WWII Timeline

  • The Battle of Britain

    The Battle of Britain
    The Battle of Britain was a major air campaign fought largely over southern England in the summer and autumn of 1940. After the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk and the Fall of France, Germany planned to gain air superiority in preparation for an invasion of Great Britain.
  • The Bombing of Pearl Harbor

    The Bombing of Pearl Harbor
    The Bombing of Pearl Harbor happened when the Japanese military launched a surprise attack on the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This started early in 1941 when the U.S. had been supplying Great Britain in its fight against the Nazis. It had also been pressuring Japan to halt its military expansion in Asia and the Pacific.
  • The Battle of Midway

    The Battle of Midway
    The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place 4–7 June 1942, six months after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea.
  • The Battle of Stalingrad

    The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia.
  • Operation Torch

    Operation Torch was an Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of securing victory in North Africa while allowing American armed forces the opportunity to begin their fight against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy on a limited scale.
  • Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Program

    The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section Unit was a program established by the Allies in 1943 to help protect cultural property in war areas during and after World War II.
  • The Battle of Kursk

    The Battle of Kursk occurred in July 1943 around the Soviet city of Kursk in western Russia, as Germany launched Operation Citadel, Hitler's response to his devastating defeat by the Soviet Red Army at the Battle of Stalingrad.
  • D-Day

    The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it is the largest seaborne invasion in history.
  • The Battle of the Bulge

    The Battle of the Bulge was Adolf Hitler's last major offensive in World War II against the Western Front. Lasting six brutal weeks, from December 16, 1944, to January 25, 1945, the assault took place during frigid weather conditions.
  • The Battle of Iwo Jima

    The Battle of Iwo Jima
    The Battle of Iwo Jima happened when the U.S. Marines invaded Iwo Jima, after months of naval and air bombardment. The Japanese defenders of the island were dug into bunkers deep within the volcanic rocks. Approximately 70,000 U.S. Marines and 18,000 Japanese soldiers took part in the battle.
  • The Battle of Okinawa

    The Battle of Okinawa
    The Battle of Okinawa was World War II's last major battle, also known as the bloodiest of the Pacific campaign. At dawn on Easter, April 1, 1945, a fleet of 1,300 U.S. ships and 50 British ships closed in for the invasion of the island, which is part of Japan's southernmost prefecture.
  • The Death of FDR

    Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. He was a member of the Democratic Party and is the only U.S. president to have served more than two terms.
  • The Death of Adolf Hitler

    Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934.
  • Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima

    The first atomic bomb, named Little Boy, was dropped on Hiroshima from the Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber, at 8:15 AM on August 6, 1945. The second bomb, named Fat Man, was dropped on Nagasaki from the Bockscar, also a B-29 bomber, at 11:02 AM on August 9, 1945.
  • Atomic Bombing Nagasaki

    On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict.