1. World War II
Timeline of Events

2. 1921 Germany is forced to accept $32 billion reparations schedule
The German mark collapses creating severe inflation
“For three Generations
you’ll have to slave away!”
1921
By 1924 $1 U.S. = $4 trillion German Marks

3. 1923
France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr b/c Germany defaults on reparations payments
Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch
Hitler writes Mein Kampf expressing his anti-semetic views and putting forth his “Final Solution”

4. 1924 Creation of the Dawes plan
Germany’s economy begins to improve at a very slow rate

5. 1929
Kellogg-Briand Pact is signed outlawing war (60 nations but no enforcement powers)

6. 1931
10 min
Japanese Invasion of Manchuria (1931); puppet government of Manchukuo
Mukden incident
Full-scale invasion of China in earnest by 1937
‘Rape of Nanking’ ( ,000 civilians massacred by
Japanese troops in French Indochina (1940)
Japan occupies resources in Dutch East Indies (Indonesia)
1932 FDR is elected Pres in the U.S.

7. 1931 cont.

8. 1933
Hitler is made Chancellor in the Weimar Republic & begins a rearmament campaign
Reichstag fire
National Socialist German worker’s party win 43% of the Reichstag
National boycott of Jewish businesses
Public book burnings of Jewish authors
Dachau is open initially for Communists, Socialists and labor leaders
Japan & Germany withdraw from LoN

9. 1934
Ernst Rohm and the SA (Sturmabteilung), Nazi storm troopers that helped bring Hitler to power, were arrested and killed in the “Night of Long Knives”
Nazi party is now the only legal political party.
Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases
30,000 are now interned.
August 2: Hindenburg dies Hitler assumes the presidency
Night of Long Knives & Rohm
At least 85 people died during the purge, although the final death toll may have been in the hundreds,[2][3] and more than a thousand perceived opponents were arrested.[2] Most of the killings were carried out by the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), the regime's secret police. The purge strengthened and consolidated the support of the Reichswehr for Hitler. It also provided a legal grounding for the Nazi regime,
Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases is also passed, providing for the serilization of unfit parents and the "euthanasia" of "the defective" and "useless eaters."

10. 1935 Anti-Jewish legislation “Nuremburg Laws” citizenship was revoked
The Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 deprived German Jews of their rights of citizenship, giving them the status of "subjects" in Hitler's Reich. The laws also made it forbidden for Jews to marry or have sexual relations with Aryans or to employ young Aryan women as household help. (An Aryan being a person with blond hair and blue eyes of Germanic heritage.)
The first two laws comprising the Nuremberg Race Laws were: "The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor" (regarding Jewish marriage) and "The Reich Citizenship Law" (designating Jews as subjects).
Those laws were soon followed by "The Law for the Protection of the Genetic Health of the German People," which required all persons wanting to marry to submit to a medical examination, after which a "Certificate of Fitness to Marry" would be issued if they were found to be disease free. The certificate was required in order to get a marriage license.
The Nuremberg Laws had the unexpected result of causing confusion and heated debate over who was a "full Jew." The Nazis then issued instructional charts such as the one shown below to help distinguish Jews from Mischlinge (Germans of mixed race) and Aryans. The white figures represent Aryans; the black figures represent Jews; and the shaded figures represent Mischlinge.
The Nazis settled on defining a "full Jew" as a person with three Jewish grandparents. Those with less were designated as Mischlinge of two degrees: First Degree - two Jewish grandparents; Second Degree - one Jewish grandparent.
After the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, a dozen supplemental Nazi decrees were issued that eventually outlawed the Jews completely, depriving them of their rights as human beings.

11. 1936 Italy invades Ethiopia 1934
Ethiopia asked the League of Nations for help – they had no military forces to send
LoN placed economic sanctions on Italy for being an aggressor
Italy announced Ethiopia is part of the Italian empire

12. 1936 cont. Olympics in Germany
All anti-Jewish signs are removed until games are over
Rome-Berlin Axis & Anti-Comintern Pact
Hitler takes the Rhineland
Franco comes to power in Spain
FDR wins 2nd term
Rome-Berlin Axis - agreement between Germany and Italy against the Allied powers.
Anti-Comintern Pact - The Anti-Comintern Pact was an Anti-Communist pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan (later to be joined by other countries) on November 25, 1936 and was directed against the Communist International (Comintern), an organ of the Soviet Union.

13. 1937 Marco-Polo Bridge Incident (China)
KMT-CCP Agreement signed (China) ended the civil war in order to combine forces and free China from Japanese invaders
Marco Polo Bridge Incident, (July 7, 1937), conflict between Chinese and Japanese troops near the Marco Polo Bridge (Chinese: Lugouqiao) outside Beiping (now Beijing), which developed into the warfare between the two countries that was the prelude to the Pacific side of World War II.
In 1931 Japan occupied Manchuria (now Northeast China) and established the puppet state of Manchukuo (Manzhouguo), spending large sums to develop the region’s industry and continuing to expand their occupation into northern China around Beiping and Tianjin. This violation of China’s territorial integrity produced a growing anti-Japanese movement in China. By 1937 this movement had grown so strong that the Chinese communists (CCP) and Nationalists (Kuomintang) agreed to end their civil war and form a United Front against further Japanese aggression.
Before the incident occurred, the Japanese army had occupied Fengtai, the railway junction close to the Marco Polo Bridge, southwest of Beiping. On the night of July 7, 1937, a small Japanese force on maneuvers near the Marco Polo Bridge demanded entry to the tiny walled town of Wanping in order to search for one of their soldiers. The Chinese garrison in the town refused the Japanese entry; a shot was heard, and the two sides began firing. The Chinese government, under strong anti-Japanese pressure, refused to make any concessions in the negotiation of the dispute. The Japanese also maintained their position. As a result, the conflict continued to grow.
As the fighting spread to central China, the Japanese scored successive victories. The Japanese government, under mounting public pressure not to retreat, decided to seek a quick victory in China. However, this eluded them, and the two sides plunged into what was to become the 2nd Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) and, in 1941, the Pacific theatre of World War II.

14. 1938 U.S. Naval Expansion Act Austria is annexed by Germany
Kristallnacht – Nazi’s burn synagogues and loot Jewish homes and businesses – seized assets
Jewish children expelled from school (has previously been excluded from university)
Czech placed Sudetenland under martial law & Hitler attacked and annexed the land
Munich Conference - appeasement
Kristallnacht- 91 Jews are killed and others are beaten.
Munich Conference - was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without the presence of Czechoslovakia. Today, it is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement toward Nazi Germany.
Young onlookers watch as the local fire department prevents the fire from spreading to nearby houses, but makes no attempt to stop the synagogue from burning.

15. 1939 9/17 Russia invades Poland, Baltics and Finland
Poland partitioned Germany begins “blitzkrieg” campaign
U.S. Neutrality Act

17. 1939 cont
WWII breaks out
Germany annexes the rest of Czechoslovakia. British pledges to aid Poland "at once with all the support in their power” (declare war on Ger.)
The Jewish refugee ship the St. Louis arrives in Belgium after being denied access to Cuba and the U.S.
Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
Ger & S.U. wage war & divide Poland
U.S creates Cash & Carry Policy
Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact - agreement not to attack one another – Hitler always knew he would eventually attack the Soviet Union.
Cash and carry - policy adopted by the United States in 1939 to preserve neutrality while aiding the Allies. Britain and France could buy goods from the United States if they paid in full and transported them.

18. 1940 Jan. Britain begins East Africa Campaign against the Italians
May U.S. fleet relocated to the Pacific as a deterrent
June 22 France falls to the Nazi’s
Vichy Government is set up in southern France
June10 Battle of Britain
Dec. Lend-Lease Act
FDR gets a 3rd term
Battle of Britain July 10 - start of 3-month air war; Goering vs. RAF; ends Oct 30 after 57-day Blitz on London; was Hitler's 1st defeat - war shifts to the east; U.S. aid becomes vital - the "Atlantic lifeline“
FDR proposed Lend-Lease, to be like $15 garden hose, Lent to neighbor when their house is on fire.
Vichy France - The pro-German French government established in the unoccupied territory of Southern France after the occupation of part that country by Germany.
After the Battle of Britain

19. 1940 cont. The deportations of Gypsies
German troops invade Denmark and Norway.
British forces land in Norway.
Ger invaded Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
British troops enter Belgium. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns; Winston Churchill becomes new Prime Minister.
5/15 Holland surrenders
5/28 Belgium surrenders
6/3 Norway surrenders
6/10 Italy declares war on G.B & Fr.
6/14 Germans enter Paris

20. 1941 March 11: FDR signs Lend-Lease Bill.
April 6: Germany invades Greece and Yugoslavia.
April 13: Germans occupy Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Russo-Japanese neutrality pact signed.
June 22: Germany attacks the S.U.
June - July: Over 62,000 Jews are murdered in western Russia.
August 11: Churchill & FDR sign the Atlantic Charter, establishing the war aims of both nations.
Lend-Lease Bill - bill by which the United States government provided aid, economic and other, to nations warring against the Axis Powers.
The Atlantic Charter - The Charter stated the ideal goals of the war: no territorial aggrandizement; no territorial changes made against the wishes of the people; restoration of self-government to those deprived of it; free access to raw materials; reduction of trade restrictions; global cooperation to secure better economic and social conditions for all; freedom from fear and want; freedom of the seas; and abandonment of the use of force, as well as disarmament of aggressor nations. In the United Nations declaration of 1 January 1942, the Allies of World War II pledged adherence to the charter's principles.

21. 1941 cont
December 7: Britain declares war on Finland, Hungary, and Rumania.
December 8: Britain & the U.S declare war on Japan. Japan invades Malaya.
12/7 Pearl Harbor attacked attack scene 10 min (FDR speech)
December 9: Japan invades Philippines.
December 11: Ger & It declare war on U.S.
Pearl Harbor - By September 1941 the Japanese had practically completed secret plans for a huge assault against Malaya, the Philippines, and the Netherlands East Indies, to be coordinated with a crushing blow on the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Island of Oahu. Early in November Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo was named commander of the Pearl Harbor Striking Force, which rendezvoused secretly in the Kuriles. The force of some 30 ships included six aircraft carriers with about 430 planes, of which approximately 360 took part in the subsequent attack. At the same time, a Japanese Advance Expeditionary Force of some 20 submarines was assembled at Kure naval base on the west coast of Honshu to cooperate in the attack.
Nagumo's task force sailed from the Kuriles on 26 November and arrived, undetected by the Americans, at a point about 200 miles north of Oahu at 0600 hours (Hawaiian time) on December 7, Beginning at 0600 and ending at 0715, a total of some 360 planes were launched in three waves. These planes rendezvoused to the south and then flew toward Oahu for coordinated attacks.
In Pearl Harbor were 96 vessels, the bulk of the United States Pacific Fleet. Eight battleships of the Fleet were there, but the aircraft carriers were all at sea. The Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) was Admiral Husband E. Kimmel. Army forces in Hawaii, including the 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions, were under the command of Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, Commanding General of the Hawaiian Department. On the several airfields were a total of about 390 Navy and Army planes of all types, of which less than 300 were available for combat or observation purposes.
All together the Japanese sank or severely damaged 18 ships, including the 8 battleships, three light cruisers, and three destroyers. On the airfields the Japanese destroyed 161 American planes (Army 74, Navy 87) and seriously damaged 102 (Army 71, Navy 31).
The Navy and Marine Corps suffered a total of 2,896 casualties of which 2,117 were deaths (Navy 2,008, Marines 109) and 779 wounded (Navy 710, Marines 69). The Army (as of midnight, 10 December) lost 228 killed or died of wounds, 113 seriously wounded and 346 slightly wounded. In addition, at least 57 civilians were killed and nearly as many seriously injured.
The Japanese lost 29 planes over Oahu, one large submarine (on 10 December), and all five of the midget submarines. Their personnel losses (according to Japanese sources) were 55 airmen, nine crewmen on the midget submarines, and an unknown number on the large submarines. The Japanese carrier task force sailed away undetected and unscathed.
Seven warships sunk: USS Arizona, USS Utah, USS Oklahoma, USS Cassin, USS Downes, USS Shaw, and USS Oglala

22. 1942
February 19: By order of FDR, Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast are transferred to internment camps in the interior of the country.
April 10: Japan captures Bataan. By June, Japan controls the Philippines.
May 4-8: Battle of Coral Sea min
June 3-6: Battle of Midway Island min
August 5-31: Germans advancing in Russia.
August 7: Americans land on Guadalcanal.
November 8: U.S. & G.B. land in French North Africa. Animated map
Bataan Death March - was the forcible transfer, by the Imperial Japanese Army, of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of prisoners.
The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from 4–8 May 1942, was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval and air forces from the United States and Australia. The battle was the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other. It was also the first naval battle in history in which neither side's ships sighted or fired directly upon the other.
Guadalcanal - took place from 12–15 November 1942, Allied forces, primarily from the U.S., had landed on Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942 and seized an airfield, later called Henderson Field, that was under construction by the Japanese military

23. 1943
January 14: FDR and Churchill meet at Casablanca, decide on a policy of "Unconditional Surrender."
January 31: Ger. Gen. surrender to the Soviets at Stalingrad.
May 13: Ger. surrender in Tunisia.
July 10: Allies invade Sicily.
July 25: Benito Mussolini is dismissed by King Victor Emmanuel in Italy and is arrested. Attempts to escape to is caught, assassinated beaten & hung.
August 2: Eight days of Allied bombing in Hamburg, Germany.
August 17: Allied conquest of Sicily.

24. 1943 cont.
August - December: The United States lands on the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, New Georgia and the Gilbert Islands.
September 3: Italy forms armistice with Allies.
September 8: Italy surrenders.
October 13: Italy declares war on Germany.
November 22-26: Cairo conference between Churchill and FDR
November 28: Teheran conference between the Big Three: Churchill, FDR and Joseph Stalin, of the Soviet Union.  
The Cairo Conference November 22–26, 1943, held in Cairo, Egypt, addressed the Allied position against Japan during World War II and made decisions about postwar Asia. The meeting was attended by President Franklin Roosevelt of the United States, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China. Soviet leader Stalin refused to attend the conference on the grounds that since Chiang was attending.
The Tehran Conference (codenamed Eureka[1]) was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943, most of which was held at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first World War II conference amongst the Big Three. The conference discussed relations with Turkey and Iran, operations in Yugoslavia and against Japan, and the post-war settlement. A separate protocol pledged the three countries to recognize Iran's independence.

25. 1944 January 22: Allies land in Anzio, It.
February 3: Ger. offensive at Anzio.
March 22: Japanese invade India.
April 10-18: Soviet success against the Germans in Crimea.
June 4: Allies occupy Rome.
June 6: D-Day interactive map
June 19-20: Battle of the Philippine Sea, Allied victory over Japanese forces.
June 22: The G. I. Bill of Rights passed.
June 23: Russians start offensive on Central Front.
July 20: Failed attack to kill Hitler.
July 24: American forces land in the Marianas Islands.
D-Day – “D stands for day” The 5000-vessel armada stretched as far as the eye could see, transporting over 150,000 men and nearly 30,000 vehicles across the channel to the French beaches. Six parachute regiments -- over 13,000 men -- were flown from nine British airfields in over 800 planes. More than 300 planes dropped 13,000 bombs over coastal Normandy immediately in advance of the invasion. By nightfall on June 6, more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were dead or wounded, but more than 100,000 had made it ashore, securing French coastal villages. And within weeks, supplies were being unloaded at UTAH and OMAHA beachheads at the rate of over 20,000 tons per day.
June 22: The G. I. Bill of Rights was passed to provide for veterans after the war.
July 20: Bomb planted by Count von Stafenberg fails to kill Hitler.

26. 1944 cont July 27: Americans break Ger. lines in Normandy.
August 17: Japan removed from India.
August 25: Paris liberated by the Allies.
October Allies land in Greece, Russians enter East Prussia.
October 19: Americans in Philippines.
November 7: FDR is elected for his fourth term; Harry S Truman VP.
November 28-29: First American night air attack on Tokyo.
December 16-26: Battle of the Bulge, the last German offensive in the west.

27. 1945 February 4: Am. enter Manila: Yalta Conference.
February 13: Dresden raid.
February 19: Americans land on Iwo Jima. April 1 Okinawa.
March 18: Air-raid on Berlin.
March 23: Allies cross the Rhine.
April 12: FDR dies, Harry S Truman becomes president.
April 20: Am. capture Nuremberg.
April 29: Dachau concentration camp is overrun by United States soldiers.
May 1: Hitler commits suicide.
February 13: Dresden raid. Allied firebombing kills 135,000 Germans, including civilians, and destroys 80% of the city.
Some Holocaust Info: Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds perished. Some scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the Nazis' genocide of millions of people in other groups, including Romani (more commonly known in English by the exonym "Gypsies"), Soviet prisoners of war, Polish and Soviet civilians, homosexuals, people with disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses and other political and religious opponents, which occurred regardless of whether they were of German or non-German ethnic origin.[6] Using this definition, the total number of Holocaust victims is between 11 million and 17 million people.

28. 1945 cont May 2: Berlin surrenders to Russian forces.
May 4: German forces in Holland, North-West Germany, and Denmark surrender.
May 7: Unconditional surrender of all German forces to Britain, Russia, and the United States.
May 8: V-E Day: German surrender confirmed.
June 26: U.N. charter is signed.
July 5: Liberation of Philippines complete.

29. 1945 cont.
July 16: Potsdam conference ends. Meanwhile, the first atomic bomb is exploded in a test at Alamogordo, New Mexico.
July 26: Potsdam Declaration is delivered to Japan.
August 2: Potsdam conference ends.
August 5: Atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. BBC Film clip 5 min
August 8: Russia declares war on Japan.
August 9: Atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki.
August 14: Japan accepts Allied terms.
August 15: V-J Day.
For six months before the atomic bombings, the United States intensely fire-bombed 67 Japanese cities. Together with the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, the United States called for a surrender of Japan in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum. By executive order of President Harry S. Truman, the U.S. dropped the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945, followed by the detonation of "Fat Man" over Nagasaki on August 9. Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki.

30. WHEWF!!!! We just ran through WWII in a week!
Really?!