TIMELINE

1918

• WWI Ends

1919

• League of Nations founded (Apr. 28)

• Treaty of Versailles is signed (Jun. 28)

1921

• Adolf Hitler becomes head of National Socialist (Nazi) Party

1923

• Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch

1925

• Hitler publishes "Mein Kampf"

1926

• Germany is admitted to League of Nations

1929

• US Sock Market crashes

1931

• Japan invades Manchuria

1932

• Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) is elected President of the US

1933

• Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany (Jan. 30)

• German Reichstag fire (Feb. 27)

• Enabling Act gives Hitler dictatorial power (Mar. 23)

• Germany quits League of Nations (Oct. 14)

1934

• Nazi "Night of Long Knives"

1935

• Nuremberg Laws passed (German Jews stripped of citizenship)

1936

• Germany occupies Rhineland (Mar. 7)

• Italy takes Ethiopia (May 9)

• Civil war in Spain (Jul. 18)

• Germany and Italy sign Rome-Berlin Treaty - "Axis"

• Germany and Japan sign Anti-Comintern Pact

1937

• Stalin purges Red Army (Jun. 11)

• Japan invades China - begins WWII in Pacific (Jul. 7)

• Rape of Nanjing

1938

• German and Austria join in Anschluss (Mar. 12)

• Munich Agreement (Germ., Italy, GB, Fr) Czech gives up Sudetenland (Sep. 30)

• Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) (Nov. 9/10)

1939

• Germany occupies Czech lands in violation of Munich

• Italy invades and annexes Albania

• Germany and USSR sign nonaggression agreement (Aug. 23)

• Germany invades Poland (Sep. 1) - begins WWII in Europe

• USSR invades Poland from east

• Poland surrenders, Poland divided (Germany/USSR)

• USSR invades Finland (Winter War) (Nov. 30)

• USSR expelled from League of Nations (Dec. 14)

1940

• Germany invades Denmark, Norway (Apr. 9)

• Germany invades Fr., Belg, Lux, Netherlands (May 10)

• Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister (May 10)

• Fall of France (May 10-Jun 25) (north is German, south is Vichy)

• Marshal Petain becomes French Prime Minister (Vichy)

• Dunkirk evacuations begin (May 27-Jun 4)

• Battle of Britain begins (Jul. 10)

• USSR occupies Baltic States (Jul. 23)

• Italians invade British Egypt from Italian Libya

• Germany, Italy and Japan sign Tripartite Pact (Sep. 27)

1941

• Germans send Afrika Korps (Rommel) to North Africa to help Italians (Feb. 14)

• Roosevelt signs Lend-Lease (Mar. 11)

• Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria invade Yugoslavia and Greece

• Operation Barbarossa/Germany attacks USSR (Jun. 22)

• FDR announces oil embargo against Japan (Aug. 1)

• Roosevelt and Churchill announce Atlantic Charter (Aug. 14)

• First gas chambers used at Auschwitz (Sep. 3)

• Japan bombs Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7)

• US and Britain declare war on Japan (Dec. 8)

• Hitler declares war on US (Dec. 11)

1942

• US begins internment of Japanese (Apr.)

• Japan occupies Philippines, French Indochina and Br. Singapore

• British bomb Germany (Koln)

• US Victory at Midway

• US begins island-hopping towards Australia at Guadalcanal

• British defeat Germans and Italians at El Alamein (Egypt) (Jul)

• Battle of Stalingrad begins (Sep)

• US forces land in Algeria and Morocco

1943

• Germans surrender at Stalingrad (Feb. 2)

• Axis surrender to Allies ending North Africa campaign

• US and Br. land on Sicily - begin Italy campaign (Jul. 9/10)

• Mussolini is deposed by Fascist Grand Council

• Germans establish puppet Fascist regime under Mussolini

• Tehran Conference (Nov. 28)

1944

• Allies take back Italy

• D-Day --> Allied invasion at Normandy

1945

• Soviets capture Berlin

• FDR dies (Apr. 12)

• Hitler commits suicide (Apr. 30)

• Germans surrender

• V-E (Victory in Europe) Day (May. 8)

• Germany and Berlin are divided (Jun. 5)

• Atomic bombing of Hiroshima (Aug. 6)

• Soviets declare war on Japan and invade Manchuria (Aug. 8)

• Atomic bombing of Nagasaki (Aug. 9)

• Japan surrenders (Sep. 2)

• United Nations is created (Oct. 24)

• Nuremberg war crimes trials begin (Nov. 20)

LEADING TO WORLD WAR II

Anger over WWI Peace Treaties

• Nations wanted to "revise" the settlement (revisionist powers)

• Italy - unhappy about not getting Italia Irredenta

• Germany - unhappy about reparations, demilitarization and War Guilt

• Japan - wanted to include a provision that recognized racial equality

ASIA

Japan

• Militarists seize power in 1931

• Japan conquered Manchuria (Puyi) 1931-1932

• First step toward expansionism and aggression.

• 1933 League of Nations condemned actions

• Japan withdrew from League of Nations 1933

• Renounced Five-Power Naval Treaty 1934

• Japan became ultra-nationalist and pro-military

• Marco Polo Bridge (Jul. 1937)

• Chinese and Japanese troops fight

• Japanese took Beinign then south to Shanghai and Nanjing (1937)

• Rape of Nanjing

• Brutal warfare against civilians (7,000 women raped, 100s, of 1000s murdered)

• Bombing on Shanghai - 10s of 1000s died.

• Chinese resistance

• Nationalists (Guomindang) and communists agreed on a "united front"

• Standing army 1.7 million.

• Communist guerrilla warfare in north (= loyalty of Chinese peasants)

• But Japanese had naval and air superiority

EUROPE

ITALY

• Fascist Party of Mussolini

• Benito Mussolini was socialists who fought in WWI

• hanged his mind and organized National Fascist Party from unemployed veterans who were disappointed with outcome of war.

• (Fascists from Roman prowess, unity, justice)

• Italy Invaded Ethiopia 1935

• ​Using excessive force

• Withdrew from League of Nations 1937

• Conquering Albania 1939

SPAIN

• Spanish Civil War (1936-39)

• Military revolt against the Republican government of Spain

• Nationalist rebels (led by Francisco Franco)

• Received aid from Italy and Germany

• Republicans

• Got aid from USSR and volunteers fro Europe and US

GERMANY

• Hitler leader of the National Socialist, Nazi Party

• Pointed out injustices in Treaty of Versailles

• Blamed troubles on Jews and other “inferior” races

• Hitler became chancellor 1933

• Took Germany out of League of Nations

• Began to rearm German military (violating Treaty of Versailles

• Invaded Rhineland March. 1936

• Area under French control, no resistance

• Anschluss

• ​Hitler joined Germany and Austria - in violation of Versailles Treaty

• Occupied Sudetenland

• ​Region of ethnic Germans in western Czechoslovakia.

• Appeasement (Munich Accords)

• Allowed annexation of Sudentenland in exchange for Hitler guarantee to halt territorial expansion

• Chamberlain (Br. PM) boasted “Peace in our time”

• Nonaggression Pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop)

• Signed between Germany and Russia (Stalin)

• Both agreed to divide Poland

• And take no military action against each other for the next 10 years.

• Invasion of Poland

• Br. And Fr. had promised to assist Poland

• Hitler signed nonaggression with Russia

• To ensure Russia would not assist Poland

• Poland invaded Sept. 1, 1939

• Fr. Br. declare war

WORLD WAR II

WAR IN EUROPE

• Phony War (ending spring 1940) when Hitler began European military campaign in earnest

• Blitzkrieg ("lightning war") 1940

• Germans used Panzer ("armored") columns - fast and mobile - to quickly take Poland

• Germans occupy Denmark and North, then full-scale attack on western Europe

• ​Netherlands, Belgium, France (armistice in Jun)

• Dunkirk – Br. Evacuate troops

• Fall of France

• ​France divided in two north was German, South was Vichy

• ​Vichy government headed by Marshal Petain

• Fall of France convinced Mussolini that Germans were winning

• Battle of Britain 1940

• ​German Luftwaffe

• Germany broke Nazi-Soviet Pact and invaded Russia

• Germany joined Allied Powers

• Most powerful invasion force in history

• 3.6 million soldiers, 3,700 tanks

• Within four months, Hitler was deep in Russia

• Hitler’s greatest blunder. (Two-front war)

• And Russia had already moved 80% of manufacturing firms to Ural Mountains.

• ​So Soviet industry outstripped German.

• And intense Russian winter

• ​Operation Barbarossa​ Jun. 22, 1941

ASIA

• Japan encouraged by

• German victories over Dutch and French in 1940

• And Great Britain's precarious situation

• Japanese wanted to project influence in southeast Asia

• Particularly Dutch East Indies

• and Britis-controlled Mayala

• regions with raw mateirals: tiin, rubber, petroleum.

• When France fell (Vichy govt.)

• Japan occupied French Indochina

• US Response

• Froze Japanese assets in US

• And imposed compete embargo on oil.

• supported by GB nations

• US demanded withdrawal of Japanese forces from China and Southeast Asia

• and reunciation of Tripartite Pact.

• Japanese defense minister general Tojo Hideki

• took office of prime minister

• prepared for war agaisnt GB and US

• Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941)

• Japan hoped to destroy U.S. naval capacity i Pacific with attack

• and to clear way for the conquest of osoutheast Asia

• and creation of a defensive Japanese permiter that would thwart Allies abilityt to strike Japan's homelnd.

• FDR called it a "day that will live in infamy"

• More than 350 Japanese bombers, fighters, torpedo planes sruck in two waves