|
1692 The battle of La Hougue is the decisive naval battle in the Nine Years War. The durable dominance of the Royal Navy
– beginning with the Invincible Armada
– is confirmed and lasted up to the Second World War
.
1932 Hasty Market gets hijacked
'' broke the German Enigma cipher and overcame the ever-growing structural and operating complexities of the evolving Enigma with plugboard, the main German cipher device during World War II.
]]
1937 Japan
invades Manchuria
. (Some consider this the start of World War II. Most historians disagree).
1937 Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Lugou Bridge - Japan
ese forces invade China
.Often seen as the beginning of World War II in Asia
1937 World War II: In the Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler
holds a secret meeting and states his plans for acquiring "living space" for the German
people.
1939 German
troops occupy the remaining part of Bohemia
and Moravia
; Czechoslovakia
ceases to exist; beginning hostilities leading to WWII
1939 World War II: Invasion of Poland - Nazi Germany
attacks Poland
, beginning the Second World War in Europe
.
1939 World War II: Germany
annexes Western Poland.
1939 World War II: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Customs Service
to implement the Neutrality Act of 1939, allowing cash-and-carry purchases of weapons by belligerents.
1939 World War II: Sonderaktion Krakau, the codename for a German action against scientists from the University of Kraków and other Kraków
universities at the beginning of World War II.
1939 World War II: Sonderaktion Krakau, the codename for a German action against scientists from the University of Kraków and other Kraków
universities at the beginning of World War II.
1940 World War II (1939 - 1945).
1940 World War II: Axis powers
- Hermann Goering assumes control of all war industries in Germany
.
1940 World War II: Winter War
- General Semyon Timoshenko takes command of all Russian forces.
1940 World War II: Winter War
- Russian 44th Assault Division destroyed by Finnish forces in Battle of Suomussalmi
1940 World War II: Winter War
- Russian forces launch major assault on Finnish troops on the Karelian Isthmus.
1940 World War II - British destroyer ''Cossack'' pursues German
freighter ''Altmark'' into Jossingfjord in southwestern Norway
, resulting in freedom for 290 British sailors and seamen held as prisoners.
1940 World War II: Axis powers
- Adolf Hitler
and Benito Mussolini
meet at Brenner Pass in the Alps
and agree to form an alliance against France
and the United Kingdom
.
1940 World War II: Germany
invades Denmark
and Norway
in operation ''Weserübung.'' The British campaign in Norway is simultaneously commenced.
1940 World War II: Battle of France begin - German
forces invaded France
and Low Countries.
1940 World War II: Iceland
invaded by the United Kingdom
.
1940 World War II: German armies open 60-mile wide breach in Maginot Line at Sedan.
1940 World War II: Recruitment begins in Britain
for a home defense force - the Local Defence Volunteers, later known as the Home Guard.
1940 World War II: Dutch army surrenders.
1940 World War II: German
forces, under General Erwin Rommel
, reach the English Channel
. Holocaust: concentration and death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau opens in Poland
.
1940 World War II - British Parliament
passes Emergency Powers Act giving the government full control over all persons and property.
1940 World War II: Dunkirk evacuation of British Expeditionary Force starts.
1940 World War II: Belgium army surrenders.
1940 World War II: Dunkirk evacuation ends - British
forces complete evacuating 300,000 troops from Dunkirk in France
.
1940 World War II: French government flees to Tours
.
1940 World War II: Paris
is declared an open city.
1940 World War II: French government flees to Bordeaux
.
1940 World War II: Verdun falls to German
forces.
1940 World War II: Operation Ariel begins - Allied
troops start to evacuate France
, following Germany
's takeover of Paris
and most of the nation.
1940 World War II: Luftwaffe
Junkers 88 bomber sinks British ship ''RMS Lancastria'', that was evacuating troops from near Saint-Nazaire, France
. Death toll is over 2500. Wartime censorship prevents the story going publi
1940 World War II: France
and Germany
sign armistice at Compiegne
in the same wagon-lit railroad car used by Marshal Ferdinand Foch
to accept the surrender of Germany
in 1918.
1940 World War II: France
signs armistice terms with Italy
.
1940 World War II: German
forces land in Guernsey marking the start of the 5-year Occupation of the Channel Islands
1940 World War II: Vichy France
begins with a constitutional law where only 80 members of the parliament voted against.
1940 World War II: Adolf Hitler
makes peace appeal to Britain
in an address to the Reichstag
. Lord Halifax, British foreign minister, flatly rejects peace terms in a broadcast reply on July 22.
1940 World War II: Agreement between United States
and Great Britain
announced. Fifty U.S. destroyers needed for escort work transferred to Britain
. In return, the United States
gains 99-year leases on British
bases in the North Atlantic, West Indies and Bermuda.
1940 World War II: The USS ''Greer'' becomes the first United States
ship fired upon by a German
submarine in the war, even though the United States
is a neutral power. Tension heightens between the two nations as a result.
1940 World War II: The Blitz - Nazi Germany
begins to rain bombs on London
. This will be the first of 57 consecutive nights of strategic bombing.
1940 World War II: Selective Service Act signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt
, creating the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.
1940 U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division
(previously a National Guard Division in Arizona
, Colorado
, New Mexico
, and Oklahoma
), activated and ordered into federal service for one year to engage in a training program in Ft. Sill and Louisiana
prior to serving in World War II.
1940 World War II: Germany
, Italy
and Japan
sign Tripartite Pact.
1940 World War II: Draft registration of approximately 16 million men begins in the United States
.
1940 World War II: Italy
invades Greece
.
1940 World War II: Selective Service System lottery held in Washington, D.C.
.
1940 World War II: Battle of Britain ends - The United Kingdom
prevents Germany
from invading Britain
.
1940 World War II: Battle of Taranto - The Royal Navy
launches the first aircraft carrier
strike in history, on the Italian
fleet at Taranto
.
1940 World War II: In England
, the city of Coventry
is destroyed by 500 German
Luftwaffe
bombers (150,000 fire bombs, 503 tons of high explosives, 130 parachute mines leveled 60,000 of the city's 75,000 buildings; 568 people were killed).
1941 December 7, December 8 (in Japan standard time) - Japanese Navy launches a surprise attack consisting of two full regiments on the United States
fleet at Pearl Harbor
, thus drawing the United States
into World War II.
1941 World War II: Australia
n and British
forces attack Tobruk, Libya
.
1941 World War II: The Nazis forcibly restore Pierre Laval
to office in occupied Vichy, France
.
1941 World War II: Bulgaria
signs the Tripartite Pact thus joining the Axis powers
.
1941 World War II: President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease
Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies
on loan.
1941 World War II: Kingdom of Yugoslavia
in Vienna | 
Timeline
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