2. D-Day and Liberation of France
Plan = take Hitler by surprise on the Normandy Peninsula
Attack begins June 6, 1944
Largest land-sea-air operation in history
July 25, 1944 Gen. Omar Bradley starts air and land bombardment, Gen. George Patton advances Army
Aug 25, 1944 – Paris free from German occupation

3. The Battle of the Bulge October 1944 Americans capture Aachen
First German town to be captured
December 16 Germans attack Americans
German’s last ditch offensive
Americans receive a surrender demand form Germans
January 1945 Germans were pushed back
From that point on, Nazis could do little but retreat

4. Unconditional Surrender
April 25, 1945 SU stormed Berlin
April 29 – Hitler marries Eva Braun, prepares statement to German people
April 30 – Hitler shot himself, Eva swallows poison
Bodies soaked in gasoline to burn
May 8, 1945 = V-E day
First part of war over

5. Liberation of Death Camps
July 1944
Soviets first come across death camps
Majdanek Death Camp, Poland
SS work to bury and burn all evidence of crime
Soviets find world’s largest crematorium and a storehouse containing 800,000 shoes
“Living corpses” freed across Europe

6. War in the Pacific April 1942, Bataan June 1942, Midway
Douglas MacArthur and the Allies held out for four months against invading Japanese forces before abandoning the peninsula.
Chester W. Nimitz and the Americans turned back the Japanese invasion force headed for Hawaii

7. War in the Pacific August 1942, Guadalcanal October 1944, Leyte Gulf
MacArthur and Americans dealt Japan its first defeat on land
MacArthur and the Americans retook the Philippines and dealt a devastating blow to the Japanese navy.

8. War in the Pacific March 1945, Iwo Jima June 1945, Okinawa
MacArthur and the Allies in a fierce battle took the island from the Japanese
MacArthur and the Allies took the island from Japan

9. Hirohito, MacArthur – Japan formally surrendered
War in the Pacific
September 1945, Tokyo Bay
Hirohito, MacArthur – Japan formally surrendered

10. August 1945, Hiroshima, Nagasaki
The Science of War
August 1945, Hiroshima, Nagasaki
July 1945, Los Alamos
J. Robert Oppenheimer; the first atomic bomb was built, successfully completing the Manhattan Project
Truman; first atomic bombs were dropped