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The Invasion of Poland
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939, was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union, which marked the beginning of World War II. -
Operation Torch
Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of securing victory in North Africa while allowing American armed forces the opportunity to begin their fight against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy on a limited scale. -
The Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was a series of air battles in 1940 between the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the German Luftwaffe. The battle took place over southern England and was a turning point in World War II. -
The Bombing of Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor[nb 3] was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. At the time, the U.S. was a neutral country in World War II. The air raid on Pearl Harbor, which was launched from aircraft carriers, resulted in the U.S. entering the war on the side of the Allies on the day following the attack. -
The Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Japanese Combined Fleet under the command of Isoroku Yamamoto suffered a decisive defeat by the U.S. Pacific Fleet near Midway Atoll, about 1,300 mi (1,100 nmi; 2,100 km) northwest of Oahu. -
The Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a brutal World War II battle that took place in the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd, Russia) from August 1942 to February 1943. The Soviet Union defeated the German army in this battle, which was one of the bloodiest in history. -
Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Program
The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section Unit (MFAA) was a program established by the Allies in 1943 to help protect cultural property in war areas during and after World War II. The group of about 400 service members and civilians worked with military forces to protect historic and cultural monuments from war damage, and as the conflict came to a close, to find and return works of art and other items of cultural importance that had been stolen by the Nazis or hidden for safekeeping. -
The Battle of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front battle between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in southwestern Russia during the summer of 1943, resulting in a Soviet victory. The Battle of Kursk is the single largest battle in the history of warfare -
D-Day (June 6th, 1944)
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it is the largest seaborne invasion in history. -
The Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during the Second World War, taking place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. -
The Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and United States Navy (USN) landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II. -
The Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa codenamed Operation Iceberg was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army and United States Marine Corps forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. The initial invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945 was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II. -
The Death of FDR
Roosevelt won reelection in 1944 but died in 1945 after his physical health seriously and steadily declined during the war years. Since then, several of his actions have come under criticism, such as his ordering of the internment of Japanese Americans. -
The Death of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945 after being hunted by Soviet troops storming Berlin. -
Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima
1 of 2 atomic bombs dropped on japan to end the war in the pacific -
Atomic Bombing Nagasaki
On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and they remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict.