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Invasion of Poland
The German invasion of Poland was a military action of Nazi Germany aimed at annexing the Polish territory. The technical operation, known as the White case, began on September 1, 1939 and the last units of the Polish Army surrendered on 6 October of that same year. It was the detonation of the Second World War in Europe and ended the Second Polish Republic. -
German offensive to the east
The offensive of Lake Balaton, whose codename was Unternehmen Spring time, was a military operation launched by the German Wehrmacht against the Soviet forces on the Eastern Front. It constituted the last important offensive that Nazi Germany undertook against the Red Army during the Second World War. -
Invasion of the USSR
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, which started on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. The operation stemmed from Nazi Germany's ideological aims to conquer the western Soviet Union so that it could be repopulated by Germans, to use Slavs as a slave labour force for the Axis war effort and to annihilate the rest according to Generalplan Ost, and to acquire the oil reserves of the Caucasus and the agricultural resources of Soviet territories. -
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military offensive by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The attack was intended to be a preventive action aimed at avoiding the intervention of the United States Pacific Fleet in the military actions that the Empire of Japan was planning to carry out in Southeast Asia against the Ultramarine possessions of the kingdom Kingdom, France, Netherlands and the United States. -
American victory at Midway
The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The United States Navy under Admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that proved irreparable. -
Allied landings in North Africa
Operation Torch (denominated at the beginning Operation Gymnast) was the landing and progress towards Tunisia of the Anglo-American troops in the Second World War during the campaign in North Africa, started on November 8, 1942. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a military clash between the Red Army of the Soviet Union and the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany and its allies of the axis for the control of the Soviet city of Stalingrad, current Volgograd, between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943.
The battle took place in the course of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, within the framework of the Second World War. -
Italy surrenders
The Italian Campaign of World War II consisted of Allied operations in and around Italy, from 1943 to 1945. The Joint Allied Forces Headquarters was operationally responsible for all Allied land forces in the Mediterranean theatre and it planned and led the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, followed in September by the invasion of the Italian mainland and the campaign in Italy until the surrender of the German Armed Forces in Italy in May 1945. -
Allied landings in Normandy
The Normandy landings were the landing 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 was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of German occupied France from Nazi control, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. -
Germany surrenders
The German Instrument of Surrender was the legal document which effected the extinction of Nazi Germany, and ended World War II in Europe. The definitive text was signed in Karlshorst, Berlin, on the night of 8 May 1945 by representatives of the three armed services of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht and the Allied Expeditionary Force together with the Supreme High Command of the Red Army, with further French and US representatives signing as witnesses. -
Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks ordered by Harry S. Truman, President of the United States, against the Empire of Japan. The attacks were carried out on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively, which contributed, together with the Soviet-Japanese war, to the surrender of Japan and the end of the Second World War.
Between 105 000 and 120 000 people died and 130 000 were injured. To date, these bombardments are the only nuclear attacks in history. -
Japan surrenders
The surrender of Imperial Japan was announced by Hirohito on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. Together with the British Empire and China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945
