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Franklin D. Roosevelt elected the 32nd President of the United States
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Adolph Hitler succeeds Hindenburg as leader of Germany
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Italy invades Ethiopia
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Neville Chamberlain becomes the new British Prime Minister
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Japan invades China; Sino-Japanese War begins
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Germany invades and annexes Austria (Anschluss)
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Signing of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
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orld War II begins when Germany invades Poland
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Honoring their guarantee of Poland’s borders, Great Britain and France declare war on Germany
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Germany attacks western Europe—France and the neutral Low Countries. Luxembourg is occupied on May 10; the Netherlands surrenders on May 14; and Belgium surrenders on May 28. On June 22, France signs an armistice agreement by which the Germans occupy the northern half of the country and the entire Atlantic coastline. In southern France, a collaborationist regime with its capital in Vichy is established.
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Italy enters the war. Italy invades southern France on June 21.
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The air war known as the Battle of Britain ends in defeat for Nazi Germany.
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Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact
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Nazi Germany and its Axis partners (except Bulgaria) invade the Soviet Union. Finland, seeking redress for the territorial losses in the armistice concluding the Winter War, joins the Axis just before the invasion. The Germans quickly overrun the Baltic States and, joined by the Finns, lay siege to Leningrad (St. Petersburg) by September. In the center, the Germans capture Smolensk in early August and drive on Moscow by October. In the south, German and Romanian troops capture Kiev (Kyiv) in Sep
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Japan bombs Pearl Harbor.
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The United States declares war on Japan, entering World War II. Japanese troops land in the Philippines, French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), and British Singapore. By April 1942, the Philippines, Indochina, and Singapore are under Japanese occupation.
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The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from 4–8 May 1942, was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval and air forces from the United States and Australia.
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British and US navies halt the Japanese naval advance in the central Pacific at Midway.
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US troops halt the Japanese island-hopping advance towards Australia at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
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Germany and her Axis partners launch a new offensive in the Soviet Union. German troops fight their way into Stalingrad (Volgograd) on the Volga River by mid-September and penetrate deep into the Caucasus after securing the Crimean Peninsula.
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British–American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign
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Red Army defeats Axis powers in one of the bloodiest in history. The heavy losses inflicted on the German army made it a significant turning point in the whole war. After the Battle of Stalingrad, German forces never recovered their earlier strength, and attained no further strategic victories in the East.
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Axis forces in Tunisia surrender to the Allies, ending the North African campaign.
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US and British troops land on Sicily. By mid-August, the Allies control Sicily.
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British and US troops successfully land on the Normandy beaches of France, opening a “Second Front” against the Germans.
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The Germans launch a final offensive in the west, known as the Battle of the Bulge, in an attempt to re-conquer Belgium and split the Allied forces along the German border. By January 1, 1945, the Germans are in retreat.
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The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg,[3] was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II.
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The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II.[f]
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Germany surrenders to the western Allies
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The United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima
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The United States drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
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Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of the Japanese Government, on board USS Missouri (BB-63), 2 September 1945.
