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# Timeline of World War II

### World War II, also called the Second World War, was a global conflict during the years 1939–1945.

### The principal combatants were the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies—France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China.

### The war was in many respects a continuation, after an uneasy 20-year hiatus, of the disputes left unsettled by World War I and the conditions imposed on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles, ending “The Great War.”

### The 50,000,000–70,000,000 deaths incurred in World War II make it the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in history.

### Below are some key dates in World War II.

### Some of these events actually took place before the first “official” shot of WWII was fired on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland touching off the war in Europe.

### There had already been fighting in the Pacific between Japan and neighboring countries. Japan’s December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor took the war to another level as the United States was thrust into this global conflict.

### Even today, everyone has a personal connection to World War II in their family in some manner. It’s up to you to discover what that is.

## 30 Jan 1933

Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany

## 1937

Japanese invasion of Manchuria

## 1938

German Anschluss with Austria

## 30 SEPT 1938

Treaty of Munich

## MARCH 1939

Hitler invades Czechoslovakia

## MARCH/APRIL 1939

Britain rearms and reassures Poland

## LATE AUG 1939

Russia and Germany sign pact

## 1 SEPT 1939

Hitler invades Poland

## 3 SEPT 1939

Britain and France declare war on Germany

## SEPT 1939-MAY 1940

“Phoney War”

## APRIL/MAY 1940

Hitler invades Denmark and Norway

## 10 MAY 1940

Blitzkrieg

## 10 MAY 1940

Chamberlain resigns

## 26 MAY 1940

Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo)

## 11 JUNE 1940

Italy enters war on side of Axis powers

## 22 JUNE 1940

France signs armistice with Germany

## 10 JULY-31 OCT 1940

Battle of Britain

## 22 SEPT 1940

Tripartite Pact

## DECEMBER 1940

British rout Italians in N. Africa

## EARLY 1941

Italy and Germany attack Yugoslavia

## 22 JUNE 1941

Hitler attacks Russia – Operation Barbarossa

## 7 DEC 1941

Pearl Harbor

## 8 DEC 1941

Britain and US declare war on Japan

## 18 APR 1942

Doolittle Raiders Bomb Japan

## JUNE 1942

Battle of Midway

## AUG 1942

Allies invade N. Africa

## 23 OCT 1942

Battle of El Alamein

## NOV 1942

Battle of Stalingrad/

Allies push into N. Africa

## 12 MAY 1943

Axis surrenders in N. Africa

## JULY 1943

Allies invade Sicily

## AUG 1943

Allies take Sicily

## 3 SEPT 1943

Italy surrenders

## NOV 1943

Allies meet at Tehran

## JAN 1944

German siege of Leningrad ends

## 5 June 1944

Rome liberated

## 6 June 1944

D-Day in Normandy

## 25 AUG 1944

Paris liberated

## 8 SEPT 1944

V2 Flying Bombs

## 16 DEC 1944

Battle of the Bulge Begins

## MARCH 1945

Allies cross the Rhine

## APRIL 1945

Russians reach Berlin

## 28 APRIL 1945

Mussolini captured and executed

## 30 APRIL 1945

Hitler commits suicide

## 7 MAY 1945

Germany unconditionally surrenders

## 8 MAY 1945

V.E. day

## 5 JULY 1945

Churchill loses election

## 8 July 1945

Russia declares war on Japan

## 6 AUG 1945

Atomic Bomb dropped on Hiroshima

## 9 AUG 1945

Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki

## 14 AUG 1945

Japanese surrender

## 2 Sept 1945

MacArthur accepts Japan’s unconditional surrender



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Timeline of World War II - WWII Foundation