World War II: Timeline
September 18, 1931
Japan invades Manchuria.
October 2, 1935–May 1936
Fascist Italy invades, conquers, and
annexes Ethiopia.
October 25–November 1, 1936
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sign a
treaty of cooperation on October 25; on November 1, the Rome-Berlin Axis is announced.
November 25, 1936
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the
Anti-Comintern Pact, directed against the Soviet Union and the international
Communist movement.
July 7, 1937
Japan invades China, initiating World War II in the Pacific.
March 11–13, 1938
Germany incorporates Austria in the Anschluss.
September 29, 1938
Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign
the Munich agreement which forces the Czechoslovak Republic to cede the
Sudetenland, including the key Czechoslovak military defense positions, to Nazi
Germany.
March 14–15, 1939
Under German pressure, the Slovaks declare their
independence and form a Slovak Republic. The Germans occupy the rump Czech lands
in violation of the Munich agreement, forming a Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia.
March 31, 1939
France and Great Britain guarantee the integrity of
the borders of the Polish state.
April 7–15, 1939
Fascist Italy invades and annexes Albania.
August 23, 1939
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression agreement and a secret codicil
dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence.
September 1, 1939
Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe.
September 3, 1939
Honoring their guarantee of Poland’s borders,
Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.
September 17, 1939
The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east.
September 27–29, 1939
Warsaw surrenders on September 27. The Polish
government flees into exile via Romania. Germany and the Soviet Union divide
Poland between them.
November 30, 1939–March 12, 1940
The Soviet Union invades Finland,
initiating the so-called Winter War. The Finns sue for an armistice and have to
cede the northern shores of Lake Lagoda and the small Finnish coastline on the
Arctic Sea to the Soviet Union.
April 9, 1940–June 9, 1940
Germany invades Denmark and Norway. Denmark surrenders on the day of the
attack; Norway holds out until June 9.
May 10, 1940–June 22, 1940
Germany attacks western Europe—France and the neutral Low
Countries. Luxembourg is occupied on May 10; the Netherlands surrenders on May
14; and Belgium surrenders on May 28. On June 22, France signs an armistice
agreement by which the Germans occupy the northern half of the country and the
entire Atlantic coastline. In southern France, a collaborationist regime with
its capital in Vichy is established.
June 10, 1940
Italy enters the war. Italy invades southern
France on June 21.
June 28, 1940
The Soviet Union forces Romania to cede the eastern province of
Bessarabia and the northern half of Bukovina to the Soviet Ukraine.
June 14, 1940–August 6, 1940
The Soviet Union occupies the Baltic
States on June 14–18, engineering Communist coup d’états in each of them on July
14–15, and then annexing them as Soviet Republics on August 3–6.
July 10, 1940–October 31, 1940
The air war known as the Battle of
Britain ends in defeat for Nazi Germany.
August 30, 1940
Second Vienna Award: Germany and Italy arbitrate a
decision on the division of the disputed province of Transylvania between
Romania and Hungary. The loss of northern Transylvania forces Romanian King
Carol to abdicate in favor of his son, Michael, and brings to power a
dictatorship under General Ion Antonescu.
September 13, 1940
The Italians invade British-controlled Egypt
from Italian-controlled Libya.
September 27, 1940
Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite
Pact.
October 1940
Italy invades Greece from Albania on October 28.
November 1940
Slovakia (November 23), Hungary (November 20), and
Romania (November 22) join the Axis.
February 1941
The Germans send the Afrika Korps to North Africa to
reinforce the faltering Italians.
March 1, 1941
Bulgaria joins the Axis.
April 6, 1941–June 1941
Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria
invade and dismember Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia surrenders on April 17.
Germany and Bulgaria invade Greece in support of the Italians. Resistance in
Greece ceases in early June 1941.
April 10, 1941
The leaders of the terrorist Ustasa movement
proclaim the so-called Independent State of Croatia. Recognized immediately by
Germany and Italy, the new state includes the province of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Croatia joins the Axis powers formally on June 15, 1941.
June 22, 1941–November 1941
Nazi Germany and its Axis partners
(except Bulgaria) invade the Soviet Union. Finland, seeking redress for the
territorial losses in the armistice concluding the Winter War, joins the Axis
just before the invasion. The Germans quickly overrun the Baltic States and,
joined by the Finns, lay siege to Leningrad (St. Petersburg) by September. In
the center, the Germans capture Smolensk in early August and drive on Moscow by
October. In the south, German and Romanian troops capture Kiev (Kyiv) in
September and capture Rostov on the Don River in November.
December 6, 1941
A Soviet counteroffensive drives the Germans from
the Moscow suburbs in chaotic retreat.
December 7, 1941
Japan bombs Pearl Harbor.
December 8, 1941
The United States declares war on Japan, entering
World War II. Japanese troops land in the Philippines, French Indochina
(Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), and British Singapore. By April 1942, the
Philippines, Indochina, and Singapore are under Japanese occupation.
December 11–13, 1941
Nazi Germany and its Axis partners declare war
on the United States.
May 30, 1942–May 1945
The British bomb Köln (Cologne), bringing the
war home to Germany for the first time. Over the next three years Anglo-American
bombing reduces urban Germany to rubble.
June 1942
British and US navies halt the Japanese naval advance in
the central Pacific at Midway.
June 28, 1942–September 1942
Germany and her Axis partners launch a
new offensive in the Soviet Union. German troops fight their way into Stalingrad
(Volgograd) on the Volga River by mid-September and penetrate deep into the
Caucasus after securing the Crimean Peninsula.
August–November 1942
US troops halt the Japanese island-hopping
advance towards Australia at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
October 23–24, 1942
British troops defeat the Germans and Italians
at El Alamein in Egypt, sending the Axis forces in chaotic retreat across Libya
to the eastern border of Tunisia.
November 8, 1942
US and British troops land at several points on
the beaches of Algeria and Morocco in French North Africa. The failure of the
Vichy French troops to defend against the invasion enables the Allies to move
swiftly to the western border of Tunisia, and triggers the German occupation of
southern France on November 11.
November 23, 1942–February 2, 1943
Soviet troops counterattack,
breaking through the Hungarian and Romanian lines northwest and southwest of
Stalingrad and trapping the German Sixth Army in the city. Forbidden by Hitler
to retreat or try to break out of the Soviet ring, the survivors of the Sixth
Army surrender on January 30 and February 2, 1943.
May 13, 1943
Axis forces in Tunisia surrender to the Allies, ending
the North African campaign.
July 10, 1943
US and British troops land on Sicily. By mid-August,
the Allies control Sicily.
July 5, 1943
The Germans launch a massive tank offensive near Kursk
in the Soviet Union. The Soviets blunt the attack within a week and begin an
offensive initiative of their own.
July 25, 1943
The Fascist Grand Council deposes Benito Mussolini,
enabling Italian Marshall Pietro Badoglio to form a new government.
September 8, 1943
The Badoglio government surrenders
unconditionally to the Allies. The Germans immediately seize control of Rome and
northern Italy, establishing a puppet Fascist regime under Mussolini, who is
freed from imprisonment by German commandos on September 12.
September 9, 1943
Allied troops land on the beaches of Salerno near
Naples.
November 6, 1943
Soviet troops liberate Kiev.
January 22, 1944
Allied troops land successfully near Anzio, just
south of Rome.
March 19, 1944
Fearing Hungary’s intention to desert the Axis
partnership, the Germans occupy Hungary and compel the regent, Admiral
Miklos Horthy, to appoint a pro-German minister president.
June 4, 1944
Allied troops liberate Rome. Within six weeks,
Anglo-American bombers could hit targets in eastern Germany for the first time.
June 6, 1944
British and US troops successfully land on the Normandy
beaches of France, opening a “Second Front” against the Germans.
June 22, 1944
The Soviets launch a massive offensive in eastern
Byelorussia (Belarus), destroying the German Army Group Center and driving
westward to the Vistula River across from Warsaw in central Poland by August 1.
July 25, 1944
Anglo-American forces break out of the Normandy
beachhead and race eastward towards Paris.
August 1, 1944–October 5, 1944
The non-communist underground Home
Army rises up against the Germans in an effort to liberate Warsaw before the
arrival of Soviet troops. The Soviet advance halts on the east bank of the
Vistula. On October 5, the Germans accept the surrender of the remnants of the
Home Army forces fighting in Warsaw.
August 15, 1944
Allied forces land in southern France near Nice and
advance rapidly towards the Rhine River to the northeast.
August 20–25, 1944
Allied troops reach Paris. On August 25, Free
French forces, supported by Allied troops, enter the French capital. By
September, the Allies reach the German border; by December, virtually all of
France, most of Belgium, and part of the southern Netherlands are liberated.
August 23, 1944
The appearance of Soviet troops on the Prut River
induces the Romanian opposition to overthrow the Antonescu regime. The new
government concludes an armistice and immediately switches sides in the war. The
Romanian turnaround compels Bulgaria to surrender on September 8, and the
Germans to evacuate Greece, Albania, and southern Yugoslavia in October.
August 29, 1944–October 28, 1944
Under the leadership of the Slovak
National Council, consisting of both Communists and non-Communists, underground
Slovak resistance units rise against the Germans and the indigenous fascist
Slovak regime. In late October, the Germans capture Banská Bystrica, the
headquarters of the uprising, and put an end to organized resistance.
September 12, 1944
Finland concludes an armistice with the Soviet
Union, leaving the Axis partnership.
October 20, 1944
US troops land in the Philippines.
October 15, 1944
The Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross movement carries
out a coup d’état with German support to prevent the Hungarian government from
pursuing negotiations for surrender to the Soviets.
December 16, 1944
The Germans launch a final offensive in the west,
known as the Battle
of the Bulge, in an attempt to re-conquer Belgium and split the
Allied forces along the German border. By January 1, 1945, the Germans are in
retreat.
January 12, 1945
The Soviets launch a new offensive, liberating
Warsaw and Krakow in January, capturing Budapest after a two-month siege on
February 13, driving the Germans and their Hungarian collaborators out of
Hungary in early April, forcing the surrender of Slovakia with the capture of
Bratislava on April 4, and capturing Vienna on April 13.
March 7, 1945
US troops cross the Rhine River at Remagen.
April 16, 1945
The Soviets launch their final offensive, encircling
Berlin.
April 1945
Partisan units, led by Yugoslav Communist leader Josip
Tito, capture Zagreb and topple the Ustasa regime. The top Ustasa leaders flee
to Italy and Austria.
April 30, 1945
Hitler commits suicide.
May 7, 1945
Germany surrenders to the western Allies.
May 9, 1945
Germany surrenders to the Soviets.
May 1945
Allied troops conquer Okinawa, the last island stop before
the Japanese islands.
August 6, 1945
The United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
August 8, 1945
The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and invades
Manchuria.
August 9, 1945
The United States drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
September 2, 1945
Having agreed in principle to unconditional
surrender on August 14, 1945, Japan formally surrenders, ending World War II.
source: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007306
September 18, 1931
Japan invades Manchuria.
October 2, 1935–May 1936
Fascist Italy invades, conquers, and
annexes Ethiopia.
October 25–November 1, 1936
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sign a
treaty of cooperation on October 25; on November 1, the Rome-Berlin Axis is announced.
November 25, 1936
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the
Anti-Comintern Pact, directed against the Soviet Union and the international
Communist movement.
July 7, 1937
Japan invades China, initiating World War II in the Pacific.
March 11–13, 1938
Germany incorporates Austria in the Anschluss.
September 29, 1938
Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign
the Munich agreement which forces the Czechoslovak Republic to cede the
Sudetenland, including the key Czechoslovak military defense positions, to Nazi
Germany.
March 14–15, 1939
Under German pressure, the Slovaks declare their
independence and form a Slovak Republic. The Germans occupy the rump Czech lands
in violation of the Munich agreement, forming a Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia.
March 31, 1939
France and Great Britain guarantee the integrity of
the borders of the Polish state.
April 7–15, 1939
Fascist Italy invades and annexes Albania.
August 23, 1939
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression agreement and a secret codicil
dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence.
September 1, 1939
Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe.
September 3, 1939
Honoring their guarantee of Poland’s borders,
Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.
September 17, 1939
The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east.
September 27–29, 1939
Warsaw surrenders on September 27. The Polish
government flees into exile via Romania. Germany and the Soviet Union divide
Poland between them.
November 30, 1939–March 12, 1940
The Soviet Union invades Finland,
initiating the so-called Winter War. The Finns sue for an armistice and have to
cede the northern shores of Lake Lagoda and the small Finnish coastline on the
Arctic Sea to the Soviet Union.
April 9, 1940–June 9, 1940
Germany invades Denmark and Norway. Denmark surrenders on the day of the
attack; Norway holds out until June 9.
May 10, 1940–June 22, 1940
Germany attacks western Europe—France and the neutral Low
Countries. Luxembourg is occupied on May 10; the Netherlands surrenders on May
14; and Belgium surrenders on May 28. On June 22, France signs an armistice
agreement by which the Germans occupy the northern half of the country and the
entire Atlantic coastline. In southern France, a collaborationist regime with
its capital in Vichy is established.
June 10, 1940
Italy enters the war. Italy invades southern
France on June 21.
June 28, 1940
The Soviet Union forces Romania to cede the eastern province of
Bessarabia and the northern half of Bukovina to the Soviet Ukraine.
June 14, 1940–August 6, 1940
The Soviet Union occupies the Baltic
States on June 14–18, engineering Communist coup d’états in each of them on July
14–15, and then annexing them as Soviet Republics on August 3–6.
July 10, 1940–October 31, 1940
The air war known as the Battle of
Britain ends in defeat for Nazi Germany.
August 30, 1940
Second Vienna Award: Germany and Italy arbitrate a
decision on the division of the disputed province of Transylvania between
Romania and Hungary. The loss of northern Transylvania forces Romanian King
Carol to abdicate in favor of his son, Michael, and brings to power a
dictatorship under General Ion Antonescu.
September 13, 1940
The Italians invade British-controlled Egypt
from Italian-controlled Libya.
September 27, 1940
Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite
Pact.
October 1940
Italy invades Greece from Albania on October 28.
November 1940
Slovakia (November 23), Hungary (November 20), and
Romania (November 22) join the Axis.
February 1941
The Germans send the Afrika Korps to North Africa to
reinforce the faltering Italians.
March 1, 1941
Bulgaria joins the Axis.
April 6, 1941–June 1941
Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria
invade and dismember Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia surrenders on April 17.
Germany and Bulgaria invade Greece in support of the Italians. Resistance in
Greece ceases in early June 1941.
April 10, 1941
The leaders of the terrorist Ustasa movement
proclaim the so-called Independent State of Croatia. Recognized immediately by
Germany and Italy, the new state includes the province of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Croatia joins the Axis powers formally on June 15, 1941.
June 22, 1941–November 1941
Nazi Germany and its Axis partners
(except Bulgaria) invade the Soviet Union. Finland, seeking redress for the
territorial losses in the armistice concluding the Winter War, joins the Axis
just before the invasion. The Germans quickly overrun the Baltic States and,
joined by the Finns, lay siege to Leningrad (St. Petersburg) by September. In
the center, the Germans capture Smolensk in early August and drive on Moscow by
October. In the south, German and Romanian troops capture Kiev (Kyiv) in
September and capture Rostov on the Don River in November.
December 6, 1941
A Soviet counteroffensive drives the Germans from
the Moscow suburbs in chaotic retreat.
December 7, 1941
Japan bombs Pearl Harbor.
December 8, 1941
The United States declares war on Japan, entering
World War II. Japanese troops land in the Philippines, French Indochina
(Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), and British Singapore. By April 1942, the
Philippines, Indochina, and Singapore are under Japanese occupation.
December 11–13, 1941
Nazi Germany and its Axis partners declare war
on the United States.
May 30, 1942–May 1945
The British bomb Köln (Cologne), bringing the
war home to Germany for the first time. Over the next three years Anglo-American
bombing reduces urban Germany to rubble.
June 1942
British and US navies halt the Japanese naval advance in
the central Pacific at Midway.
June 28, 1942–September 1942
Germany and her Axis partners launch a
new offensive in the Soviet Union. German troops fight their way into Stalingrad
(Volgograd) on the Volga River by mid-September and penetrate deep into the
Caucasus after securing the Crimean Peninsula.
August–November 1942
US troops halt the Japanese island-hopping
advance towards Australia at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
October 23–24, 1942
British troops defeat the Germans and Italians
at El Alamein in Egypt, sending the Axis forces in chaotic retreat across Libya
to the eastern border of Tunisia.
November 8, 1942
US and British troops land at several points on
the beaches of Algeria and Morocco in French North Africa. The failure of the
Vichy French troops to defend against the invasion enables the Allies to move
swiftly to the western border of Tunisia, and triggers the German occupation of
southern France on November 11.
November 23, 1942–February 2, 1943
Soviet troops counterattack,
breaking through the Hungarian and Romanian lines northwest and southwest of
Stalingrad and trapping the German Sixth Army in the city. Forbidden by Hitler
to retreat or try to break out of the Soviet ring, the survivors of the Sixth
Army surrender on January 30 and February 2, 1943.
May 13, 1943
Axis forces in Tunisia surrender to the Allies, ending
the North African campaign.
July 10, 1943
US and British troops land on Sicily. By mid-August,
the Allies control Sicily.
July 5, 1943
The Germans launch a massive tank offensive near Kursk
in the Soviet Union. The Soviets blunt the attack within a week and begin an
offensive initiative of their own.
July 25, 1943
The Fascist Grand Council deposes Benito Mussolini,
enabling Italian Marshall Pietro Badoglio to form a new government.
September 8, 1943
The Badoglio government surrenders
unconditionally to the Allies. The Germans immediately seize control of Rome and
northern Italy, establishing a puppet Fascist regime under Mussolini, who is
freed from imprisonment by German commandos on September 12.
September 9, 1943
Allied troops land on the beaches of Salerno near
Naples.
November 6, 1943
Soviet troops liberate Kiev.
January 22, 1944
Allied troops land successfully near Anzio, just
south of Rome.
March 19, 1944
Fearing Hungary’s intention to desert the Axis
partnership, the Germans occupy Hungary and compel the regent, Admiral
Miklos Horthy, to appoint a pro-German minister president.
June 4, 1944
Allied troops liberate Rome. Within six weeks,
Anglo-American bombers could hit targets in eastern Germany for the first time.
June 6, 1944
British and US troops successfully land on the Normandy
beaches of France, opening a “Second Front” against the Germans.
June 22, 1944
The Soviets launch a massive offensive in eastern
Byelorussia (Belarus), destroying the German Army Group Center and driving
westward to the Vistula River across from Warsaw in central Poland by August 1.
July 25, 1944
Anglo-American forces break out of the Normandy
beachhead and race eastward towards Paris.
August 1, 1944–October 5, 1944
The non-communist underground Home
Army rises up against the Germans in an effort to liberate Warsaw before the
arrival of Soviet troops. The Soviet advance halts on the east bank of the
Vistula. On October 5, the Germans accept the surrender of the remnants of the
Home Army forces fighting in Warsaw.
August 15, 1944
Allied forces land in southern France near Nice and
advance rapidly towards the Rhine River to the northeast.
August 20–25, 1944
Allied troops reach Paris. On August 25, Free
French forces, supported by Allied troops, enter the French capital. By
September, the Allies reach the German border; by December, virtually all of
France, most of Belgium, and part of the southern Netherlands are liberated.
August 23, 1944
The appearance of Soviet troops on the Prut River
induces the Romanian opposition to overthrow the Antonescu regime. The new
government concludes an armistice and immediately switches sides in the war. The
Romanian turnaround compels Bulgaria to surrender on September 8, and the
Germans to evacuate Greece, Albania, and southern Yugoslavia in October.
August 29, 1944–October 28, 1944
Under the leadership of the Slovak
National Council, consisting of both Communists and non-Communists, underground
Slovak resistance units rise against the Germans and the indigenous fascist
Slovak regime. In late October, the Germans capture Banská Bystrica, the
headquarters of the uprising, and put an end to organized resistance.
September 12, 1944
Finland concludes an armistice with the Soviet
Union, leaving the Axis partnership.
October 20, 1944
US troops land in the Philippines.
October 15, 1944
The Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross movement carries
out a coup d’état with German support to prevent the Hungarian government from
pursuing negotiations for surrender to the Soviets.
December 16, 1944
The Germans launch a final offensive in the west,
known as the Battle
of the Bulge, in an attempt to re-conquer Belgium and split the
Allied forces along the German border. By January 1, 1945, the Germans are in
retreat.
January 12, 1945
The Soviets launch a new offensive, liberating
Warsaw and Krakow in January, capturing Budapest after a two-month siege on
February 13, driving the Germans and their Hungarian collaborators out of
Hungary in early April, forcing the surrender of Slovakia with the capture of
Bratislava on April 4, and capturing Vienna on April 13.
March 7, 1945
US troops cross the Rhine River at Remagen.
April 16, 1945
The Soviets launch their final offensive, encircling
Berlin.
April 1945
Partisan units, led by Yugoslav Communist leader Josip
Tito, capture Zagreb and topple the Ustasa regime. The top Ustasa leaders flee
to Italy and Austria.
April 30, 1945
Hitler commits suicide.
May 7, 1945
Germany surrenders to the western Allies.
May 9, 1945
Germany surrenders to the Soviets.
May 1945
Allied troops conquer Okinawa, the last island stop before
the Japanese islands.
August 6, 1945
The United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
August 8, 1945
The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and invades
Manchuria.
August 9, 1945
The United States drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
September 2, 1945
Having agreed in principle to unconditional
surrender on August 14, 1945, Japan formally surrenders, ending World War II.
source: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007306