World War II Timeline - David Derry

By DavidDerry

  • Adolf HItler becomes the leader of the Nazi Party

  • Benito Mussolini appointed Prime Minister of Italy

  • Josef Stalin sole dictator of the Soviet Union (USSR)

  • Japan’s Army seizes Manchuria, China

  • Japan’s Army seizes Manchuria, China

  • Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany

  • Neutrality Acts passed by US Congress

  • Italian Army invades Ethiopia in Africa

  • Militarist take control of Japanese Government

  • Hitler sends troops into Rhineland of Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty

  • Japan’s army pillages Nanjing, China; massacre a quarter of a million people.

  • Munich Pact signed giving the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany

  • Nazis begin rounding up Jews for labor camps

  • Nazi-Soviet Pact signed by Hitler and Stalin

  • Nazis invade Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany

  • Germany invades France and forces it to surrender

  • Battle of Britain – Royal Air Force defeats German Air Force to prevent invasion of their island

  • First time Peacetime Draft in US

  • Nazis invade Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium – take control

  • Churchill and FDR issue the Atlantic Charter

  • Japanese invade French Indochina (Viet. Laos, Cambodia)

  • Hitler breaks Pact with Stalin’s Russia and invades -USSR which now joins England in fighting the Germans

  • Pearl Harbor in Hawaii attacked by Japanese Naval and Air forces, US declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy declare war on the US - Dec. 9

  • Philippines fall to Japanese – Bataan Death March

  • Japanese Americans interned in isolated camps

  • Russians stop Nazi advance at Stalingrad save Moscow

  • Battle of Midway, turning point of war in the Pacific

  • British and US forces defeat German and Italian armies in North Africa

  • Zoot Suit Riots – Los Angeles, CA

  • July - Italy surrenders, Mussolini dismissed as Prime Min.

  • D-Day invasion of France at Normandy by Allies

  • Paris retaken by Allies Forces

  • Battle of the Bulge – last offensive of German Forces

  • US forces return to recapture the Philippines

  • FDR dies, Harry S. Truman becomes President

  • V-E Day, war ends in Europe

  • First Atomic Bombs dropped

  • V-J Day, Japan surrenders to Allied Forces

  • War Crimes Trials held in Nuremburg, Germany; Manila, Philippines and Tokyo, Japan.