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Japan Invades China
After the Mukden Incident, the Japanese had a "reason" to invade Manchuria and seize control in that area. -
Germany Invades Poland
Using the Blitzkrieg(lightning) strategy, Germany attacked Poland from air and land to control and racially cleanse the territory. -
Battle of Britain
Great Britain defended against the Germans' air raids from July to September in 1940. -
Tripartite Pact
This agreement between Germany, Italy, and Japan serves as the formation of the Axis Powers. -
Lend-Lease Act
Proposed in late 1940, this was the means by which th eUnited States aided the Allied forces before its complete involvement in WWII. War and food materials, with othe raw materials, were given to these forces. -
German Blitzkrieg on USSR
Hitler used the lightning war tactics against the Soviet Union, which was only partially successful up until the Russian forces and the coming of winter pushed out the Germans. -
Germany Takes Leningrad
The only successful part of the failure that was the German Blitzkrieg on the USSR was the capture of Leningrad in Operation Barbarossa. -
Bombing of Pearl Harbor
Japanese planes attacked an American naval base in Hawaii, sinking numerous ships and planes and killing over 2,000 people and harming another 1,000. This sparked America's entrance into WWII. -
Wannsee Conference
Nazi officials met to plan the "final solution" to the "Jewish question", deciding on their total eradication through the use of concentration camps. -
Battle of Midway
This battle turned the tables in the Pacific theater warfare with the Allies on the offense. -
D-Day
American, Canadian, and British forces invaded Nazi-occupied France on the coastal, Normandy region as to liberate France and end German control. -
Iwo Jima and Okinawa
These brutally savage battles between the US and Japanese forces marked the last before the Japanese surrender and VJ Day. -
Yalta Conference
A major WWII conference among Allied states, the three main leaders met in Yalta in Crimea as to decide on how to defeat the Nazis and what to do with Germany afterwards. -
Hitler's Suicide
Upon learning that the USSR would soon overtake the chancellery, Adolph hitler and his wife of two days tested cyanide capsules on his dog and her pups before taking them themselves. Hitler also shot himself with his service pistol. -
VE Day
Victory in Europe Day marks the end of WWII within the European continent with the end of Nazi rule. -
Potsdam Conference
At he last meeting of the main three Allied forces, Churchill, Stalin, and Truman decided on unconditional surrender form the Japanese was the best option, as well as various agreements on postwar Europe. July 17-August 2 -
Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
These two Japanese cities, Hiroshima(August 6) and Nagasaki(August 9), were bombed by American forces with a new weapon designed to compleetly end the war. -
VJ Day
Victory in Japan Day celebrates the end of Japanese involvement in WWII, and thus the end of the entire war, after the atomic bombings and more war declarations. The fifteenth is also celebrated, as is September 2, when the surrender was formalized. -
The Creation of the United Nations
Thia international organization was created to replace the League of Nations and to maintain peace in the postwar world. -
Truman Doctrine
US President Truman called for US economic and military assistance for Turkey and Greece because Britain could no longer offer such help. This has been identified as the beginning of the Cold War. -
Marshall Plan
Channelling over thirteen billion dollars into Europe, this plan was in effect from 1948 until 1951 to recover European economies , named for and announced by Secretary of State George C. Marshall. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established as a military alliance in opposition to the USSR's agression, with the original members including the US, Belgium, Iceland, Britain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Canada, France, Norway, Portugal, Denmark, and Italy. -
Mao Zedong in China
The People's Republic of China was proclaimed on this date by Mao Zedong, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, with Soviet socialism in mind for the influence of the state. -
Korean War
The bulk of this war consisted of US forces aiding South Korea and China aiding North Korea as the unstable politics pushed the border between the two along the thirty-eighth parallel, ending in the encouraged policy of the globalization of containment. -
Stalin's Death and the Rise of Khrushchev
Joseph Stalin died on March 5 from a heart attack, leaving a power vacuum in the USSR. A power struggle ensued bewteen the heir, Malenkov, and Khrushchev, who began his ascent to power at this time. -
Vietnam War
This long conflict was between communist North Vietnam and South Vietnam(heavily supported by the US) to end in the unification and the creation of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976(a year after the war's end). -
Warsaw Pact
As a treaty bewteen the USSR, Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary, Poland, Romania, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia, this pact was to ensure Soviet military units being maintained to unify the military command in these countries. -
Sputnik
A series of the first artificial Earth satellites were released by the USSR; the first, Sputnik 1, was released on this date. -
Bay of Pigs
Cuban refugees, financed and trained by the CIA, arrive in Cuba to destroy Fidel Castro's communist rule. The entirety of the mission failed. -
Berlin Wall
This wall was meant to separate East and West Berlin to keep the influences, US versus Soviet, divided during the Cold War. It was taken down on November 9, 1989. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
This was a military political standoff between the US and Soviet forces in Cuba, who had placed nuclear missiles there, that was resolved after thirteen days. -
Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev was the president of the USSR and his goals were to decentralize Soviet economy and democratize Soviet politics. These actions led to the downfall of the USSR. -
USSR Falls
The end of this state was marked by the resignation of the current president, Gorbachev, from office upon the news of the dissolution of states by claim of independence a few days before.
