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Japanese invasion of China (1937)
This war had started in July. The Japanese claimed that they were fired on by Chinese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing. Using this as an excuse, the Japanese launched a full-scale invasion of China using the conquered Manchuria as a launching base for their troops. -
Germany's invasion of Poland (1939)
The German invasion of Poland was an introduction on how Hitler intended to wage war. It later would become the “blitzkrieg” strategy. This was characterized by extensive bombing early on to destroy the enemy’s air capacity, railroads, communication lines, and munitions dumps, followed by a massive land invasion with overwhelming numbers of troops, tanks, and artillery. -
German Blitzkrieg (1939-1940)
An operating idea established as a solution to the trench warfare of World War I. While American, Russian, British and other armies developed similar concepts, only the German generals received support for their operational plans prior to World War II. This concept overwhelmed many in the mid 1900’s. -
Pearl Harbor (1941)
Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours, but it was devastating: The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and almost 200 airplanes. -
Operation Barbarossa (1941)
Operation Barbarossa was the term specified to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia on June 22nd 1941. Barbarossa the largest military attack of World War Two and was to have appalling consequences for the Russian people. There was a lot of destruction from this event. -
Wannsee Conference (1942)
Herman Goering, writing under commands from Hitler, had instructed Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and Heinrich Himmler’s number-two man, to submit “as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative, material, and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.” -
Operation Gomorrah (1943)
The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. The explosive power was the equal of what German bombers had released on London in their five most destructive raids. More than 1,500 German civilians were killed in that first British raid. -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion - 1944)
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. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. -
Operation Thunderclap
‘Operation Thunderclap’ had been under debate within the Allied Command for some time, the proposal was to bomb the eastern-most cities of Germany to disrupt the transport infrastructure behind what was becoming the Eastern front. Also to demonstrate to the German population, in even more devastating fashion, that the air defenses of Germany were now of little substance and that the Nazi regime had failed them. -
Battle of the Bulge (1945)
Hitler launched his last great offensive on the Western Front through the Ardennes. Known as the Battle of the Bulge because of the wedge driven into the Allied lines, the campaign lasted for approximately five weeks, and it is generally agreed that the offensive officially ended on January 25, 1945. -
Battle of Iwo Jima (1945)
The American clever 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 large network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations. -
Battle of Okinawa (1945)
The capture of Okinawa was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the war in the Far East. Okinawa was to verify a bloody battle even by the standards of the war in the Far East but it was to be one of the major battles of World War Two. -
VE Day (1945)
The eighth of May marked the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms. In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more. -
Dropping of the atomic bombs (1945)
an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world’s first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout. -
VJ Day (1945)
Both August 14 and August 15 have been known as “Victoryover Japan Day,” or simply “V-J Day.” The term has also been used for September 2, 1945, when Japan’s formal surrender took place aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay. Coming several months after the surrender of Nazi Germany,
