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Battle of the Bulge
Its objective was to split the Allied armies by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp, marking a repeat of what the Germans had done three times previously–in September 1870, August 1914, and May 1940. Despite Germany’s historical penchant for mounting counteroffensives when things looked darkest, the Allies’ leadership miscalculated and left the Ardennes lightly defended by only two inexperienced and two battered American divisions. -
Ribbentrop/ Molotov pact
On March 15, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, breaking the agreement it had signed with Great Britain and France the year before in Munich, Germany. The invasion jolted British and French leaders and convinced them that Adolf Hitler, the German chancellor, could not be trusted to honor his agreements and was likely to keep committing aggressions until stopped by force or a massive deterrent. -
Fall of Paris
By May 1940, Europe had been at war for nine months. Yet Britain and France, despite having declared war on Germany in September 1939 following Hitler’s attack on Poland, had seen little real fighting. This tense period of anticipation – which came to be known as the ‘Phoney War’ – met an abrupt end on 10 May 1940, when Germany launched an invasion of France and the Low Countries. -
Allied invasion of Italy
The British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery begins the Allied invasion of the Italian peninsula, crossing the Strait of Messina from Sicily and landing at Calabria–the “toe” of Italy. On the day of the landing, the Italian government secretly agreed to the Allies’ terms for surrender, but no public announcement was made until September 8. -
Rape of Nanking
The first troops of Japan’s Central China Front Army, commanded by General Matsui Iwane, entered the city. Even before their arrival, word had begun spreading of the numerous atrocities they had committed on their way through China, including killing contests and pillaging. Chinese soldiers were hunted down and killed by the thousands, and left in mass graves. Entire families were massacred, and even the elderly and infants were targeted for execution, while tens of thousands of women were raped -
Battle of Midway
This fleet engagement between U.S. and Japanese navies in the north-central Pacific Ocean resulted from Japan’s desire to sink the American aircraft carriers that had escaped destruction at Pearl Harbor. Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, Japanese fleet commander, chose to invade a target relatively close to Pearl Harbor to draw out the American fleet, calculating that when the United States began its counterattack, the Japanese would be prepared to crush them. -
Bataan Death march
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. -
Warsaw Ghetto uprising
In July 1942, Heinrich Himmler (1900-45), the head of the Nazi paramilitary corps known as the Shutzstaffel (SS), ordered that Jews be “resettled” to extermination camps. (The Jews were told they were being transported to work camps; however, word soon reached the ghetto that deportation to the camps meant death.) -
Battle of Stalingrad
On September 3, 1942, the German Sixth Army under Paulus reached the outskirts of Stalingrad, expecting to take the city in short order. But the Russians had built up their defenses and continued to bring in reinforcements. A very able general, V. I. Chuikov, took command of the main defending force, the Sixty-second Army, while Marshal Georgii K. Zhukov, Soviet Russia’s greatest general, planned a counteroffensive. -
D-Day
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. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. -
Liberation of concentration camps
Soviet soldiers were the first to liberate concentration camp prisoners in the final stages of the war. On July 23, 1944, they entered the Majdanek camp in Poland, and later overran several other killing centers. On January 27, 1945, they entered Auschwitz and there found hundreds of sick and exhausted prisoners. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima during World War II stemmed from the need for a base near the Japanese coast. Following elaborate preparatory air and naval bombardment, three U.S. marine divisions landed on the island in February 1945. Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops, who fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations. -
V-E Day
V-E Day- Victory in Europe Day. Both Great Britain and the U.S. celebrate V-E Day. Cities in both nations put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of Nazi war machine. The day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms. They had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more. The Germans surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany. -
Potsdam Declaration
The Potsdam Declaration or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender is a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chairman of the Nationalist Government of China Chiang Kai-shek issued the document, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. -
drop of the atomic bombs
On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Another bomb fell Aug. 9 on Nagasaki. Decades later, controversy and misinformation still surround the decision to use nuclear weapons during World War II. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-atomic-bomb/2015/07/31/32dbc15c-3620-11e5-b673-1df005a0fb28_story.html -
V-J Day
The Japanese representatives aboard the USS Missouri at the Surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. Victory over Japan Day (also known as Victory in the Pacific Day, V-J Day, or V-P Day) is the day on which Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect ending the war.
