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: Dates
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Historic Events:
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1933
Jan 30 - Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.
Feb 27 - The Reichstag burns.
March 12 - First concentration camp opened at Oranienburg outside Berlin.
March 23 - Enabling Act gives Hitler dictatorial power.
April 1 - Nazi boycott of Jewish owned shops.
May 10 - Nazis burn books in Germany.
July 14 - Nazi party declared only party in Germany.
Oct 14 - Germany quits the League of Nations.
1934
Aug 19 - Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany.
1935
March 16 - Hitler violates the Treaty of Versailles by introducing military conscription.
Sept 15 - German Jews stripped of rights by Nuremberg Race Laws.
1936
Feb 10 - The German Gestapo is placed above the law.
March 7 - German troops occupy the Rhineland.
May 9 - Mussolini's Italian forces take Ethiopia.
July 18 - Civil war erupts in Spain.
Aug 1 - Olympic games begin in Berlin.
Oct 1 - Franco declared head of Spanish State
1937
June 11 - Soviet leader Stalin begins a purge of Red Army generals.
Nov 5 - Hitler reveals war plans during Hossbach Conference.
1938
March 12-13 - Germany announces 'Anschluss' (union) with Austria.
Aug 12 - German military mobilizes.
Sept 30 - British Prime Minister Chamberlain appeases Hitler at Munich.
Oct 15 - German troops occupy the Sudetenland; Czech government resigns.
Nov 9/10 - Kristallnacht - The Night of Broken Glass.
1939
March 15-16 - Nazis take Czechoslovakia.
March 28 - Spanish Civil war ends.
May 22 - Nazis sign 'Pact of Steel' with Italy.
Aug 23 - Nazis and Soviet Union sign Non-Aggression Pact in Moscow, dividing control over Eastern Europe.
Aug 25 - Britain and Poland sign a Mutual Assistance Treaty.
Aug 31 - British fleet mobilizes; Civilian evacuations begin from London.
Sept 1 - Nazis invade Poland.
Sept 3 - Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany.
Sept 4 - British Royal Air Force attacks the German Navy.
Sept 5 - United States proclaims neutrality; German troops cross the Vistula River in Poland.
Sept 10 - Canada declares war on Germany; Battle of the Atlantic begins.
Sept 17 - Soviet Union retakes part of Poland that later becomes Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.
Sept 27 - Warsaw surrenders to Nazis; Reinhard Heydrich becomes the leader of new Reich Main Security Office (RSHA).
Nov 30 - Soviet Union attacks Finland.
Dec 14 - Soviet Union expelled from the League of Nations.
1940
March 12 - Finland signs a peace treaty with the Soviet Union.
April 9 - Nazis invade Denmark and Norway.
Between May and June - Wehrmacht begins Blitzkrieg - fast offensive to take over Europe.
May 10 - Nazis invade France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister.
May 15 - Holland surrenders to the Nazis.
May 26 - Evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk begins.
May 28 - Belgium surrenders to the Nazis.
June 3 - Germans bomb Paris; Dunkirk evacuation ends.
June 10 - Norway surrenders to the Nazis; Italy declares war on Britain and France.
June 14 - Germans enter Paris.
June 16 - Marshal Pétain becomes French Prime Minister.
June 18 - Hitler and Mussolini meet in Munich; Soviet Union moves into Bessarabia and the Baltic States.
June 22 - France signs an armistice with the Nazis.
June 23 - Hitler tours Paris.
July 1 - German U-boats attack merchant ships in the Atlantic.
July 10 - Battle of Britain begins.
July 23 - The Soviet Union announces Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as part of the USSR.
Aug-Dec - German bombing offensive against airfields, factories in England, and later the city of London.
Sept 13 - Italians invade Egypt.
Sept 27 - Tripartite (Axis) Pact signed by Germany, Italy and Japan.
Oct 7 - German troops enter Romania.
Oct 28 - Italy invades Greece.
Nov 20 - Hungary joins the Axis Powers.
Nov 22 - Greeks defeat the Italian 9th Army.
Nov 23 - Romania joins the Axis Powers.
1941
In January - Stalin appoints Georgi Zhukov the chief of the Red Army General staff.
March 27 - A coup in Yugoslavia overthrows the pro-Axis government.
April 6 - Nazis invade Greece and Yugoslavia.
April 17 - Yugoslavia surrenders to the Nazis.
April 27 - Greece surrenders to the Nazis.
June 1941 - Zhukov is replaced by Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov.
June 22 - Germany attacks Soviet Union as Operation Barbarossa begins.
June 28 - Germans capture Minsk.
July 7 - GKO, Soviet State Defense Committee, desides to employ petrol grenades as anti-tank weapons. Molotov Cocktail is born.
July 10 - Germans cross the River Dnieper in the Ukraine.
July 12 - Mutual Assistance agreement between British and the Soviet Union.
July 14 - British occupy Syria
Aug 20 - Nazi siege of Leningrad begins.
Sept 19 - Nazis take Kiev.
Sept 29 - Nazis murder 33,771 Jews at Kiev.
In October - Stalin appoints Zhukov as a commander of the Central Front to defend Moscow, replacing Semyon Timoshenko.
Oct 2 - Operation Typhoon begins - German advance on Moscow through Bryansk and Vyazma.
Oct 16 - Germans take Odessa.
Oct 24 - Germans take Kharkov.
Oct 30 - Germans reach Sevastopol.
In November - Stalin appoints a new army leader - Aleksandr Vasilievsky replaces Shaposhnikov.
Nov 20 - Germans take Rostov.
Nov 27 - Soviet troops retake Rostov.
Dec 4-5 - German attack on Moscow is abandoned due to massive german casualties.
Dec 6 - Soviet Army launches a major counter-offensive around Moscow.
Dec 7 - Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor; Hitler issues the Night and Fog decree.
Dec 8 - United States and Britain declare war on Japan.
Dec 11 - Germany declares war on the United States.
Dec 19 - Hitler takes complete command of the German Army.
1942
May 8 - German summer offensive begins in the Crimea.
In June - Mass murder of Jews by gassing begins at Auschwitz.
June 5 - Germans besiege Sevastopol.
July 3 - Germans take Sevastopol.
July 5 - Soviet resistance in the Crimea ends.
July 9 - Germans begin a drive toward Stalingrad in the USSR to take over oil and natural resources of Caucases.
Aug 12 - Stalin and Churchill meet in Moscow.
Aug 17 - First all-American air attack in Europe.
Aug 23 - Massive German air raid on Stalingrad.
Sept 13 - Battle of Stalingrad begins.
Nov 19 - Soviet counter-offensive at Stalingrad begins.
Dec 2 - Professor Enrico Fermi sets up an atomic reactor in Chicago.
Dec 16 - Italian troops defeated on the River Don in the USSR.
Dec 31 - Battle of the Barents Sea between German and British ships.
1943
Jan 2-3 - Germans begin a withdrawal from the Caucasus.
Jan 10 - Soviet Army begins an offensive against the Germans in Stalingrad.
Jan 14-24 - Casablanca conference between Churchill and Roosevelt.
Feb 2 - Germans surrender at Stalingrad in the first big defeat of Hitler's armies.
Feb 8 - Soviet troops take Kursk.
Feb 16 - Soviets re-take Kharkov.
March 2 - Germans begin a withdrawal from Tunisia, Africa in order to supply reserves to armies in Russia.
March 15 - Germans re-capture Kharkov.
March 16-20 - Battle of Atlantic climaxes with 27 merchant ships sunk by German U-boats.
July 5 - Germans begin their last offensive against Kursk.
July 9-10 - Allies land in Sicily.
July 25-26 - Mussolini arrested and the Italian Fascist government falls.
Aug 23, 1943 - Soviet troops recapture Kharkov.
Sept 8, 1943 - Italian surrender is announced.
In September - Germans occupy Rome. Mussolini re-establishes a Fascist government in Italy.
Oct 13 - Italy declares war on Germany;
Nov 6 - Russians recapture Kiev in the Ukraine.
Dec 24-26 - Soviets launch offensives on the Ukrainian front.
1944
Jan 6 - Soviet troops advance into Poland.
Jan 27 - Leningrad relieved after a 900-day siege.
March 4 - Soviet troops begin an offensive on the Belorussian front
April 8 - Soviet troops begin an offensive to liberate Crimea.
May 9 - Soviet troops recapture Sevastopol.
May 12 - Germans surrender in the Crimea.
May 15 - Germans withdraw to the Adolf Hitler Line.
June 5 - Allies enter Rome.
June 6 - D-Day - US troops land in Normandy, France.
June 9 - Soviet offensive against the Finnish front begins.
June 22 - Operation Bagration begins (the Soviet summer offensive).
July 3 - Soviet Army captures Minsk; 'Battle of the Hedgerows' in Normandy.
July 9 - British and Canadian troops capture Caen.
July 24 - Soviet troops liberate first concentration camp at Majdanek.
July 28 - Soviet troops take Brest-Litovsk. U.S. troops take Coutances.
Aug 1 - Polish Home Army uprising against Nazis in Warsaw begins;
Aug 15 - Operation Dragoon begins (the Allied invasion of Southern France).
Aug 19 - Resistance uprising in Paris.
Aug 19-20 - Soviet offensive in the Balkans begins with an attack on Romania.
Aug 25 - Liberation of Paris.
Aug 29 - Slovak uprising begins.
Aug 31 - Soviet troops take Bucharest.
Sept 1-4 - Verdun, Dieppe, Artois, Rouen, Abbeville, Antwerp and Brussels liberated by Allies.
Sept 4 - Finland and the Soviet Union agree to a cease-fire.
Sept 13 - U.S. troops reach the Siegfried Line.
Sept 26 - Soviet troops liberate Estonia.
Oct 2 - Warsaw Uprising ends as the Polish Home Army surrenders to the Germans.
Oct 10-29 - Soviet troops capture Riga, Latvia.
Oct 14 - Allies liberate Athens
Oct 21 - Massive German surrender at Aachen.
Nov 20 - French troops drive through the 'Beffort Gap' to reach the Rhine.
Nov 24 - French capture Strasbourg.
Dec 4 - Civil War in Greece; Athens placed under martial law.
Dec 27 - Soviet troops liberate Budapest.
1945
Jan 1-17 - Germans withdraw from the Ardennes.
Jan 17 - Soviet troops capture Warsaw.
Jan 26 - Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz.
Feb 4-11 - Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin meet at Yalta.
Feb 13-14 - Dresden is destroyed by a firestorm after Allied bombing raids.
March 6 - Last German offensive of the war begins to defend oil fields in Hungary.
March 7 - Allies take Cologne and establish a bridge across the Rhine at Remagen.
March 30 - Soviet troops capture Danzig.
In April - Allies discover stolen Nazi art and wealth hidden in salt mines.
April 12 - President Roosevelt dies. Truman becomes President.
April 16 - Soviet troops begin their final attack on Berlin;
April 21 - Soviets reach Berlin.
April 28 - Mussolini is captured and hanged by Italian partisans; Allies take Venice.
April 30 - Adolf Hitler commits suicide.
May 2 - German troops in Italy surrender.
May 7 - Unconditional surrender of all German forces to Allies.
May 8 - V-E (Victory in Europe) Day.
May 9 - Official Victory Day in Russia.
June 5 - Allies divide up Germany and Berlin and take over the government.
June 26 - United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco.
July 16 - First U.S. atomic bomb test; Potsdam Conference begins.
Aug 6 - First atomic bomb dropped, on Hiroshima, Japan.
Aug 8 - Soviet Union declares war on Japan and invade Manchuria.
Aug 9 - Second atomic bomb dropped, on Nagasaki, Japan.
Aug 14 - Japanese agree to unconditional surrender.
Sept 2 - Japanese sign the surrender agreement; V-J (Victory over Japan) Day.
Oct 24 - United Nations is officially born.
Nov 20 - Nuremberg war crimes trials begin.
SEE ALSO
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