September 3, 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany, and World War II broke out
October 1939 the Battle of Poland was over
May 10, 1940 German invasion of Western Europe
May 19, 1940 the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) began to withdraw, and completed its withdrawal on June 2
June 14, 1940 France surrendered
July 1940 the Battle of Britain broke out
June 22, 1941 the Battle of Britain broke out. >June 14, 1940 France surrenders
July 1940 Battle of Britain breaks out
June 22, 1941 German blitzkrieg on Soviet Union
December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, outbreak of the Pacific War
April 18, 1942 Sixteen US B-15 bombers bomb Tokyo
In June 1942, the U.S. defeated Japan at the Battle of Midway,
In July 1942, the British defeated the Germans at the Battle of El Alamein,
November 1942-February 1943, the Soviets turned the tide of the war by destroying the German 6th Army at the Battle of Stalingrad
February 1943, U.S. forces captured Guadalupe Island
April 18 1943, a group of U.S. P-38s shot down a Japanese aircraft at Pearl Harbor. P-38s shoot down Japanese Combined Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's plane, killing him
June 1943 Allied landings in Sicily
July-August 1943 Soviets and Germans fight at the Battle of Kursk, defeating the Germans
June 1944 Allied landings at Normandy, while the U.S. Pacific Fleet makes the landings on the island of Mariana
October 1944 U.S. troops capture Guadeloupe.
October 1944 U.S. forces land in the Philippines, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf breaks out
December 1944 German Ardennes counterattacks, repulsed by the Allies
January 1945 Philippine campaign ends
March 1945 U.S. forces land on Iwo Jima
May 1945 Hitler commits suicide, Germany surrenders, U.S. forces land on Okinawa
August 1945, U.S. drops atomic bomb on Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki,15 Japanese government announces surrenderSeptember 1945, Japan signs unconditional surrender, end of World War II
Major events by year:
1939
September 1: Germany invades Poland, using the Blitzkrieg for the first time. The world learns for the first time what Blitzkrieg is all about.
September 3: Britain and France declared war on Germany.
September 17: The Soviet Union gained Germany's tacit agreement to attack Poland from the east.
September 27: Poland surrenders unconditionally to Germany.
November 30: Soviet troops invade Finland, bombing the capital Helsinki.
1940
March 12: Finland signs a peace treaty with the Soviet Union in Moscow, ceding territory to the Soviet Union.
April 9: Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. Denmark refused to resist, while Norway rose to meet the enemy.
May 10: German troops swept through Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns and is succeeded by Winston Churchill.
May 14: German troops cross the French border. Dutch troops cease resistance.
May 28: King Leopold III of Belgium orders his army to surrender.
May 26: In a dramatic turn of events, some 340,000 British, French and other Allied troops begin to retreat from France to the British mainland in the famous Miracle at Dunkirk.
June 10: Italy declares war on Britain and France.
June 14: Hitler's armies enter undefended Paris.
June 16: French Prime Minister Reynaud resigns and is succeeded by Marshal Goudon.
June 22: France accepts all the demands of the Nazi conquerors and signs a truce with Germany at Compagnie.
July 10: Germany's first major attack on British soil, the Battle of Battle of Britain begins.
September 7: London is attacked by German planes for the first time.
September 27: Japan joined the Berlin-Rome Axis and concluded the Triple Alliance.
December 15: British forces expel Italian troops from Egypt.
1941
January 10: Lend-Lease bill introduced in U.S. Congress, touching off heated debate between isolationists and interventionists.
March 11: U.S. Congress passes the Lend-Lease bill, authorizing the president to give full aid to Britain and all countries fighting the Axis powers.
March 27: Yugoslav leaders, in an attempt to prevent their country from joining the Axis organization, stage a coup d'état to install Prince Paul's regime and elect Peter II as head of state.
March 28: The British fleet defeated the Italian navy at Cape Mataban and seized control of the Mediterranean Sea.
March 30: Hitler's African armies launched a counter-offensive in North Africa.
April 6: Yugoslav forces surrendered to Germany, but guerrilla warfare continued.
May 10: Nazi Germany's number two leader, Rulf. Hess, the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany, flies secretly to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace privately with Britain.
May 20: German forces attacked the British-held island of Crete in the eastern Mediterranean.
May 27: The German heavy battleship Bismarck was sunk by the Royal Navy in the North Atlantic.
June 1: British forces abandoned Crete.
June 14: President Roosevelt announced the freezing of Axis assets in the U.S., and the State Department ordered the closure of all German consulates and propaganda organizations in the U.S.
June 22: Germany declared war on the Soviet Union, attacking it along a 1,600-kilometer front from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
July 26: President Roosevelt ordered the freezing of Japanese assets in the U.S. and a halt to trade with Japan.
August 9-14: Churchill and Roosevelt have a secret meeting on a ship, followed by a joint declaration stating the ****same goal of the war, the Atlantic Charter.
September 8: German troops begin the siege of Leningrad, which lasts for 900 days.
September 19: Nazi forces capture Kiev, the capital of Soviet Ukraine.
October 17: Extremist military leader Hideki Tojo is appointed prime minister of Japan.
October 31: The U.S. destroyer Reuben W. The USS Reuben Jaimes was sunk by a German submarine while escorting an arms ship. One hundred and fifteen men lost their lives.
November 14: Japanese Special Envoy Saburo Lazu arrived in the U.S. from Tokyo to discuss U.S.-Japanese relations.
November 18: The British Eighth Army, deployed in North Africa, launched an offensive in the Libyan desert.
December 7: At 7:50 a.m. Hawaii time, Japan launches a surprise air attack, bombing U.S. warships at Pearl Harbor and damaging the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Japan declared war on Britain and the United States.
December 8: The U.S. Congress passes a declaration of war against Japan. Winston Churchill announces in the British Parliament that Britain will go to war against Japan.
Japanese troops invade Thailand and Malaya.
The first Japanese troops land in the Philippines and launch a massive air attack on the Philippine Islands. The local garrison was under the command of General MacArthur
December 10: The British battleships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Chokyu were sunk by Japanese planes in Malaya.
December 11: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. The U.S. Congress declared that they were at war with the United States.
December 13: Hungary and Bulgaria declared war on the United States.
December 25: The Royal Army in Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese.
General Willett and a handful of U.S. troops retreat to Coriquito Island.
April 18: U.S. military planes, led by Col. Doolittle, bomb Tokyo.
May 8: Both the U.S. and the Japanese claim great victories in the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S.S. Lexington and the Japanese ship Shofu are sunk.
May 6: Admiral Willett surrenders to the Japanese at Coriquito Island.
June 6: A large number of Japanese planes attack Midway, suffering heavy losses in a fierce air and sea battle.
June 21: German General Rommel captures Tubruk in North Africa.
June 25: General Eisenhower is named commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in the European theater.
July 1: The Soviet Union's Black Sea fortress Sevastopol is finally captured by the Germans after a twenty-five-day siege.
August 7: U.S. Marines land on Guadalcanal Island in the Solomon Islands.
August 19: British and Canadian commandos attacked the French coastal town of Dieppe in the English Channel, suffering heavy losses.
August 31: British forces commanded by Lieutenant General Montgomery defeat Rommel's Afrika Korps at the Battle of Alam Halfa in Egypt.
November 5: Rommel's forces retreat towards Tunisia after a major defeat at the Battle of Yala Hain.
November 8: Allied air, sea and land forces land in North Africa under the command of Supreme Commander General Eisenhower.
November 11: Nazi forces attack unoccupied French territory.
November 13: British forces repel German troops and retake Toubouk.
November 22: Soviet forces, led by General Zhukov, counterattack in the Battle of Stalingrad.
1943
January 24: President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, together with military leaders, meet at Casablanca.
January 30: The British Air Force conducts the first daylight air raid on Berlin.
February 2: Exhausted German troops surrender, ending the Battle of Stalingrad. German commander Paulus is captured two days before the surrender.
February 7: The Japanese retreat from Guadalcanal, ending six months of stubborn resistance.
March 2: Naval battle in the Bismarck Sea, off the coast of New Guinea, destroys most of the Japanese ships.
May 11: U.S. forces land on the Aleutian island of Attu.
May 12: Axis forces cease organized resistance in Tunisia, indicating a total Allied victory in North Africa.
July 9: Allied forces under the command of Supreme Commander General Eisenhower attack Sicily.
July 25: Italian Prime Minister Mussolini resigns and is succeeded by Field Marshal Badoglio.
August 1: U.S. Liberator fighters bomb the Romanian oil fields at Ploiez.
August 17: The Allies completely occupy Sicily.
September 3: The Allies cross the Straits of Messina and attack southern Italy.
September 8: Italy announces its surrender to the Allies.
September 10: German forces shell and capture Rome. The Italian navy is taken over by the Allies.
October 1: The U.S. Fifth Army captures Naples.
October 13: Italy declares war on Germany.
October 19: The foreign ministers of the major member states of the United Nations meet in Moscow.
November 1: U.S. troops landed at Boukenville on the Solomon Islands.
November 6: Soviet troops recapture Kiev from the Germans.
November 20: U.S. troops landed at Tarawa and Mazin in the Gilbert Islands.
November 23: Roosevelt, Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek hold the first Cairo Conference in the Egyptian capital.
November 28: Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran.
December 24: Eisenhower is appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, responsible for planning and directing the attack on the European continent.
December 26: The German battleship Shannhorst is sunk by the British Navy at North Cape.
1944
January 22: British and American troops landed behind German positions in Anzie, Italy.
February 2: Soviet troops enter Estonia and march on Latvia.
U.S. Marines capture Lornamu Island in the Marshall Islands, and five days later, U.S. forces capture Kwajalein Island.
February 21: Tojo Hideki was appointed Chief of Staff of the Japanese Army and became a military dictator.
March 20: The Nazis wielded troops into Hungary in order to relieve the threat to the Balkans.
April 5: General de Gaulle becomes head of the French Provisional Government in London.
April 22: General MacArthur led U.S. forces to land on the Dutch island of Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea.
May 9: Soviet forces recapture the Sevastopol naval base.
May 18: Nazi troops retreat from the Cassino Monastery, ending a three-month siege.
May 23: The Allies launched an offensive from the beachhead at Anzie, Italy.
May 25: The Germans abandon the entire Italian coast from Anzac to Della Cina.
June 4: British and American forces take Rome, which has not been destroyed by the Germans.
June 6: Landing Day in Europe. The Allied armies, led by Eisenhower, landed in Normandy to launch a long-planned offensive against Hitler's European fortresses.
June 13: The first German attack on Britain with V-1 rockets.
June 14: General de Gaulle tours Normandy. It was his first revisit to France in four years.
June 15: The U.S. sends B-29 Superfortress bombers to bomb Japan for the first time.
June 19: In the Battle of the Philippine Sea, U.S. carrier planes attacked the Japanese fleet between the Marianas and the Philippine island of Luzon.
June 27: German resistance in the French port of Cherbourg ceases.
July 9: After 25 days of heavy fighting, U.S. forces captured Saipan in the Marianas.
July 11: The Soviet Red Army broke through the border between Latvia and Lithuania.
July 18: The British Second Army breaks through the German defenses at Conny, France.
July 20: An explosion at Hitler's East Prussian headquarters in Rustenburg injures Hitler only slightly and the assassination attempt fails.
July 21: U.S. Marines and infantry establish beachheads on Guam.
July 26: U.S. forces break through German defenses west of St. Lo, France.
August 10: U.S. forces finally capture Guam after three weeks of hard fighting.
August 11: The Allies close in on Florence, which the Germans abandon, leaving the city undamaged.
August 15: The Allies launched an offensive between Cannes and Toulon in southern France.
August 21: U.S. armored columns reach the Seine River area south and north of Paris.
August 23: Romania surrenders to the Soviet Union and joins the Allied camp.
August 25: Paris is liberated and the German commander surrenders to General Leclerc.
August 27: General Eisenhower enters Paris accompanied by Lieutenant General Boudreau.
September 3: The British Second Army under Lieutenant General Dempsey liberates Brussels, the capital of Belgium.
September 4: Finland and the Soviet Union declare a truce.
September 5: The Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria.
September 8: Germany fires the first V-2 rockets against the British capital, London.
September 9: Bulgaria and the Soviet Union sign a bilateral truce.
September 10: Roosevelt and Churchill meet in Quebec for their ninth meeting during the Great War and the second meeting between the two giants in the city.
September 17: Allied airlift forces penetrate deep into the Netherlands.
September 24: Soviet troops depart Poland and penetrate thirty-two kilometers into Czechoslovakia.
October 3: The Warsaw Resistance, under the command of General Pokomoloski, finally surrenders to the Germans after two months of bitter fighting.
October 20: U.S. troops landed at Reyitai in the central Philippines.
October 23: The Battle of Reyitai Bay, in which the Japanese fleet suffered heavy losses and the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Princeton was sunk.
November 6: Stalin announced the abrogation of the neutrality treaty with Japan.
November 7: Roosevelt was elected President of the United States for the fourth consecutive term.
November 12: The German battleship Tippetz was sunk by the RAF off Tromso, Norway.
November 24: U.S. B-29 bombers on Saipan bombed Tokyo.
December 16: The Germans launch a massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes, known as the Battle of the Bulge.
December 26: At Bastogne, the fortress of the Battle of the Bulge, U.S. forces commanded by Maj. Gen. McAuliffe are relieved by the Allied spearhead advancing from the south.
1945
January 9: Troops under General MacArthur land at Lingayen Gulf, about 160 kilometers north of Manila on Luzon.
January 17: The Soviet Union sends troops to capture the Polish capital, Warsaw.
January 20: The Hungarian Provisional Government signs a truce with the Allies.
January 27: Maimer, Lithuania, is liberated and the Soviet Union takes full control of the country.
January 31: Churchill and Roosevelt meet on the British island of Malta in a meeting that is a prelude to the Yalta Conference.
February 3: U.S. troops enter Manila.
February 4: Roosevelt, Churchill, and Starling meet at the Yalda Conference to plan how to control Germany and other liberated Eastern European countries.
February 19: U.S. Marines land on the island of Ryukyu Sulphur, 1,200 miles from Tokyo.
February 23: U.S. Marines capture Mount Suribachi on the island of Ryukyu.
March 4: Finland formally declares war on Germany, with the actual declaration of war backdated to September 15, 1944, and the U.S. Navy takes over the island of Ryukyu.
March 7: The U.S. First Army crosses the Ludendorff Bridge across the Rhine at Rimagien. Cologne falls to the Allies.
March 9: An unprecedentedly large cluster of B-29s bombed Tokyo, flattening forty-two square kilometers of the city.
March 26: U.S. Marines take firm hold of the island of Ryukyu.
April 1: U.S. forces attack Okinawa, more than 540 kilometers south of Tokyo.
April 12: Roosevelt dies and Truman succeeds him as U.S. president.
April 13: Vienna, the capital of Austria, falls to the Soviets.
April 16: Soviet troops advance along a seventy-two-kilometer front for a final assault on Berlin.
April 25: U.S. and Soviet forces met at Tugau on the Elbe River to celebrate this historic moment.
April 28: Mussolini, his mistress, and sixteen of his Fascist cronies were in the small village of Merzigla, in Como Lago, Italy.
April 30: Hitler kills himself in the basement of the Chancellery in Berlin. The Soviet flag flies atop the Reichstag. The U.S. Army released 33,000 people from the Dachau concentration camp.
May 2: Berlin falls to the Soviets; the remaining German units in northern Italy surrender.
May 3: British troops recapture Rangoon, the capital of Burma.
May 7: Germany formally and unconditionally surrenders to the Allies and the Soviet Union in a ceremony in Riemans, France.
June 5: The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and France **** together declare Germany defeated. The four powers take over Germany, dividing the country into four occupation zones.
June 21: The Battle of Okinawa ends with a total victory for the U.S. Army.
June 26: Representatives of fifty nations sign the Charter for World Security in San Francisco, establishing the United Nations.
July 4: General MacArthur declares a national re-light in the Philippines.
July 5: Winston Churchill loses the British election, and the Labor Party under Adderley comes to power.
July 16: The first atomic bomb is successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico.
July 17: The Potsdam Conference is held in Germany, attended by Saluman, Churchill (later replaced by Aidley) and Stalin.
August 2: The Potsdamer Declaration is issued, and the peace terms give the Germans a sense of the coming days.
August 6: The U.S. atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, destroying almost the entire city.
August 8: The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and moves into the eastern provinces.
August 9: The U.S. drops another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.
August 14: Japan declares unconditional surrender and Emperor Hirohito announces Japan's defeat to the nation.
9 March: Japan's surrender ceremony is held aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored off Tokyo. Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Aoi and a number of military leaders sign the instrument of surrender.