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Germany invades Poland
Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. From East Prussia and Germany in the north and Silesia and Slovakia in the south, 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. -
Stalin attacks Finland
Stalin wanted some small peices of land in Finland and a couple of ports so that he would be able to launch into the North Sea easily, Finland refused and The USSR airforce dropped bombs and leaflets on cities. -
Germany attacks France
The successful German invasion of France, defeating primarily French forces. -
Winston Churchill becomes prime minister of Britain
Was made prime minister on the same day that Germany invaded Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg ending the 'Phoney War'.Once he had taken office, Churchill wrote that he felt he was ‘walking with destiny'. Three days later he told the House of Commons that he had ‘nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat’, and set the mood of the nation by declaring the British aim was, ‘Victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terror. Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for w -
Battle of Britain
Britain was invaded by the Germans . -
Hitler takes over the Balkans
Hitler wanted to take the Balkans to expand the amount of area available for his invasion of the USSR. He believed a larger area to invade would increase success plus he wanted to make it easier to bring more supplies across the USSR instead of just in Poland. -
Lend-Lease Act
Passed on March 11, 1941, this act set up a system that would allow the United States to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the United States. -
German Blitzkrieg on Soviet Union
Red Army launched its devastating counteroffensive on Germany. Hitler realized that he would lose the war, but of course he was not prepared to let the German public know -
Bombing of Pearl Harbor
Suprise aerial attack on U.S. naval base at Peral Habor, by the Japanese. Which is also said to be "A date which will live in infamy" by Franklin D. Roosevelt. -
Formation of the U.N.
Coined by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt was first used in the Declaration by United Nations, during the Second World War, when representatives of 26 nations pledged their Governments to continue fighting together against the Axis Powers. -
Holocaust
The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. -
Japanese Internment Camps
When the United States of America decided to take all Japanese-Americans and put them in internment camps, people were taken away from the places, things, and people that they loved in life. These camps were called America's Concentration Camps, and the U.S. did not realize that they were doing the exact same thing as the nazis. -
Battle of Midway
Fought almost entirely with aircraft. -
Battle of El Alamein
This was a battle of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, fought on the northern coast of Egypt between Axis forces (Germany and Italy) -
Battle of Stalingrad
Greatest battle of the Russians Great Patriotic War . -
Guadalcanal
Series of WWII land and sea clashes between allied and Japanese forces . -
Tehran Conference
Meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill, & Stalin in Terhran during WWII. -
D-Day
160,000 Allied troops landed along the French coastline to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. -
Yalta Conference
Major WWII confrence at Yalta between the 3 allies U.S., Britain, & Soviet Union. -
F.D.R’s death
On the afternoon of April 12, Roosevelt said, "I have a terrific pain in the back of my head." He then slumped forward in his chair, unconscious, and was carried into his bedroom. The president's attending cardiologist, Dr. Howard Bruenn, diagnosed a massive cerebral hemorrhage (stroke). -
Mussolini’s assassination
Mussolini attempted to escape north, only to be captured and near Lake Como. His body was then taken to Milan where it was hung upside down at a petrol station for public viewing and to provide confirmation of his demise. -
Hitler’s suicide
Committed suicide by gunshot on 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. -
Potsdam Conference
The Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States met to disscus the establishment of post-war order, peace treaties issues, and countering the effects of the war. -
McArthur’s plan for Japan
General Douglas MacArthur became Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan, and was in charge of its ruling. He acted as leader until 1948, oversaw the rebuilding of the country and the formation of a democratic government, and helped to draft a new constitution. Under his guidance, Japan recovered from the war and was on its way to becoming a leading industrial world power -
Atomic bomb on Hiroshima & Nagasaki
The atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan were conducted by the United States during the final stages of World War II in 1945. The two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date. -
Nuremburg Trials
A series of trials where former Nazi leaders indicted and tried as war criminals by the International Military Tribunal. -
Cold War
Restricted rivalry between the United Staes, Soviet Union, and their allies. -
Marshall Plan
U.S. sponsored program designed to rehabiliate the the economies of 17 western and southern European countries in order to create stable conditions in which democratic institutions could survive. -
Berlin Airlift
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Berlin Airlift
Allied aircraft logged the 100,000th flight of the Berlin airlift. The airlift began after World War II when Germany was occupied territory and Berlin was surrounded by the Soviet zone. The city itself was divided into four sectors controlled by Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. -
Berlin Wall
Barrier that surrounded West Berlin and prevented acess to it from East Berlin. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
Was one of the major confrontations of the Cold War, and is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflic
