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Japan attacks 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. -
Germany Quits League of Nations
Germany renounced its role in the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments. The act freed Germany to rearm as it pleased, ostensibly because the rest of the world refused to come down to their level of military preparedness. -
US Neutrality Acts
The Neutrality Acts were passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in the US following its costly involvement in World War I, and sought to ensure that the US would not become entangled again in foreign conflicts. -
Germany takes Austria
His very first victim was Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg, Chancellor of Austria, a country being torn apart from within by Nazi agitators and also feeling threatened from the outside by Germany's newfound military strength. Hoping for some sort of peaceful settlement with Hitler, Schuschnigg agreed to a face-to-face meeting at Berchtesgaden. The meeting was arraigned by Franz von Papen, the former ambassador to Austria. -
Nazis take Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia wass taken over in three hours. Not a single shot had to be fired to take over Czechoslovakia. -
Munich Peace Conference
The Munich Agreement was a settlement permitting Nazi Germany's annexation of portions of Czechoslovakia along the country's borders mainly inhabited by German speakers, for which a new territorial designation "Sudetenland" was coined. -
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World War II comes to Europe
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Germany Invades Poland
German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west the morning after the Gleiwitz incident. -
France Falls to the Germans
The German plan of attack, codenamed Case Yellow, entailed an armoured offensive through the Ardennes Forest, which bypassed the strong French frontier defences of the Maginot Line. The advance would then threaten to encircle French and British divisions to the north, stationed on the Belgian frontier. -
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 which began at the end of June 1940 -
Non-Aggression Pact
On August 23, 1939–shortly before World War II (1939-45) 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. -
Japan attacks China
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1945. It followed the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95.
