1919 Controversial Treaty of Versailles is signed ending the First World War. Treaty demilitarizes Germany and strips it of some territory. It also creates a reparations committee and founds the League of Nations, an international congress created to avoid future wars.

1921 Special committee established by Treaty of Versailles sets sum of $33 Billion in reparations payments to be made by defeated Germany.

1921-1922 Washington Naval Conference sets limits upon the numbers of major warships the great powers are allowed to maintain in their respective navies. Britain and the United States are granted the two largest navies, with their ally Japan being recognized as the third most powerful.

40th Prime Minister (with dictatorial powers) of the Kingdom of Italy.

1923 In the wake of German refusal to continue reparations payments, France militarily invades Germany and seizes industrial Ruhr valley.
German economy collapses.

Reacting to the economic chaos, former war hero Erich Ludendorff nominally heads failed coup (the "Beer Hall Putsch") in partnership with Adolf Hitler, an obscure reactionary veteran opposed to the Treaty of Versailles.

Benito Mussolini, leader of the Italian Fascist party becomes constitutional Prime Minister of the Italian Republic.

1924 American banker Charles Dawes helps the reparations committee reorganize Germany's payments and stabilize German currency. The Dawes Plan improves the economic situation through private U.S. loans. Germany's economy is now largely tied to that of the United States.

Adolf Hitler writes Mein Kampf (My Struggle) outlining his ideas about German conquest and racial superiority while serving a nine-month prison sentence for his role in the "Beer Hall Putsch."

1925 Benito Mussolini finishes gradual process of establishing himself as dictator of Italy, only the Catholic Church remains as an opponent.

1926 The Polish military overthrows the democratic government of Poland.

1928 Dozens of nations sign the idealistic Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing the use of war.

Josef Stalin emerges from the ruling communist political committee ("Politburo") as the head of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He also initiates the first of several "Five Year Plans" intended to rapidly industrialize the Soviet State with a view towards an anticipated future conflict with western non-communist powers.

1929 Mussolini signs a "Concordat" with the Catholic Church, ending a decades-old church/state feud and firmly consolidating his supreme
position.


Depression and Militarism

1929 Stock Market crash drives U.S. into depression. American banks are forced to cease assistance to German (and other European) banks.

Although the Soviet Union is not tied to the free-market western economy, Stalin begins the ill-advised "collectivization" of agriculture. Millions starve from the resulting famines over the next several years.

1930 Depression in American begins to affect U.S. economic partners overseas leading to worldwide decline.

Due to economic chaos and voter dissatisfaction with traditional parties, Adolf Hitler's previously obscure National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) wins a surprising 107 seats in the German parliament (Reichstag), suddenly becoming the second-largest party. The party is often referred to as the "Nazis" a shortened version of term "National-Socialist."

1931 Evidence of collateral European economic decline is seen in the collapse of the massive Austrian Credit-Anstalt bank.

Japan seeks to alleviate its own economic downturn by invading resource-rich Manchuria, a weakly-held province of China.

1932 World industrial production is estimated to be only 62% of what it had been in June 1929. Unemployment rates in both the United States and Germany reach 25%.

Adolf Hitler's NSDAP wins a record 37.3% of the vote and 230 seats in the Reichstag (the German Parliament) becoming the dominant political party in Germany.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) is elected as President of the United States after campaigning on a platform of a "New Deal" for the American worker.

Mussolini and Hitler

Adolf Hitler,
Leader of Germany
Fuhrer and Reichskanzler
August 2, 1934 - April 30, 1945

1933 Adolf Hitler becomes the constitutionally-elected Chancellor of Germany, but using the crisis of a fire in the Reichstag building he convinces the parliament to pass an "Enabling Act" effectively making him a dictator with only the army as a potential opponent.

1934 Hitler cements an alliance with the German army by assassinating the leadership his own special armed service (the SA) in the so-called "Night of the Long Knives."

1935 Hitler announces that Germany will begin re-militarizing itself, even with weapons banned under the Versailles treaty. France and Britain protest, but do not intervene militarily.

Germany passes "Nuremberg Laws" stripping German Jews of citizenship rights.

Italy conquers Ethiopia, but the League of Nations fails to coordinate its opposition. A major part of the problem is FDR's refusal to impose an oil embargo on Italy. British opposition tends to drive Mussolini towards Hitler.

Joseph Stalin
General Secretary / First Secretary
of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Stalin begins a series of "purges" which will run through the remainder of the decade. These are designed to eliminate alleged traitors in the Soviet state and further consolidate Stalin's hold on power. It is estimated that as many as 1.3 million people die as a result.

1936 In another violation of the Versailles treaty, Hitler sends troops into the 'Rhineland' province of Germany which lies on the direct border of France. Western allies continue to not intervene, a policy which becomes known as "appeasement."

Germany and Italy sign a loose agreement in which they style themselves as the "axis" upon which the wheels of Europe turn. Japan later enters into another agreement with these powers. Eventually these states will become known as the Axis Powers in contrast to the Allied Powers.

1937 Japan invades China proper (ie. non-Manchuria) despite U.S. protests.

1938 Hitler launches a wave of violence against Jewish shop owners in German cities and towns. The resulting smashed window-glass littering the streets inspires the name "Kristallnacht" (Night of Broken Glass).

Germany forms a political union (Anschluss) with Hitler's native Austria in violation of earlier demands of the western allies. The move is largely welcomed by Austrians who throw flowers at advancing German tanks.

From left: Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler,
Mussolini, and his son-in-law, Ciano
following the Munich Conference, 1938

At the infamous Munich Conference, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain agrees to give in to Hitler's demands for military control of the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland. Chamberlain claims to have obtained "Peace in our Time," but this act of appeasement merely postpones the inevitable.

1939 Hitler occupies all of Czechoslovakia (not just the Sudetenland as promised) and begins making demands from Poland for previously-German territory lost to it in the Treaty of Versailles.

Despite intense ideological hostility between fascism and communism, Soviet and German Foreign Secretaries Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop sign a non-aggression pact in the late summer which allows both powers to recapture territory previously lost to Poland without fear of attack by one another.


World War II

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 the 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.

Winston Churchhill
Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom

Winston Churchill replaces 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" by 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 (FDR), still angered over Japanese aggression against China, bans the shipment of strategic materials to Japan.

Bombing of London May 1941

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 as a prelude to a German invasion of the British Isles. Although London is heavily bombed in this so-called "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 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 United States Congress passes the "Lend-Lease Act," part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt 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" suffered between two and three million causalities fighting the Axis Powers during this period.

July 24, 1941 U.S. imposes an oil embargo on Japan.

August 9-12, 1941 Franklin Roosevelt and Winston 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 U.S. 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.

USS Reuben James

October 31, 1941 U.S. destroyer Reuben James is sunk by a German submarine or "U-Boat" 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 U.S. forces lose Manilla, the capital of the Philippines, to Japanese troops.



1942

January, 1942 German "U-Boats" initiate a second "Happy Time," by sinking unprepared U.S. 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, 1941 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 United States morale.

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 United States marine and naval units in the grueling Guadalcanal Campaign.

August 17, 1942 United States 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 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (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 Afrika Corps.

November 19, 1942 Soviet armies under Marshall Gregory Zhukov unleash a massive counterattack.

1943

34th President of the United States

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 United States 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.

General George S. Patton Jr.,
United States Army

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.

Left to right: General Secretary of the
Communist Party Joseph Stalin, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States,
and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of
the United Kingdom

November 18, 1943 Intensive Allied bombing of Berlin begins.

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

December 28, 1943 Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Joseph 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 U.S. 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 in Normandy on this date code-named "D-Day."

June 19, 1944 United States 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" United States 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 United States 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.

The Big Three: British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
and Stalin at the Yalta Conference.

February 4, 1945 Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Joseph 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 D. Eisenhower, with Soviet encouragement and to the chagrin of Winston Churchill, comes to believe that Adolf Hitler is creating a "National Redoubt" in Bavaria and Austria and diverts his forces southwards.

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

April 12, 1945 Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) dies and Harry Truman succeeds him in office. Truman had been left virtually in the dark about most of FDR’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 United States troops liberate Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, the last major concentration camp to be captured. Altogether some eleven million people died in the Nazi Holocaust, six million people 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 surrendered their forces to representatives of the British and American armed forces, an act which angered Stalin.

May 8, 1945 The German High Command surrenders 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 met in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference on International Organization to draw up the United Nations Charter.  It was geared to the elimination of warfare.

June 30, 1945 Fighting on Okinawa ends.

An eary stage in the "Trinity" fireball,
photographed by Berlyn Brixner.

July 16, 1945 Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph 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 United States 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 later christened "Bocks Car."

Kamikaze pilot charging the USS Missouri
earlier in the war. The very ship
on which they surrendered.

September 2, 1945 The Japanese sign an unconditional surrender document. The date 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.


Addendum

November 20, 1945 War crimes trials in Nuremberg, Germany begin. Dozens of ex-Nazi leaders and participants in the Holocaust are ultimately convicted and a number are executed.

March 5, 1946 Winston Churchill gives a speech announcing that an "iron curtain" had descended, referring to the Soviet military occupation of Eastern Europe. Many scholars see this as a key signal that the Cold War was underway.

October 16, 1946 Hermann Goring, former commander of the Luftwaffe and highest-ranking Nazi tried at Nuremberg commits suicide two hours before his scheduled execution.

June 5, 1947 Secretary of State George Marshall gives a speech at Harvard University and outlines what will eventually become known as the "Marshall Plan," an effort to economically rebuild the Western European countries shattered in the war.

1949-1990 The remnants of Germany are largely divided into two states, The German Democratic Republic ("East Germany") and the German Federal Republic ("West Germany"), throughout the period known as the Cold War.

April 1980 Captain Fumio Nakahira of the imperial Japanese army surrenders on the Island of Mindiro in the Philippines.

A map of the Group of Eight (G-8) countries

June 5, 2007 At a G-8 summit meeting Russia and Japan announced that they held short discussions on their ongoing efforts to reach a conclusion to the World War II hostilities between the two nations. A formal peace treaty has been held up for over sixty years by a dispute over four small previously-Japanese islands still occupied by Russia.

The Group of Eight (G-8) is an international forum for the governments of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Together, these countries represent about 65% of the world economy.