1939

September 1, 1939 Poland is invaded from the west by German armed forces or the "Wehrmacht," using rapidly moving armored tank formations and intense air bombardment, a technique known as blitzkrieg, or lightning war.

September 3, 1939 After a 48 hour warning, Britain and France declare war on Germany, but do not launch any offensives.

September 19, 1939 Soviet Union launches its own offensive against Poland from the east. Britain and France consider declaring war on the Soviet Union as well, but do not do so.

October 5, 1939 Poland Surrenders.

October 1939 Germany begins execution of German citizens deemed mentally or physically "unfit."

October 1939 Germans begin forcing Polish Jews under occupation to wear identifiable clothing marked by a yellow star and to live in areas called ghettos. Jewish people were separated from non-Jews.

November 30, 1939 The Soviet Union attacks smaller, neutral Finland. Intense Finnish resistance makes the campaign far costlier than expected and conquest is not completed until March 1940.

Fall 1939-Spring 1940 A state of war exists, but Britain and France continue to avoid launching any offensives against Germany. This gives the Wermacht the opportunity to shift troops from Poland back to the west. This period becomes known as the "Phony War."

1940

April 9, 1940 Germany begins successful invasions of Denmark and Norway.

May 10, 1940 Germany attacks France, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg.

May 1940 Winston Churchill replaces Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister.

May 1940 German armored tanks break through fixed defenses and cut off the British army in northern France. Britain manages to evacuate most of this force along with several hundred thousand allied troops from the port of Dunkirk.

May-December, 1940 German submarines called "U-Boats" enjoy a "Happy Time" sinking unprepared Allied ships.

June 10, 1940 Italy declares war on the Allies and becomes an active participant in the war.

June 15, 1940 The United States maintains its neutrality by rejecting an appeal from France for help in the war.

June 22, 1940 French officials sign a humiliating ceasefire in the same railroad car Germany had been forced to surrender in at the close of World War I. The northern area of France is directly occupied by German troops while a nominally independent puppet-state headed by Marshall Henri Philippe Petain is set up with its capital at the town of Vichy in central France.

July 5, 1940 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, still angered over Japanese aggression against China, bans the shipment of strategic materials to Japan.

July-October, 1940 An air campaign known as the Battle of Britain is fought as Germany's air force, the "Luftwaffe," tries to gain air supremacy in prelude to a German invasion of the British Isles. Although London is heavily bombed in this "blitz," the Germans are soundly defeated. British bombers likewise begin some initial sporadic raids against German cities.

September 13, 1940 An army based in the Italian colony of Libya attacks the neighboring British colony of Egypt initiating the North African campaign.

September 16, 1940 Selective Service Act goes into effect creating a draft in order to increase manpower in the United States' armed services.

October 28 1940 Italy invades Greece

1941

February 19, 1941 The German 'Afrika Korps' is formed under the command of Erwin Rommel to assist the struggling Italian army in North Africa.

March 11, 1941 The U.S. Congress passes the "Lend-Lease Act," part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's plan to deliver military aid to Great Britain.

April 10, 1941 The Axis Powers invade Yugoslavia.

April 17, 1941 Yugoslavia surrenders to the Axis Powers.

April 21, 1941 Greece surrenders to the Axis Powers.

May 26, 1941 German Battleship Bismarck sunk by the British Royal Navy.

June 22, 1941 Although Stalin receives numerous intelligence warnings, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is hit by a massive surprise attack from Germany.

June 1941 German "Einsatzgruppen" begin mass executions of many Jewish communities on the eastern front. These murders are carried out largely, but not exclusively by the "SS," an armed force separate from the regular army and especially loyal to Hitler.

June-September, 1941 Stripped of its experienced leadership during Stalin's earlier purges, the poorly-led Soviet "Red Army" suffers between two and three million causalities fighting the Axis Powers during this period.

July 24, 1941 The United States imposes an oil embargo on Japan.

August 9-12, 1941 Roosevelt and Churchill meet in an Atlantic Conference held aboard naval vessels off the coast of Canada. In this meeting both parties draw up expectations for a democratic post-war world, even though the United States is not yet involved in the fighting.

August 12, 1941 German forces begin a devastating nine-hundred day siege of the Soviet city Leningrad.

September-November 1941 Battle of Moscow. Germans fail to capture the Soviet capital in the face of intense Soviet resistance and an early winter.

September 1941 American volunteer pilots known as the "Flying Tigers" under the command of retired American General Clare Chenault begin training to assist the Chinese forces fighting against Japan.

October 31, 1941 U.S. destroyer Reuben James is sunk by a German submarine while escorting a convoy to Britain.

December 6, 1941 Soviet counteroffensive drives German forces back from the outskirts of Moscow.

December 7, 1941 Although the United States receives numerous intelligence warnings, its Pacific fleet is attacked at Pearl Harbor in a surprise air raid by the Japanese.

December 10, 1941 British Battleship Prince of Wales and Battlecruiser Repulse are sunk by Japanese planes near Malaya.

December 22, 1941 United States forces lose Manilla, the capital of the Philippines, to Japanese troops.

1942

January, 1942 German "U-Boats" initiate a second "Happy Time," sinking unprepared US cargo ships.

January 20, 1942 At the Wannsee Conference, Nazi officials decide to systematically exterminate all Jews in occupied Europe. Many historians believe this meeting was the beginning of the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem." Romani (Gypsies), homosexuals, communists and various other "undesirables" will be also become targeted for elimination.

January 1942 In the same month of the Wannsee Conference, the poisonous gas Zyklon B is first used to murder Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp.

January-May, 1942 Japanese forces gradually overrun Burma.

February 8-9, 1942 Japan captures Singapore, a major British East Asian colony.

February 22, 1942 U.S. General Douglas MacArthur leaves the Philippines under orders but vows, "I Shall Return."

April 18, 1942 The aircraft carrier-launched "Doolittle Raid" bombs Tokyo, a daring act that boosts the morale of the United States.

April 1942 Improved convoys and radars begin turning the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic against the U-Boats.

May 7-8, 1942 Inconclusive Battle of the Coral Sea fought between Japanese and United States naval forces. The battle is almost exclusively conducted by naval air forces, with opposing surface ships never making visual contact.

May 12, 1942 Last U.S. troops holding out in the Philippines surrender.

June 4-7, 1942 Japanese navy suffers almost irreplaceable losses in aircraft carriers in the Battle of Midway.

June 21, 1942 Rommel's Afrika Korps captures the strategic British-held city of Tobruk.

August 1942-February 1943 Japanese forces are defeated by US marine and naval units in the grueling Guadalcanal Campaign.

August 17, 1942 U.S. air forces begin making first daylight bombing raids on German-occupied territory. British air forces continue and intensify their earlier tactics of night raids.

August 1942 A renewed German offensive designed to capture oilfields in southern U.S.S.R. reaches the Soviet city of Stalingrad, initiating a titanic struggle between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht.

September 23, 1942 U.S. Colonel Leslie Groves and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer are placed in charge of the ultra-secret "Manhattan Project," designed to produce atomic weapons. The main production laboratories will be established at Los Alamos, New Mexico.

October-November 1942 Rommel's Afrika Korps is soundly defeated by British forces under the command of Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery.

November 8, 1942 United States forces under the command of General Dwight Eisenhower land in northwestern Africa in an attempt to outflank the Africa Corps.

November 19, 1942 Soviet armies under Marshall Gregory Zhukov unleash a massive counterattack in southern Russia, encircling German forces in the greater Stalingrad area.

1943

January 14, 1943 Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt begin meetings at an Allied planning conference in Casablanca.

February 2, 1943 The remnants of the German army in Stalingrad surrender.

April 18, 1943 Commander of the imperial Japanese navy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, is shot down and killed by U.S. fighter aircraft while on an aerial inspection tour.

May 7, 1943 Encircled Axis Forces surrender to Allies in Tunisia ending the North Africa campaign.

July 10, 1943 Western Allies, United States and Britain, land in Sicily.

August 17, 1943 U.S. General George Patton captures Messina, the last Axis stronghold in Sicily.

July-August 1943 Battle of Kursk fought between the Soviets and Germans. This Soviet victory is the largest armored tank battle in history.

July 25, 1943 Following his failures in Africa and Sicily Mussolini is deposed and imprisoned.

September 12, 1943 Mussolini is rescued from Italian prison by an elite German commando team. Hitler later re-establishes Mussolini as a puppet leader of the northern part of the peninsula which remains occupied by German forces.

September 3, 1943 Western Allies land in southern Italy.

Fall 1943 A gradual improvement in U.S. radars and torpedoes begins to greatly boost the effectiveness of the American submarine "Silent Service," operating against Japanese shipping.

November 18, 1943 Intensive Allied bombing of Berlin begins.

November 20-23, 1943 United States Marines suffer heavy casualties invading Tarawa atoll in the South Pacific.

December 28, 1943 Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Josef Stalin begin meetings at an Allied planning conference in Tehran.

1944

January-May 1944 Western Allied troops in Italy bog down along the "Gustav Line" in the mountains south of Rome.

January 22, 1944 U.S. troops make an amphibious landing behind German positions, but fail to advance inland and break the stalemate.

February 17-18, 1944 US aircraft destroy a major Japanese naval port at Truk Island in the south Pacific.

February 24, 1944 'Merrill's Marauders,' a special Allied commando unit, begins guerilla operations against Japanese forces in Burma.

March-June 1944 A Japanese offensive is badly defeated by British-Indian forces in several battles around Imphal and Kohima. After this the Japanese will be gradually driven out of Burma.

June 4, 1944 After an earlier breaking of the Gustav Line, the Western Allies liberate Rome.

June 6, 1944 Western Allies open a second major front in an amphibious invasion of Normandy on this date codenamed "D-Day."

June 19, 1944 U.S. and Japanese naval forces meet for the first major aircraft carrier battle since Midway. Japanese rebuilding efforts prove to have been unsuccessful. The one-sided aerial massacre becomes known as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot."

July 20, 1944 Elements of the German regular army, including Erwin Rommel, make an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler. While Rommel did not take an active role in the attempt, his knowledge of the plot cost him his life. For his failure to inform Hitler of the plan, Rommel was given a choice; take poison and receive a state funeral or refuse and see his family executed as well. He chose to end his life rather than risk harm to his family.

July 25, 1944 With the aid of massive Allied "carpet bombing" U.S. forces break out of the Normandy peninsula and begin a successful drive across France towards Germany.

August 1944 Soviets advance into parts of Poland and the Balkans.

August-October 1944 In response to Soviet advances into Poland, a popular uprising against the Germans occurs in Warsaw. Soviet forces do not advance in support, however, and the uprising is brutally suppressed by the Wehrmacht.

September 8, 1944 First German V-2 rocket lands on Britain.

September 1944 Western Allies launch Operation Market Garden in Holland with the hope of breaking into northern Germany and with a secondary objective of capturing V-2 launch sites. The failure of this attack and a critical lack of fuel reserves force the Western Allies to halt their offensive for the winter.

October 20, 1944 U.S. invasion of the Philippines fulfills MacArthur's promise to return.

October 23-26, 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf is launched by the Japanese as a counter-attack to the invasion of the Philippines. This action, the largest naval engagement in history, almost succeeds but ultimately results in the destruction of the Japanese navy as an effective force. The battle also sees the first use of Japanese aerial suicide pilots known as "Kamikaze" (Divine Wind).

December 16, 1944 Germans launch surprise final offensive of the war against U.S. forces in the Ardennes Forest. The attack, known as the "Battle of the Bulge" for the shape of the salient formed, fails due to limited fuel supplies and determined American resistance.

December 27, 1944 Soviet troops reach Budapest in Hungary.

1945

January 7, 1945 The Nazi death camp at Auschwitz is liberated by stunned Soviet troops.

January 17, 1945 Soviet armed forces capture Warsaw.

February 4, 1945 Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Josef Stalin meet again at an Allied planning conference in Yalta, on the Black Sea. Tensions arise between all three allies about the shape of the post-war world.

February 19-March 26, 1945 U.S. Marines capture the tiny island of Iwo Jima in the Pacific at a cost of 23,000 casualties.

March 7, 1945 Western Allies cross the Rhine but fail to drive on to Berlin in the mistaken belief that it is a secondary target. Dwight Eisenhower, with Soviet encouragement and to the chagrin of Winston Churchill, comes to believe that Hitler is creating a "National Redoubt" in Bavaria and Austria and diverts his forces southward.

April1, 1945 U.S. forces launch an amphibious invasion of Okinawa in the last major campaign of the Pacific War.

April 12, 1945 Franklin Roosevelt dies and Harry Truman succeeds him in office. Truman had been left virtually in the dark about most of Roosevelt's wartime plans, including arrangements with the Soviets as well as the existence of the Manhattan Project.

April 21, 1945 Soviet forces reach Berlin.

April 25, 1945 U.S. and Soviet advance units link up at Torgau on the Elbe River.

April 29, 1945 U.S. troops liberate Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, the last major concentration camp to be captured. Altogether, some 11 million people died in the Nazi Holocaust, 6 million of whom were Jewish.

April 30, 1945 Adolf Hitler commits suicide.

May 5, 1945 Elements of the U.S. Third Army reach Prague, Czechoslovakia.

May 7, 1945 The German High Command surrender their forces to representatives of the British and American armed forces, an act which angers Josef Stalin.

May 8, 1945 The German High Command surrender their forces again, only this time with Soviet representatives included. The day becomes recognized as "V-E Day" (Victory in Europe Day.)

June 5, 1945 Allies divide Germany into separate occupation zones.

June 26, 1945 Representatives of 50 countries meet in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference to draw up the United Nations Charter. The United Nations was geared toward the elimination of warfare.

June 30, 1945 Fighting on Okinawa ends.

July 16, 1945 Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Josef Stalin meet again at a tense Allied planning conference in Potsdam, Germany. Disputes arise over previous conflicting agreements guaranteeing both a democratic Poland and a "Soviet-Friendly" Poland.

July 16, 1945 The world's first atomic bomb, a "Fat Man" style bomb, is successfully detonated by the United States at the "Trinity" test site in central New Mexico.

August 6, 1945 U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay drops an atomic bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima in Japan killing some 80,000 people outright and with perhaps as many as 100,000 more dying later as a result of the after effects of radiation.

August 8, 1945 The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and begins to quickly overrun Manchuria in a lightning series of airborne attacks.

August 9, 1945 Second atomic bomb, nicknamed "Fat Man" dropped on Nagasaki in Japan. After the nuclear mission, this B-29 bomber was christened "Bock's Car."

September 2, 1945 Japanese sign an unconditional surrender document. Day is recognized as V-J Day (Victory in Japan Day). MacArthur begins a highly- effective term as military governor of Japan. The Soviet Union is not granted an occupation zone.

September 13, 1945 Japanese forces in Burma surrender.