Timeline of World War II: From Start to Finish

World War II: Causes, Key Events, and Aftermath

Key Alliances

Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan

Allied Powers: Great Britain, the USSR, the USA, France

Causes of World War II

• Impact of World War I: Peace treaties weakened the countries on the losing side.
• Rise of Fascism and Nationalism: People feared that there would be a communist revolution in their own countries.
• The weakness of democracies.
• The Great Depression: Economic crises in many countries led people to consider extreme ideologies as the only solution.

Key Events and Concepts

• Japanese Occupation of Manchuria: 1931
• Pan-Germanism: The unification of all territories inhabited by German speakers.
• Hitler Sends Armies into the Rhineland: In March 1936, Hitler sent armies into the German Rhineland region.
• Italy Invades Ethiopia: 1935
• Germany and Japan Sign the Anti-Comintern Pact: Directed against the USSR.
• Munich Agreement: An agreement that forced Czechoslovakia to cede its German-speaking Sudetenland region to Germany.
• Appeasement: The acceptance of all of Hitler's demands in the hope that this would avoid another war.
• Danzig Corridor: A strip of land belonging to Poland that divided Germany into two parts.
• Non-Aggression Pact: Ensured the neutrality of the USSR and thus avoided a war on two fronts for Germany.

Outbreak of World War II

Hitler demanded that Poland cede the Danzig Corridor, but they refused. Germany invaded Poland. France and Britain declared war on Germany two days later.

• German Troops Enter Paris: June 14, 1940
• France Divided: Into two zones, Vichy France and Occupied France.
• USA Enters World War II: Japan attacked the American military base of Pearl Harbor. As a result, the USA entered World War II on the Allied side.
• Concentration Camps: Opponents and Jews were held in them and then were killed.

Turning Points

• 1942: A major turning point in the war.
• Victory of the USA vs. Japan: The Battle of Midway.
• Battle of Stalingrad: The Red Army launched a successful counteroffensive against German troops.

Allied Victory

• Allied Defeat of Japan.
• Goal of the Normandy Landing: To establish a western front and reach Germany before the Russians.
• Paris Liberated: August 1944
• Bombing of German Cities: Hamburg, Dresden.
• Soviets Occupy Berlin: April 1945
• Atomic Bombs: These bombs destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

The Holocaust

The culmination of a period of anti-Semitic exclusion and violence that began after Hitler came to power in Germany.