Progression to WWII

Progression to WWII

1)      1935 Hitler reinstitutes compulsory military service

2)      1936 Germany reoccupies the Rhineland

Spanish Civil War- German proving grounds

3)      1936 - Holocaust is instituted in Germany

4)  1937 - Japan invades China

5)  1938 March - Germany invades Austria

6)      1938 Hitler takes back the Sudetenland (a part of Czechoslovakia)

7)      1938 Sept. -  Conference in Munich -  France and Britain allow Hitler to retain the Sudetenland in exchange for an end to aggression in Europe

8)      1939  March - Hitler takes all of Czechoslovakia

9)   1939 Aug 23- Non-aggression pact made between Hitler and Stalin

10)   1939 Sept 1- Hitler invades Poland (three weeks)

A)     France and Britain declared war “phony war”

11)  1940 - Stalin invades Finland-takes territory for military bases (warm water port)

12)  1940 April - Hitler takes Denmark and Norway

13)    1940 May - Hitler takes Netherlands and Belgium

14)    1940 June - Hitler takes France and Mussolini attacked cowardly from the rear.

15)  1940 Sept. - Japan joins the Axis powers

16)  1941 June 22 - Hitler invades the Soviet Union (Stalin and Hitler could not agree to split the loot, so Hitler decided to take Stalin out)

17)    1941  December 7  attack on Pearl Harbor

18)    1941 Dec 11 - U.S. declares war on Japan and joins the allies

19)    1942 May - Battle of the Coral Sea  & June 3-6 Midway Japan is halted

20)    1942 Nov. - Americans make a surprise landing on Africa making a second front and defeating Germany in May 1943

21)    1943-  Allied forces invade Italy causing Italy to declare war on Germany in October 1943

22)    1944 June 6 D-Day -  American and Allied forces launch the enormous military operation

23)    1944 Dec 16 - Hitler makes his last offensive move, in an attempt to keep from being pushed back all the way into Germany (Battle of the Bulge).  The Americans overcame the offensive and entered Germany in March of 1945.   By April 1945 the Allies had converged in Berlin

24)    1945 April 12 - Roosevelt dies of a cerebral hemorrhage.

25)    1945 April 30- Hitler commits suicide in his bunker

26)    1945 May 7 - Truman now president Germany surrenders V-E day (victory in Europe)

27)    1945 June - Okinawa is defeated

28)    1945 Aug 6 Hiroshima and Aug 9 Nagasaki   -- Atomic Bomb—

29)    1945 Aug 14 - Japan surrenders unconditionally with the Emperor intact though diminished