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Weimar Republic is Founded
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Mussolini's March on Rome
Mussolini and the Fascist Party seize power from King Victor Emmanuel III -
Hitler Writes Mein Kampf
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Mein Kampf is Published
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The American Stock Market Crash / Great Depression
Due to uneven distribution of wealth, overproduction of goods and agriculture, and extreme optimism about the U.S. economy, the stock market crashed, beginning the Great Depression -
Japan Invades Manchuria
Beginning of their attempt to form a Pacific empire -
President Franklin D. Roosevelt is Elected
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Invasion of the Rhineland
France follows appeasement -
Rome-Berlin Axis
Germany and Italy form an alliance -
Anschluss
The reunification of Austria and Germany -
Munich Conference
A meeting between Germany, France, Britain, and Italy; In a policy of appeasement crafted by Chamberlain, Britain and France allowed Hitler to take the Sudetenland, a heavily fortified area defending the Czechs from the Germans in which about 3 million German-speaking people lived; in return, Hitler agreed to respect Czechoslovakia's new borders -
Kristallnacht
"Night of Broken Glass" -
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
Despite promising not to, Hitler invades Czechoslovakia just six months after the Munich Conference -
Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
A ten-year long pledge of peace between Germany and the USSR, created because Stalin was angry with the West for excluding the Soviet Union from the Munich Conference; in a secret part of the pact, Hitler promised to divide Poland between the two countries and allow him to take over Finland and the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia -
Invasion of Poland
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Dunkirk
the Allied forces were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk by the German forces from the north and Belgium; Great Britain sent a fleet of approximately 850 Royal Navy ships across the English Channel to rescue them, and many civilian craft, such as yachts, lifeboats, motorboats, paddle steamers, and fishing boats, joined the rescue effort, despite heavy fire from German bombers, saving 338,000 battle-weary soldiers -
Operation Barbarossa
Hitler’s plan to invade the USSR, including the Siege of Leningrad and attack on Moscow - unsuccessful -
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Battle of Britain
between the RAF and Luftwaffe -
Atlantic Charter
a joint declaration upholding free trade among nations and the right of people to choose their own government, later serving as the Allies’ peace plan at the end of World War II -
Siege of Leningrad
German forces attacked Leningrad, then cut the city off from the rest of the country; nearly one million died of starvation because the Germans bombed the food warehouses, but the city did not fall -
Pearl Harbor
The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, bringing the U.S. into the war -
Japanese American Internment Executive Order
President Roosevelt issued an executive order calling for the internment of Japanese Americans because they were considered a threat to the country. The military began rounding them up in March, and relocating them to internment camps -
Bataan Death March
an extremely brutal forced march for the Allied prisoners of war up over 50 miles of the peninsula because the Japanese considered it dishonorable to surrender and therefore had the worst contempt for the prisoners of war in their charge; only 54,000 of the 70,000 prisoners survived -
Battle of the Coral Sea
A battle of new naval warfare that used aerial attacks - U.S. won -
Meeting Between Churchill and Stalin
Churchill along with the U.S. and Russia talked about strategies for the war, including where to open a second front. -
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Battle of Midway
Admiral Chester Nimitz and the U.S. fleet got information from Allied code breakers that Yamamoto would attack, allowing them to prepare and defeat the Japanese - turning point -
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Battle of Guadalcanal
several thousand Allied troops landed on Guadalcanal and Tulagi, because the U.S. military leaders had learned the Japanese were vulnerable, in the process of building a huge air base; seized the airfield easily, but battled fiercely on land and at sea for control of the island as more fresh troops poured in on either side, until the Japanese abandoned the island after losing more than 24,000 of a force of 36,000 soldiers -
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Battle of Stalingrad
The German Luftwaffe, led by General Friedrich Paulus, attacked Stalingrad, but with the onset of winter, they got cold, begged Hitler for retreat, and ate each other. This allowed the Soviets to push the Germans westward into a defensive position -
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Battle of El Alamein
General Montgomery launched a massive frontal attack with approximately 1,000 British guns on General Rommel in El Alamein, North Africa; this made the Afrika Korps retreat -
Fall of Afrika Korps
Also known as Operation Torch; an Allied force of more than 100,000 troops, mostly Americans, landed in Morocco and Algeria; they trapped Rommel’s Afrika Korps between them and Montgomery's armies, and the Afrika Korps were finally defeated -
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Invasion of Italy / Italy Surrenders
Roosevelt and Churchill landed Allied forces in Sicily, Italy, and Italy surrendered on September 3, 1943; however, Germany took control and continued to fight the Allies -
D-Day
code-named Operation Overlord; the Allies (British, American, French, and Canadian troops), led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, launched the largest land and sea attack in history on the beaches of Normandy in northwestern France. 2,700 Americans died on the beaches, but they managed to take the land -
Battle of the Bulge
German tanks broke through weak American defenses along a 75-mile front in the Ardennes, and although the Allies were caught off guard, they eventually pushed the reinforcement-less Germans back, forcing them to retreat. This marked the beginning of the end of the war in Europe -
Iwo Jima is Taken
After a month of heavy losses, American Marines took the island of Iwo Jima, 760 miles from Tokyo -
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Okinawa
U.S. troops moved onto the island of Okinawa, about 350 miles from southern Japan. The Japanese fought desperately for victory, and over 100,000 Japanese troops died and 12,000 American troops, making it one of the bloodiest land battles of the war -
President Roosevelt Dies
During the march on Berlin -
V-E Day
Victory in Europe Day -
Germany Surrenders
After six years of fighting, the surrender of the Nazis was officially signed in Berlin, marking the final end of the war in Europe -
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Potsdam Conference
Stalin, Churchill, and Truman met in Potsdam, Germany to negotiate terms for the end of World War II, specifically how to handle Germany post World War II. They split Germany; the U.S. occupied the west and the Soviets occupied the east. -
Hiroshima
The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a Japanese city of nearly 350,000 people; between 70,000 and 80,000 people died -
Nagasaki
The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, a city of 270,000, in which more than 70,000 people died immediately and radiation fallout from the two explosions killed many more -
Japan Surrenders
The Japanese finally surrendered to General Douglas MacArthur in a ceremony aboard the United States battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, ending the war and beginning the long, arduous task of rebuilding a war-torn world -
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Nuremberg Trials
Nazi war criminals, including Hermann Göring, the commander of the Luftwaffe, Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s former deputy, and other high-ranking Nazi leaders were charged with waging a war of aggression and committing “crimes against humanity” (the murder of 11 million people); ten other Nazi leaders were hanged on October 16, 1946 -
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Japan Constitution / Diet
MacArthur and his political advisers drew up a new constitution in February 1946 that changed the empire into a constitutional monarchy like Great Britain, and the Japanese accepted on May 3, 1947. The Diet, or the elected two-house parliament, was created as a result of the constitution.