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Greece surrenders to the Nazis.
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Adolf Hitler signs the order for the assualt on Poland.
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Germany Invades Poland; initiating World War 2
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World War 2 also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It started because prior to the war, Germany was still upset about World War 1 and treaty of Versailles and wanted to restore Germany's pride starting with there recently new dictator, Adolf Hitler. It involved the vast majority of the world's nations including all of the great powers and eventually forming two opposing military alliances, the Allies and the Axis.
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Great Britian and France declare war on Germany honoring there commitment to Poland.
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Canada declares war on Germany.
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Warsaw, Poland surrrenders to German forces.
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The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations for its aggression against Finland.
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The Olympic Games of 1940 that were supposed to be Held in Finland were Cancelled.
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Germany invades Denmark and Norway with the first major airborn attacks on allied forces. Denmark surrenders on the first day of the attack.
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Germany invades Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg.
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Italy joins World War 2 as an Ally of Germany.
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Italy declares war against the Allies. Great Britain, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India and South Africa declare war on Italy.
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Germany launches an air attacks on Great Britain. These attacks last until the end of October and are known as the Battle of Britain.
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Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact creating the Axis Alliance.
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The Japanese attack the US Navy in Pearl Harbor. The next day the US enters World War II on the side of the Allies.
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President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act
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Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria invade and dismember Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia surrenders on April 17.
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United States freezes German and Italian assets in America.
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Germany invades the Soviet Union violating the Nonaggression Pact. U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson estimates that it will take Hitler less than three months to conquer the Soviet Union.
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Mass murder of Jewish people at Auschwitz begins.
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his State of the Union address in which he proposes a massive government spending budget, the largest in American history.
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Japanese fighter planes attack the American base at Pearl Harbor destroying U.S. aircraft and naval vessels, and killing 2,355 U.S. servicemen and 68 civilians.
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Germany and Italy, Japan's allied partners, declare war on the United States. The United States declares war on Germany, Italy, and Japan.
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Twenty-six Allied countries signed the Declaration by United Nations during the Arcadia Conference.
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The US Navy defeats the Japanese navy at the Battle of Midway.
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Germans begin the mass deportation of over 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center.
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Germany begins its assault on the Russian city of Stalingrad. In a battle rage for six months, and take hundreds of thousands of German and Russian lives, the Red Army finally defeats invading Nazis.
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Germans complete the mass deportation of about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka.
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The USSR soldiers begin fighing the Germans troops that were in Stalingrad.
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The Casablanca Conference was a meeting between the U.S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Britians Prime Minister, Winston Churchil. During the meeting Roosevelt announces the war can only end with "unconditional German surrender".
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Allied troops land successfully near Anzio, just south of Rome.
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German troops surrender at Stalingrad, making this event the first big defeat of Hitler's armies. One reason that caused the Germans surrender in Stalingrad was because of Russia's harsh winter, the German were not used to the extremely cold temepertaures.
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Germans began a withdrawal from Tunisia, Africa becasue the Allies were near and would soon take back Tunisia.
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In the Warsaw ghetto, uprisings and resistance from the Jews begin to take place in the Warsaw ghetto. Meaning they fought back against the Nazi's and the SS police with firearms, but unfortunately the SS almost immediately attacked them back.
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Jewish resistance ends in the Warsaw ghetto due to the Nazis soliders overpowering the Jews and then evenutally killing all the Jews that was part of the uprising.
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Heinrich Himmer commanded that there be a liquidation of all Jewish ghettos that hadn't already been liquidated. Liquidation was the Nazis way of deceiving the Jews and telling them that they will be relocated, but in reality they were being sent to concentraction camps to either be worked or killed.
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The Germans launch a massive tank offensive near Kursk in the Soviet Union. The Soviets bounce back from the attack within a week and begin an offensive initiative of their own.
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The Germans immediately seize control of Rome and northern Italy, establishing a regime under Mussolini, who is freed from imprisonment by German commandos on September 12.
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Soviet troops liberate Kiev.
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Allied troops land successfully near Anzio, just south of Rome.
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Fearing Hungary’s intention to desert the Axis partnership, the Germans occupy Hungary and force their leader, Admiral Miklos Horthy, to step down and appoint a pro German minister as president.
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Allied troops liberate Rome. Within six weeks,American bombers could hit targets in eastern Germany for the first time.
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British and US troops successfully land on the Normandy beaches of France, opening a “Second Front” against the Germans. Also known as D-Day and with Americans on German territory that only meant the end of the war was fastly aprroaching for the Germans.
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American forces break out of the Normandy beachhead and race eastward towards Paris.
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The non-communist Home Army rises up against the Germans in an effort to liberate Warsaw before the arrival of Soviet troops. The Soviet advance halts on the east bank of the Vistula. On October 5, the Germans accept the surrender of the remnants of the Home Army forces fighting in Warsaw.
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Allied troops reach Paris and on August 25, Free French forces, supported by Allied troops, enter the French capital. By September, the Allies reach the German border. By December, virtually all of France, most of Belgium, and part of the southern Netherlands are liberated.
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Finland made a truce with the Soviet Union, leaving the Axis partnership.
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US troops land in the Philippines.
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The Germans launch a final offensive in the west, known as the Battle of the Bulge, in an attempt to reconquer Belgium and split the Allied forces along the German border. By January 1, 1945, the Germans are in retreat.
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U.S. troops cross the Rhine River at Remagen.
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The Soviets launch their final offensive, circling around Berlin.
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Hitler commits suicide in his underground bunker. Historians theories is that Hitler killed himself by swallowing cyanide capsules then shooting himself with a pistol for good measures, but not right before his wife he married two days earlier, Eva Braun, swallowed the capsules too.
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Germany surrenders to the western Allies.
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Germany surrenders to the Soviets.
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The United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in revenge of Pear Harbor and it was the only way to force the Japanese to surrender.
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The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and invades Manchuria.
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The United States and President Harry Truman decides to drop another atomic bomb on Nagasaki for Japan's total surrender.
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Having agreed in principle to unconditional surrender on August 14, 1945, Japan formally surrenders, ending World War II.