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Japanese invasion of China
In 1937 skirmishing between Japanese and Chinese troops on the frontier.. This fighting sparked a full-blown conflict, the Second Sino-Japanese War. Although the Japanese quickly captured all key Chinese ports and industrial centres, including cities such as the Chinese capital Nanking and Shanghai, CCP and KMT. Japanese troops slaughtered an estimated 300,000 civilians and raped 80,000 women. Warfare of this nature led, by the war’s end, to an estimated 10 to 20 million Chinese civilians death -
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WWII Timeline Project
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German Blitzkrieg
blitzkrieg is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower.German forces tried out the blitzkrieg in Poland in 1939 before successfully employing the tactic with invasions of Belgium, the Netherlands and France in 1940. -
Germany's Invasion of Poland
One of Adolf Hitler's first major foreign policy initiatives after coming to power was to sign a nonaggression pact with Poland in January 1934. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border and advanced on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack. Nazi Germany occupied the remainder of Poland when it invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Poland remained under German rule.. -
Fall of Paris
German forces defeated Allied forces in a series of mobile operations, eventually leading to the conquest of France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, bringing land operations on the Western Front to an end until 1944. -
Operation Barbarossa
The operation was driven by Adolf Hitler's ideological desire to conquer Soviet territory. Over the course of the operation, about four million soldiers of the Axis powers invaded the Soviet Union along a 2,900-kilometer front, the largest invasion force in the history of warfare. the Germans won resounding victories and occupied some of the most important economic areas of the Soviet Union, mainly in Ukraine, both inflicting and sustaining heavy casualties.Opening of the Eastern Front. -
Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor,by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters. Was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II. -
Wannsee Conference
The purpose of the conference was to talk about the final solution to the Jewish question, whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to Poland and murdered. Heydrich outlined how European Jews would be rounded up from west to east and sent to extermination camps in the General Government (the occupied part of Poland), where they would be murdered. -
Bataan Death March
Prisoners were stripped of their weapons and valuables, and told to march to Balanga, the capital of Bataan. Some were beaten, bayoneted, and otherwise horribly mistreated. The first major atrocity occurred when approximately 350 to 400 Filipino officers and NCOs were summarily executed near the Pantingan river after they had surrendered. Result 21,600+ Dead Filipino and American (POW). -
Battle of Midway
A decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II. the United States Navy under Admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chuichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondo near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that proved irreparable. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval. -
Battle of Stalingrad
Was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in Southern Russia, on the eastern boundary of Europe. Resulted in Soviet Union victory. -
Operation Gomorrah
Created one of the largest firestorms raised by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces in World War II, Killing 42,600 civilians and wounding 37,000 in Hamburg and virtually destroying most of the city. Lasting for 8 days and 7 nights. The city never recovered. -
Allied invasion of Italy
Was the Allied amphibious landing on mainland Italy that took place on 3 September 1943 during the early stages of the Italian Campaign of World War II. Allied victory. -
D-Day
The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, and contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front. Allied casualties were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead. -
Operation Thunderclap
The plan envisaged a massive attack on Berlin in the belief that would cause 220,000 casualties with 110,000 killed, many of them key German personnel, which would shatter German morale. However, it was later decided that the plan was unlikely to work. -
Battle of Okinawa
The 82-day-long battle lasted from 1 April until 22 June 1945. After a long campaign of island hopping, the Allies were approaching Japan, and planned to use Okinawa, a large island only 340 mi (550 km) away from mainland Japan, as a base for air operations on the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland, Resulted in
Allied victory, -
Battle of Iwo Jima
A major battle in which the U.S. Marines landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.The goal was to capture the entire island, including the three Japanese-controlled airfields. This five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the War in the Pacific of World War II. American's won. -
VE Day
The formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. It marked the end of World War II in Europe. -
Dropping of the Atomic Bombs
Dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, during the final stage of World War II. Killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history. On August 6, the U.S. dropped a uranium gun-type atomic bomb (Little Boy) on the city of Hiroshima. American President Harry S. Truman called for Japan's surrender 16 hours later, warning them to "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen. -
VJ Day
The day on which Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect ending the war. -
Battle of the Bulge
A major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. Surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard. Resulted in Allied victory, German operational failure.
