AP US History- Unit 12: Chronology of World War II
“Preliminary” Events
July 29, 1921: Adolf Hitler becomes leader of National Socialist 'Nazi' Party.
July 18, 1925: Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" published.
September 8, 1926:Germany admitted to League of Nations.
October 29, 1929: Stock Market on Wall Street crashes.
September 14, 1930: Germans elect Nazis, making them the 2nd largest political party in Germany.
September 18, 1931: Japanese army invades Manchuria. U.S. issues the Stimson doctrine in 1932.
November, 1932: Franklin Roosevelt elected president of U.S.
January 30, 1933: German President von Hindenburg offers Chancellorship to Adolf Hitler, who accepts.
March 1933: After rejecting League of Nations demand to withdraw from China, Japaninstead withdraws from League of Nations.
March 30, 1933: In Germany, a decree is signed by President von Hindenburg, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, and Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, abolishing the last of the Reichstag's powers, giving Hitler absolute power.
Summer, 1933: LondonEconomic Conference - World Monetary and Economic Conference; objective: the checking of the world depression by means of currency stabilization and economic agreements. Disagreements among the participants and the attitude of the United States made the meeting a total failure.
October 14, 1933: Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.
March 16, 1935: Hitler denounces the disarmament clauses of the Versailles Treaty, and begins open rearmament.
September 5, 1935: Germany passes its first Nuremberg Laws that revoke the citizenship of Jews and prohibits them from marrying non Jews.
October 3, 1935: Italy invades Abyssinia(Ethiopia).
March 7, 1936: German troops march into the Rhineland.
July 18, 1936: Civil war erupts in Spain.
August 1, 1936:- Olympic Games begin in Berlin. African-American sprinter Jesse Owens embarrasses Germany
October, 1936: “Rome-Berlin axis” originates with an accord reached by Hitler and Mussolini.The Axis is solidified by an Italy-Germany alliance in May 1939. This was extended in September, 1940 by a military alliance among Germany, Italy, and Japan—the so-called Berlin Pact.
January 19, 1937: Japan withdraws from the Washington Conference Treaty.
July 7, 1937: Full-scale war begins between China and Japan.
March 13, 1938: German forces invade Austria.
May 30, 1938: Hitler issues a directive calling for the occupation of Czechoslovakia.
September 30, 1938: The Munich Agreement is signed, by Great Britain, France, Italy, and Germany, allowing Germany to annex the Sudetenland portion of Czechoslovakia.
October 3, 1938: German forces occupy the Sudetenland section of Czechoslovakia.
1939
March 14: German troops take the rest of Czechoslovakia.
April 1: Three-year old Spanish Civil War ends with Francisco Franco victorious.
April 7: Italy invades Albania.
May 22: Germanysign 'Pact of Steel' with Italy.
July 14: Roosevelt asks Congress to repeal an arms embargo so the U.S. can sell weapons to Britain and other
Non-Fascist nation
August 23: Germany and Soviet Union sign the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. (also known as the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact
September 1: Germany invades Poland. World War II “officially” begins.
September 3: Great Britain, France,India, South Africa, Australiaand New Zealanddeclare war on Germany.
September 5: United States proclaims neutrality.
September 17: USSR invades Poland from the east.
September 28: Germany and USSR partition Poland.
October 11: A letter written by Albert Einstein is delivered to Roosevelt, outlining what later becomes the atomic bomb; Roosevelt orders secret military research to begin.
November 4: Roosevelt signs the Neutrality Act, allowing U.S. to send aid to Britain and France.
1940
January: “Battle of the Atlantic” begins as German submarines attack Allied shipping.
March 18: Mussolini and Hitler announce Italy’s formal alliance with Germany; Mussolini calls this the “axis” on which Europe will revolve.
April 9: Norway and Denmark are overrun by Germany.
May 10: Germany invades France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Netherlands.
May 10: Winston Churchill replaces Neville Chamberlain as Britain’s Prime Minister.
May 26-June 4: Evacuation of British forces fromDunkirk,France. Churchill says: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and the streets. . . . We shall never surrender.
June 10: Italy declares war on France and Britain.
June 14: German troops enter Paris.
June 22: France surrenders and a pro-German government is installed in Vichy. A Free French government is formed in London under the leadership of French General Charles de Gaulle.
June 28: The Alien Registration Act (Smith Act) is passed in the U.S., requiring all aliens to register and making it illegal to advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government.
July: “The Battle of Britain” begins over the skies of England.
July 20: Congress authorizes $4 billion for the construction of a two-ocean war.
September 2: Roosevelt gives 50 American WWI-era destroyers to England in exchange for the right to construct naval bases in British possessions in the Western Hemisphere.
September 13: Italy invades Egypt.
September 16: First peace-time conscription begins with the enactment of the Selective Training and Service Act; it requires men from 21 to 35 to register for military training.
September 26: In order to cut off supplies to Japan, Roosevelt announces an embargo on scrap metal.
September 27: Tripartite (Axis) Pact signed by Germany, Italy and Japan.
November 5: Roosevelt wins an unprecedented third presidential term.
December 29: In a year-end “fireside chat,” Roosevelt says the U.S.will become the “arsenal of democracy.”
1941
March 11: The Lend-Lease Act is signed into law, narrowly passing Congress as isolationism remains strong.
May 27: A limited state of emergency is declared by Roosevelt after Greece and Yugoslavia fall to the Axis powers.
June 14: German and Italian assets in the U.S. are frozen under Roosevelt’s emergency powers. Two days later, German consulates in U.S. are ordered close, and Italian consulates are ordered closed on June20.
June 22: Germany invades the USSR.
July 25: After the Japanese invade French Indochina (later called Vietnam), Roosevelt freezes Japanese assets in the U.S., stopping trade between the two nations and cutting off Japanese oil supplies.
August 14: After meeting secretly on warships stationed near Newfoundland, Roosevelt and Churchill announce the Atlantic Charter.
November 17: Japanese envoys in Washington propose removing restrictions on trade with Japan. Secretary of State Cordell Hull rejects the proposal, calling for Japanese withdrawal from China and Indochina.
December 7 (Sunday): Japanese attack American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killing 2,403 American soldiers, sailors, and civilians. Japan makes simultaneous attacks on Guam, Midway, Hong Kong and Singapore.
December 8: Addressing Congress, Roosevelt asks for a declaration of war on Japan. The Senate vote is unanimous; the House approves 388-1, with Jeanette Rankin, a pacifist and the first woman elected to the House, the lonedissenting vote.
December 11: Germany and Italy, based on their alliance with Japan, declare waron the U.S.; U.S. reciprocates.
1942
January 2: Japan takes control of the Philippinesas American forces withdraw to the island fortress of Corregidor.
February 20: Roosevelt approves a plan to remove Japanese-Americans from their homes and send them to internment camps in Colorado, Utah, Arkansas and other interior states. Eventually, 100,000 Japanese-Americans will be moved, losing their homes and possessions
March 11: General MacArthur leaves the Philippines for Australia, vowing “I shall return.”
April 9: Seventy-five thousand American and Philippine troops surrender in the Philippines. Captives are marched to prison-of-war camps in the infamous “Bataan Death March.”
April 18: Doolittle raid on Japan.
May 4-8: Battle of Coral Sea. First time in naval history that ships never see each other in a sea battle as battle is fought entirely by planes from carriers.
May 15: Gasoline rationing begins in U.S.
June 3-6: U.S. naval forces defeat Japanese naval forces in the Battle of Midway. The battle is considered a turning point for the Allies in the Pacific War.
August 7: U.S. goes on the offensive in the Pacific as Marines land on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands
August 22:Germany begins an offensive in Russian in what will become known as The Battle of Stalingrad.
November 18: U.S. lowers draft age to 18.
November 25: German siege of Stalingrad bogs down. German army is eventually surrounded and forced to surrender in February, 1943. Battle for Stalingrad is considered a turning point in the war on the Eastern Front.
1943
January 14-24: Roosevelt and Churchill meet at Casablanca Conference to map out strategy for the war. They announce that the war can only end with an unconditional surrender of Germany.
January 31: German troops finally surrender in Stalingrad.
February 7: Shoe rationing is announced in U.S.; civilians limited to 3 pairs of leather shoes a year.
February 9: U.S. Marines finally take control of Guadalcanal.
February 14-25: Untried American troops defeated at the KasserinePassby German Afrika Corps under command of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. American troops regroup under new commander George Patton and stop Rommel. With British forces under the leadership of Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, German and Italian forces are defeated in North Africa by the end of May.
April 1: U.S. begins rationing meats, fats and cheese. Roosevelt freezes wages, salaries and prices.
May 13: German and Italian troops surrender in North Africa.
May 29: On the cover of TheSaturday Evening Post, “Rosie the Riveter” illustration, drawn by Norman Rockwell, appears for the first time. “Rosie” is an admiring tribute to the more than 6 million American women who enter the work force during the war.
July 10: Allied invasion of Sicily begins, capturing the strategic Mediterranean island by August 17.
July 25: Mussolini is ousted by Fascist Council in Italy.
September 3: Allies land on the mainland of Italy.
September 8: Italy announces its surrender.
September 12: Mussolini liberated by German troops.
November 20: Battle of Tarawa, one of the equatorial Gilbert Islands in the Pacific.
November 28-December 1: Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin meet face-to-face for the first time at the Teheran Conference.
1944
January 16: U.S. General Dwight D.Eisenhower is named Commander of the Allied Forces.
January 31: U.S. invades the Marshall Islands in the Pacific campaign.
May 3: Meat rationing ends in the U.S., except for certain select cuts.
June 6: D-Day. Allied invasion of Europe begins.
June 13: Germany launches world’s first “guided” missiles, the V-1, across the English Channel at London. By the end of the summer, these missiles have killed 6,000 people.
June 15: Using bases in China, American B-29 “Superfortress” bombers begin to bomb Japan.
June 15: In the Pacific, U.S. forces attack Saipan, Guam, and Tinian.
June 22: Roosevelt signs the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (known as the G.I. Bill of Rights), which will provide funds for housing and education for World War II veterans.
July 9-25: U.S. tank troops, under command of George S. Patton, break through German lines in France.
August 10: Pacific island of Guam falls to U.S. forces.
August 14: With war production requirements easing, production of vacuum cleaners/other domestic goods is allowed
August 25: Led by Free French troops, Allied forces retake Paris, France.
September 12: Germany begins using the first modern rocket, the V-2, to launching attacks on England.
October 20: General Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise when he wades ashore at LeyteIsland in the Philippines.
October 23: U.S. defeats Japanese forces in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Japanese begin to use kamikaze suicide attacks, which will sink some 400 ships and kill nearly 10,000 U.S. sailors by the end of the war.
November 7: Roosevelt elected for an unprecedented and unequaled 4th term.
December 16: Battle of the Bulge, Germany’s last major counterattack, begins in Belgium’s ArdennesForest. It takes two weeks of the largest land battle of WW II in which the U.S.participated before the Germans are stopped.
1945
January 27: The Red Army liberates Auschwitz, a German concentration camp, finding convincing evidence of SS atrocities of the Holocaust. Concentration camps were established in Germany shortly after Hitler's assumption of power in 1933 as places for anyone out of step with Nazism to be detained. Socialists, communists, blacks, gypsies, vagabonds, trade unionists, and Jews were amongst those seen as undesirable. The outbreak of war brought a radical change in the camp system. New concentration camps were set up throughout occupied Europe to deal with the millions of captive foreign opponents of German domination. In Poland extermination camps were established to implement the “Final Solution,” the systematic killing of more than six million Jews. The concentration camps varied in size and function but in each there was no regard for human life. Many were massive industrial complexes using the inmates as slaves. Disease, starvation, neglect, and overworkadded to the death toll of deliberate murders.
January 31: Roosevelt and Churchill meet at Malta.
February 4-11: YaltaConference. Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill (the Big Three) meet in the Crimea and discuss plans for the final assault on Germany, and agree to create a peace organization that will meet in San Francisco on April 25 and will become the United Nations.
February 13-16: Allied bombing of Dresden, Germany with incendiary bombs creates a firestorm. Estimates put civilian loss of life between 135,000-175,000 (greater that Hiroshima).
February: A month-long siege in the Philippines ends with U.S. troops retaking Manila.
March 7: American forces cross the RhineRiver at Remagen and enter Germany.
March 9: U.S. planes firebomb Tokyo, Japan, killing some 100,000 people.
March 16: U.S. marines in the Pacific land on Iwo Jima, beginning a month-long struggle to take the tiny island.
April 1: U.S forces invade the island of Okinawa, considered by the Japanese to be part of their home islands. The three month struggle is the bloodiest of the Pacific campaign with 80,000 Americans killed or wounded (Japanese losses, both military and civilian, are far higher). Such losses are said to have influence on the decision to use the atomic bomb.
April 12: After suffering a massive cerebral hemorrhage, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies at his retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia. He is 63 years old and has been President for a little over 12 years, longer than any other. Vice-President Harry S. Truman is sworn in as President.
April 24: President Truman is told of the Manhattan Project, which has developed the atom bomb.
April 25: U.S. forces meet Soviet troops at the ElbeRiver in Germany.
April 25: United Nations Conference opens in San Francisco.
April 28: Benito Mussolini and his mistress are captured by Italian partisans and hanged.
April 30: With Russian troops closing in on his bombproof shelter, Adolf Hitler marries his long-time mistress Eva Braun. He then shoots himself as she takes poison. The bodies are carried outside and burned. Russian troops later recover and identify the charred remains, but do not release this information for many years, leading to all kinds of rumors about Hitler escaping to Argentina.
May 7: Germany formally surrenders to General Eisenhower in Rheims, France, and to theSoviets in Berlin.
May 8: V-E Day. Victory in Europe is declared
May 25: American invasion plan for Japan decided: November 1, 1945: landing on Kyoesjoe; Summer 1946: landing on the plains around Tokyo.
June 5: The U.S., Russia, Britain, and France agree to split occupied Germany into eastern and western halves, and to divide Berlin as well, which is deep in the Russian zone.
June 21: Okinawa falls.
July 5: Philippines completely under U.S. control.
July 16: First atomic device exploded in a test at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
July 17-August 2: Potsdam Conference. The "Big Three" (with Truman replacing Roosevelt) leaders meet at Potsdam, Germany, near Berlin to discuss plans for after the war.
July 26: Potsdam Declaration issued by U.S. to Japan, giving the terms for surrender. It ended with an ultimatum: Japan must immediately agree to unconditionally surrender, or face "prompt and utter destruction".
July 26: Clement Atlee replaces Winston Churchill as British Prime Minister.
August 6: U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay drops atom bomb on Japanese city of Hiroshima., killing some 80,000 people immediately and leveling 98% of the city.
August 8: Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
August 9: Second atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
August 14: Japan surrenders unconditionally.
August 15: V-J Day declared; Victory over Japan.
August 18: Allies divide Korea along the 38th parallel; Soviet troops occupying the north and U.S. troops the south.
August 29: Allies name 24 Nazi officers to face war crimes trials in Nuremberg, Germany.
September 2: General Douglas MacArthur, named Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan, accepts the formal surrender of Japan aboard the battleship USS Missouri in TokyoBay.
November 20: Nuremberg War Crimes Trials begin in Germany.The victorious Allies (the U.S., France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union) set up the so-called International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the end of World War II. Prosecutors from those four countries indicted 22 Nazi German officials on three basic charges - conspiring and ultimately launching an "aggressive war," committing war crimes and committing "crimes against humanity." Among the atrocities that the Nazis were responsible for over the previous 10 years were the murder of six million Jews throughout Europe and the destruction of thousands of cities and towns. All those indicted pleaded not guilty. Some claimed that they were merely following orders when they helped oversee the transport and murder of Jews and other minorities. Others argued that the court had no jurisdiction. But the lead prosecutor, Robert Jackson, a U.S. Supreme Court justice, disagreed, noting, "The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated." The trials lasted 11 months. Of the 21 defendants in custody (one indicted Nazi, Martin Bormann, was indicted in absentia and was never found), 11 were sentenced to death, three were acquitted and the rest received prison terms. Ten men were hanged in November 1946; one of those sentenced to death, Hermann Göring, committed suicide hours before his scheduled execution.