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1937 |
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July 7 |
Japan invades China |
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August 13–November 9 |
Battle for Shanghai |
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December 13–30 |
Rape of Nanking |
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1938 |
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March 11 |
Germany annexes Austria |
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September 29 |
Munich Agreement signed |
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1939 |
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March 15 |
German army enters Prague, Czechoslovakia |
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May 22 |
Italy signs “Pact of Steel” with Germany |
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September 1 |
Germany invades Poland |
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September 3 |
Australia, Britain, France, and New Zealand declare war on Germany |
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September 17 |
Soviet Union invades Poland |
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September 27 |
Warsaw, Poland, falls to Germany |
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October 16 |
First German bombings of England |
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November 30 |
Soviet Union invades Finland |
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1940 |
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April 8 |
Germany attacks Denmark and Norway |
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April 10 |
Denmark surrenders to Germany |
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May 10 |
Germany invades Belgium, France, Holland, Luxembourg |
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May 10 |
Winston Churchill replaces Neville Chamberlain as British prime minister |
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May 14 |
Holland falls to Germany |
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May 27–June 4 |
British forces evacuate France in “Miracle of Dunkirk” |
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June 9 |
Norway falls to Germany |
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June 22 |
France surrenders to Germany |
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July 10–October 12 |
Battle of Britain (Allied victory) |
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August 25 |
RAF bombs Berlin |
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September 16 |
U.S. Congress passes Selective Service Act |
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September 22 |
Japan occupies northern Indochina (Vietnam) |
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September 27 |
Axis forms with Germany-Italy-Japan Tripartite Pact |
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October 7 |
Germany enters Romania |
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1941 |
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March 8 |
U.S. Senate passes Lend-Lease Bill |
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March 9 |
Italy attacks Greece |
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April 6 |
Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece |
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April 13 |
Soviet Union and Japan sign neutrality pact |
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April 17 |
Yugoslavia falls to Germany |
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April 24 |
Greece falls to Germany |
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May 27 |
Bismarck sunk by British Royal Navy |
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June 22 |
Germany invades Soviet Union |
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August 12 |
Churchill and Roosevelt create Atlantic Charter |
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September 15 |
Germans surround Leningrad, nine-hundred day siege begins |
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October 17 |
Tojo Hideki succeeds Konoye Fumimaro as prime minister of Japan |
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October 19 |
Germans lay siege on Moscow |
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December 6 |
Soviet Union launches counterattack on Germans |
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December 7 |
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, Guam, Wake Island, the Philippines, Malaya, and Hong Kong |
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December 8 |
United States declares war on Japan |
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December 9 |
Nationalist China declares war on Japan and Germany |
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December 11 |
Japan invades Burma; Italy and Germany declare war on the United States |
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December 23 |
Wake Island falls to Japan |
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December 25 |
Hong Kong falls to Japan |
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1942 |
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January 2 |
Japan takes Manila |
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January 11 |
Japan invades Dutch East Indies |
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February 15 |
Singapore falls to Japan |
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April 9 |
U.S. and Philippines troops surrender at Bataan; death march begins |
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April 18 |
Doolittle leads sixteen B-25s on Japan raid |
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May 7 |
U.S. troops surrender at Corregidor |
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May 7–8 |
Battle of Coral Sea (Japanese victory) |
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May 20 |
Japan conquers Burma |
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June 4–7 |
Battle of Midway (U.S. victory) |
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June 9 |
Japan conquers Philippines |
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July 1–27 |
First Battle of El Alamein, Egypt (British victory) |
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August 7 |
U.S. forces land at Guadalcanal |
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August 9 |
Mohandas Gandhi begins civil disobedience campaign in India |
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August 14 |
Allied invasion at Dieppe, France (German victory) |
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August 24 |
Germans enter Stalingrad |
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August 30–September 2 |
Battle of Alam Halfa, Egypt (British victory) |
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October 23–November 4 |
Second Battle of El Alamein (British victory) |
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November 8 |
Allies land in northwest Africa (Operation Torch) |
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1943 |
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January 14 |
Allied Casablanca Conference |
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January 23 |
Allies capture Tripoli, Libya |
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February 2 |
More than ninety thousand Germans surreder at Stalingrad |
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February 19–23 |
Axis inflict heavy losses at Kasserine Pass, Tunisia |
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April 18 |
Adm. Yamamoto Isoroku (commander in chief of the Imperial Combined Fleet) shot down and killed over Solomon Islands |
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April 19–May 16 |
Jewish uprising in Warsaw ghetto |
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July 5–23 |
Battle of Kursk (Soviet victory) |
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July 10 |
Allies invade Sicily |
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July 23 |
Allies capture Palermo, Sicily |
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July 25 |
Benito Mussolini falls from power |
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September 8 |
Italy surrenders to Allies |
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October 13 |
Italy declares war on Germany |
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November 3 |
German Field Marshal Irwin Rommel takes command of Atlantic Wall |
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November 28–December 1 |
First Allied “Big Three” Conference—Tehran, Persia |
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1944 |
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January 16 |
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower becomes supreme allied commander in Europe |
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January 22 |
U.S. forces land at Anzio, Italy |
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January 26 |
Leningrad freed of German siege |
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February 15 |
Allies begin bombing Monte Cassino monastery, Italy |
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April 3 |
Soviet forces enter Romania |
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June 5 |
Rome falls to Allies |
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June 6 |
D-day, NORMANDY |
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June 13 |
First V-1 buzz bomb hits Britain |
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June 15 |
First B-29 raid on Japan |
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July 9 |
U.S. takes island of Saipan |
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July 18 |
Tojo resigns as Japan prime minister |
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July 20 |
Bomb plot fails to kill Hitler |
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August 1–October 2 |
Polish Home Army and militia launch Second Warsaw uprising and are defeated |
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August 10 |
U.S. retakes Guam |
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August 25 |
Paris liberated |
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September 4 |
Antwerp, Belgium, liberated |
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September 15 |
U.S. attacks Peleliu |
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September 17–25 |
Allied Operation Market-Garden (German victory) |
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October 13 |
Allies retake Greece |
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October 21 |
Aachen becomes first German city to fall to Allies |
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October 23–26 |
Battle of Leyte Gulf (U.S. victory) |
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December 16–January 16 |
Battle of the Bulge (Allied victory) |
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1945 |
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January 17 |
Soviet Union captures Warsaw, Poland |
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February 4–11 |
Yalta Conference |
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February 13 |
Soviet Union captures Budapest, Hungary |
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February 19–March 26 |
Battle of Iwo Jima (U.S. victory) |
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February 25 |
U.S. firebombs Tokyo |
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March 9 |
U.S. firebombs Tokyo again |
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April 1–June 22 |
Battle of Okinawa (U.S. victory) |
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April 6 |
Organized use of kamikazes in Okinawa |
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April 12 |
U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt dies |
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April 28 |
Mussolini killed by partisans |
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April 30 |
Hitler commits suicide in Berlin |
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May 2 |
German forces surrender Italy; Soviet Union captures Berlin |
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May 7 |
Germany surrenders to Allies |
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July 16 |
First atomic bomb tested at Alamogordo, New Mexico |
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July 17 |
Potsdam Conference—outside Berlin, Germany |
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August 6 |
Atomic bomb is dropped over Hiroshima |
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August 8 |
Soviet Union declares war on Japan, invades Manchuria hours later |
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August 9 |
Atomic bomb is dropped over Nagasaki |
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August 14 |
Hirohito announces surrender |
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September 2 |
Japan formally surrenders |