-
The Mussolini's March on rome was a planned coup and mass demonstration by Benito Mussolini's Fascist Party that pressured King Victor Emmanuel III to appoint Mussolini as Prime Minister. This was the effective beginning of Fascist rule in Italy, transforming the nation from a parliamentary democracy into a one-party dictatorship. It served as a blueprint for Hitler's later rise. -
Adolf Hitler wrote this autobiographical manifesto while imprisoned following the failed Beer Hall Putsch. It laid out his ideological blueprint for the future of Germany, including his antisemitism, opposition to communism, and his concept of living space in Eastern Europe. -
The five year plan was a centralized economic plan focused on rapid industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture. To transform the USSR from an agrarian society into an industrial world power capable of defending itself against capitalist nations. It led to massive economic restructuring and human cost. -
Following the death of Lenin in 1924, Joseph Stalin systematically outmaneuvered and eliminated his political rivals, notably Leon Trotsky, within the Communist Party. Through his position as General Secretary, he controlled party appointments, accumulating immense power to become the undisputed totalitarian ruler of the Soviet Union. -
Japanese Army officers staged the Mukden Incident as a pretext for a full scale invasion of China’s resource rich Manchuria region. Japan sought control over Manchuria's natural resources like coal, iron, and timber to fuel its growing industry and military expansion, a key step in their imperialist ambitions. -
The holodomor was a man made famine, primarily affecting the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, resulting from Joseph Stalin's policies of forced agricultural collectivization and exorbitant grain quotas. It was an act of genocide/mass atrocity used to crush Ukrainian peasant resistance to Soviet collectivization, eliminate political opposition, and subjugate the Ukrainian nation by destroying its agricultural base. -
German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, to the position of Chancellor in a coalition government. This was the legal starting point of the Nazi regime, allowing Hitler to immediately begin dismantling the Weimar Republic and establishing his dictatorship. -
The night of the long knives was a purge during which the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders against the leadership of the Sturmabteilung and other political opponents. Solidifying Hitler's absolute control by eliminating Ernst Rohm and the SA leadership, which he and the military viewed as a threat, and to gain the full support of the German Army. -
At the annual Nuremberg Rally, the Nazi Party announced two new laws, the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. They were fundamental antisemitic, racially based laws that stripped Jews of German citizenship and prohibited marriage or sexual relations between Jews and "Germans or kindred blood." They arranged discrimination and persecution. -
Italy under Mussolini, launched a full-scale invasion of the independent African nation of Abyssinia. This was an attempt to restore Italian national prestige, gain resources, and build an empire. It highlighted the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations, as the international body failed to prevent the aggression. -
A campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Stalin, involving widespread police surveillance, arrests, show trials, executions, and the imprisonment of millions in forced-labor camps. It served to eliminate any perceived political opposition within the Communist Party, military, and the general populace, solidifying Stalin's absolute terror-based dictatorship. -
The rape of Nanking was a period of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanking after capturing the Chinese capital. This horror was one of the worst war crimes committed by the Japanese military, demonstrating the extreme brutality and disregard for human life that characterized their invasion of China. -
Also known as the "Night of Broken Glass," this was a coordinated pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and Austria. Thousands of Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues were destroyed, and tens of thousands of Jewish men were sent to concentration camps. It was a major escalation in Nazi persecution, transitioning from systematic legal discrimination to organized, state-sponsored violence. -
The Spanish civil war was a conflict between the democratic Republican government and the Nationalist rebels led by General Francisco Franco. It was often viewed as a "dress rehearsal" for WWII, as Germany, supplying air power and tanks and Italy, supplying troops, supported the Nationalists, while the Soviet Union supported the Republicans, testing new military technologies and tactics. -
German forces, using a Blitzkrieg strategy, invaded Poland following a manufactured border incident. This invasion led directly to the declarations of war by France and the United Kingdom, beginning World War II in Europe. -
A surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This attack brought the United States into World War II against the Axis powers like Japan, Germany, and Italy.