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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. -
The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. -
The Empire of Japan launched a surprise military strike 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 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 -
Operation Torch was an Allied invasion of French North Africa during World War II. 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 Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, beginning when Nazi Germany and its Axis allies attacked and became locked in a protracted struggle with the Soviet Union for control over the Soviet city of Stalingrad in southern Russia. -
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 -
The Battle of Kursk, also called the Battle of the Kursk Salient, 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. -
On June 6, 1944, nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day's end, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Continental Europe.
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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 was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps and United States Navy landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.
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The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps and United States Navy landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. -
President Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, at age 63 from a massive cerebral hemorrhage while in Warm Springs, Georgia. Only months into his fourth term, the sudden stroke occurred while he was posing for a portrait. His death stunned the world, as his declining health from heart issues had been concealed from the public. -
On 30 April 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot[a][b] in the Führerbunker when it became clear that Germany would lose the Battle of Berlin, which resulted in Germany's surrender to the Allies and the end of World War II in Europe. -
The Battle of Okinawa (April 1–June 22, 1945), code-named Operation Iceberg, was the largest, last, and one of the bloodiest, amphibious battles of WWII in the Pacific. US forces secured the strategic island to use as a base for invading mainland Japan, but faced intense, 82-day fighting and kamikaze attacks. The battle resulted in over 240,000 combined military and civilian casualties. -
On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, during World War II. The aerial bombings killed 150,000 to 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the first and only uses of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. -
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb, codenamed "Little Boy", on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, marking the first use of nuclear weapons in war. The bomb, dropped by the B-29 bomber Enola Gay, detonated at 8:15 a.m., killing an estimated 70,000–140,000 people instantly and from long-term radiation effects.