchings of Allied
    ships began to outnumber sinkings.The Allies responded by organizing their cargo ships into convoys. Convoys
    were groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection, as they had done
    in the First World War.
  • Unconditional Surrender

    Unconditional Surrender
    At this meeting,
    the two leaders agreed to accept only the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers.
    That is, enemy nations would have to accept whatever terms of peace the Allies
    dictated. The two leaders also discussed where to strike next.
  • War Productions Board

    War Productions Board
    Rationed fuel and materials vital to the war effort, such as
    gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, and plastics
  • Korematsu v. United States

    Korematsu v. United States
    In 1944, the Supreme Court decided, in
    Korematsu v. United States, that the government’s policy of evacuating Japanese
    Americans to camps was justified on the basis of “military necessity.”
  • Bloody Anzio

    Bloody Anzio
    One of the hardest battles the Allies encountered
    in Europe was fought less than 40 miles from Rome. This battle, “Bloody
    Anzio,” lasted four months—until the end of May 1944—and left about 25,000
    Allied and 30,000 Axis casualties.
  • D-Day

    D-Day
    June 6, 1944, the first day
    of the invasion. Shortly after midnight, three divisions
    parachuted down behind German lines. They were followed
    in the early morning hours by thousands upon
    thousands of seaborne soldiers—the largest land-sea-air
    operation in army history.
  • Harry S. Truman

    Harry S. Truman
    That night, Vice President Harry S. Truman
    became the nation’s 33rd president.
  • Death of Hitler

    Death of Hitler
    The
    same day, he wrote out his last
    address to the German people.
    In it he blamed the Jews for
    starting the war and his generals
    for losing it. “I die with a
    happy heart aware of the
    immeasurable deeds of our
    soldiers at the front. I myself
    and my wife choose to die in
    order to escape the disgrace of
    capitulation,” The
    next day Hitler shot himself
    while his new wife swallowed
    poison. In accordance with
    Hitler’s orders, the two bodies
    were carried outside, soaked
    with gasoline, and burned.
  • V-E Day

    V-E Day
    On May 8, 1945, the Allies celebrated V-E Day—Victory in
    Europe Day. The war in Europe was finally over.
  • The Battle of the Bulge

    The Battle of the Bulge
    Suddenly he had a flashback to a
    frozen meadow in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge in
    1945. Three German tanks were spraying his platoon with
    machine-gun fire