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PRE-WAR TIME
January 1, 1933 : Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.
February 1, 1933 : German Reichstag fire
March 1, 1933 : First concentration camp opened at Oranienburg outside Berlin.
March 1, 1933 : Hitler achieves dictatorial power through the Enabling Act
April 1, 1933 : Boycott of Jewish owned shops by the Nazis
May 1, 1933 : Nazi book-burning across Germany.
June 1, 1933 : Dachau concentration camp opens
July 1, 1933 : Nazi Party declared Germany's only political party.
October 1, 1933 : Germany quits the League of Nations.
June 1, 1934 : The "Night of the Long Knives"
July 1, 1934 : Nazis murder Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss.
August 1, 1934 : German President Hindenburg dies.
August 1, 1934 : Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany.
March 1, 1935 : Hitler violates the Treaty of Versailles by introducing military conscription.
September 1, 1935 : Nuremberg Race Laws strip German Jews of citizenship and marriage rights
February 1, 1936 : The German Gestapo is placed above the law.
March 1, 1936 : German troops enter and occupy the Rhineland.
May 1, 1936 : Mussolini's Italian forces take Ethiopia.
July 1, 1936 : Spanish Civil War begins
August 1, 1936 : Olympic games begin in Berlin.
October 1, 1936 : Franco proclaimed as Spanish Head of State.
June 1, 1937 : Soviet leader Josef Stalin begins a purge of Red Army generals.
November 1, 1937 : Hitler reveals war plans, summarised in the Hossbach Memorandum
March 12/13 1938 : Anschluss (union) between Germany and Austria is announced
August 1, 1938 : Mobilisation of the German military
September 1, 1938 : Prime Minister Chamberlain appeases Hitler at Munich.
October 1, 1938 : German troops occupy the Sudetenland; Czech government resigns.
November 9/10 1938 : Kristallnacht - "The Night of Broken Glass"
January 30, 1939 : Hitler threatens Jews during Reichstag speech.
March 15/16 1938 : Nazis take Czechoslovakia.
March 28, 1939 : Spanish Civil war ends.
May 22, 1939 : Nazis sign 'Pact of Steel' with Italy.
August 23, 1939 : Nazis and Soviets sign Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
August 25, 1939 : Britain and Poland sign a Mutual Assistance Treaty.
August 31, 1939 : British fleet mobilizes; Civilian evacuations begin from London.
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1939 : September - December
September 1, 1939 : Poland is invaded
September 3, 1939 : War is declared on Germany by Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand
September 4, 1939 : British Royal Air Force attacks the German Navy.
September 5, 1939 : United States proclaims its neutrality; German troops cross the Vistula River in Poland.
September 10, 1939 : Canada declares war on Germany; Battle of the Atlantic begins.
September 17, 1939 : Soviets invade Poland.
September 27, 1939 : Warsaw surrenders to Nazis; Reinhard Heydrich becomes the leader of new Reich Main Security Office (RSHA).
September 29, 1939 : Nazis and Soviets divide up Poland.
October, 1939 : Nazis begin euthanasia on sick and disabled in Germany.
November 8, 1939 : Assassination attempt on Hitler fails.
November 30, 1939 : Soviets attack Finland.
December 14, 1939 : Soviet Union expelled from the League of Nations.
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1940 : January - June
January 8, 1940 : Rationing statrs in Britain.
March 12, 1940 : Finland signs a peace treaty with Soviets.
April 9, 1940 : Nazis invade Denmark and Norway.
May 10, 1940 : Nazis invade France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister.
May 15, 1940 : Holland surrenders to the Nazis.
May 26, 1940 : Allied troop evacuation from Dunkirk begins.
May 28, 1940 : Belgium surrenders to the Nazis.
June 10, 1940 : Norway surrenders to the Nazis; Italy declares war on Britain and France.
June 16, 1940 : Marshal Pétain becomes French Prime Minister.
June 18, 1940 : Hitler and Mussolini meet in Munich; Soviets begin occupation of the Baltic States.
June 22, 1940 : France signs an armistice with Nazi Germany.
June 28, 1940 : General Charles de Gaulle recognised by Britain as the Free French leader.
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1940 : July - December
July 1, 1940 : German U-boats attack merchant ships in the Atlantic.
July 5, 1940 : French Vichy government breaks off relations with Britain.
July 10, 1940 : Battle of Britain begins.
July 23, 1940 : Soviets take Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
August 3-19, 1940 : Italians occupy British Somaliland in East Africa.
August 13, 1940 : German bombing offensive against airfields and factories in England.
August 17, 1940 : Hitler announces a blockade of the British Isles.
September 3, 1940 : Hitler plans Operation Sea Lion (the invasion of Britain).
September 7, 1940 : German Blitz against Britain begins.
September 13, 1940 : Italians invade Egypt.
September 15, 1940 : Massive German air raids on London, Southampton, Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool and Manchester.
September 16, 1940 : United States passes military conscription bill
September 27, 1940 : Tripartite (Axis) Pact signed by Germany, Italy and Japan.
October 7, 1940 : German troops enter Romania.
October 12, 1940 : Germans postpone Operation Sea Lion to Spring 1941.
October 28, 1940 : Italy invades Greece.
November 5, 1940 : Roosevelt re-elected U.S. president.
November 10/11 1940 : Torpedo bomber raid cripples the Italian fleet at Taranto, Italy.
November 14/15 1940 : Germans bomb Coventry
November 20, 1940 : Hungary joins the Axis Powers.
November 23, 1940 : Romania joins the Axis Powers.
December 9/10, 1940 : Western desert offensive in North Africa against the Italians begun by the British.
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1941 : January - June
January 22, 1941 : The British and Australians take Tobruk in North Africa
February 11, 1941 : British forces advance into Italian Somaliland in East Africa.
February 12, 1941 : Nazi General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli, North Africa.
February 14, 1941 : First units of German 'Afrika Korps' arrive in North Africa.
March 7, 1941 : British forces arrive in Greece.
March 11, 1941 : President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act.
March 27, 1941 : The pro-Axis government in Yugoslavia is overthrown in a coup
April 3, 1941 : Pro-Axis regime set up in Iraq.
April 6, 1941 : Nazis invade Greece and Yugoslavia.
April 14, 1941 : Rommel attacks Tobruk.
April 17, 1941 : Yugoslavia surrenders to the Nazis.
April 27, 1941 : Greece surrenders to the Nazis.
May 1, 1941 : German attack on Tobruk is repulsed.
May 10, 1941 : Deputy Führer Rudolph Hess flies to Scotland.
May 10/11 1941 : Heavy German bombing of London; British bomb Hamburg.
May 15, 1941 : Operation Brevity begins as the British counter-attack in Egypt
May 24, 1941 : Sinking of the British ship Hood by the Bismarck.
May 27, 1941 : The Bismarck is sunk by the British Navy.
June, 1941 : Nazi SS-Einsatzgruppen begin mass murder.
June 4, 1941 : Pro-Allied government installed in Iraq.
June 8, 1941 : Allies invade Syria and Lebanon.
June 14, 1941 : United States freezes German and Italian assets in America.
June 22, 1941 : Operation Barbarossa begins as Germany attacks Soviet Union
June 28, 1941 : Germans capture Minsk.
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1941 : July - December
July 3, 1941 : Stalin calls for a scorched earth policy.
July 10, 1941 : Germans cross the River Dnieper in the Ukraine.
July 12, 1941 : Mutual Assistance agreement between British and Soviets.
July 14, 1941 : British occupy Syria.
July 26, 1941 : Roosevelt suspends relations with Japan and freezes their assets in the United States
July 31, 1941 : Göring instructs Heydrich to prepare for the Final Solution.
August 1, 1941 : United States announces an oil embargo against aggressor states.
August 14, 1941 : Roosevelt and Churchill announce the Atlantic Charter.
August 20, 1941 : Nazi siege of Leningrad begins.
September 1, 1941 : Jews ordered to wear yellow stars by the Nazis.
September 3, 1941 : First experimental use of gas chambers at Auschwitz.
September 19, 1941 : Nazis take Kiev, murdering over 30,000 by the end of the month
October 2, 1941 : Operation Typhoon begins as the Germans advance on Moscow
October 16, 1941 : Germans take Odessa.
October 24, 1941 : Germans take Kharkov.
October 30, 1941 : Germans reach Sevastopol.
November 13, 1941 : British aircraft carrier Ark Royal is sunk off Gibraltar by a U-boat.
November 20, 1941 : Germans take Rostov.
November 27, 1941 : Soviet troops retake Rostov.
December 5, 1941 : German attack on Moscow is abandoned.
December 6, 1941 : Soviet Army launch major counter-offensive around Moscow.
December 7, 1941 : Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor
December 8, 1941 : United States and Britain declare war on Japan.
December 11, 1941 : Hitler declares war on the United States.
December 16, 1941 : Rommel begins a retreat to El Agheila in North Africa.
December 19, 1941 : Hitler takes complete control of the German Army.
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1942 : January - June
January 1, 1942 : Declaration of the United Nations signed by 26 Allied nations.
January 13, 1942 : Germans begin a U-boat offensive along east coast of USA.
January 20, 1942 : SS Leader Heydrich coordinates the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." at the Wannsee Conference
January 21, 1942 : Rommel's counter-offensive from El Agheila begins.
January 26, 1942 : First American forces arrive in Britain.
April, 1942 : Japanese-Americans sent to relocation centers.
April 23, 1942 : German air raids begin against cathedral cities in Britain.
May 8, 1942 : German summer offensive begins in the Crimea.
May 26, 1942 : Rommel begins an offensive against the Gazala Line.
May 27, 1942 : SS Leader Heydrich attacked in Prague.
May 30, 1942 : First thousand-bomber British air raid (against Cologne).
June 4, 1942 : Mass murder of Jews by gassing begins at Auschwitz.
June 4, 1942 : Heydrich dies of wounds.
June 5, 1942 : Germans besiege Sevastopol.
June 10, 1942 : Nazis liquidate Lidice in reprisal for Heydrich's assassination.
June 21, 1942 : Rommel captures Tobruk.
June 25, 1942 : General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrives in London.
June 30, 1942 : Rommel reaches El Alamein near Cairo, Egypt.
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1942 : July - December
July 01-30, 1942 : First Battle of El Alamein.
July 3, 1942 : Germans take Sevastopol.
July 5, 1942 : Soviet resistance in the Crimea ends.
July 9, 1942 : Germans begin a drive toward Stalingrad in the USSR.
July 22, 1942 : First deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto to concentration camps; Treblinka extermination camp opened.
August 7, 1942 : British General Bernard Montgomery takes command of Eighth Army in North Africa.
August 12, 1942 : Stalin and Churchill meet in Moscow.
August 17, 1942 : First all-American air attack in Europe.
August 23, 1942 : Massive German air raid on Stalingrad.
September 2, 1942 : Rommel driven back by Montgomery in the Battle of Alam Halfa.
September 13, 1942 : Battle of Stalingrad begins.
October 18, 1942 : Hitler orders that all captured British commandos be executed.
November 1, 1942 : Operation Supercharge (Allies break Axis lines at El Alamein).
November 8, 1942 : Operation Torch begins with the U.S. invasion of North Africa.
November 11, 1942 : Germans and Italians invade unoccupied Vichy France.
November 19, 1942 : Soviet counter-offensive at Stalingrad begins.
December 2, 1942 : Professor Enrico Fermi sets up an atomic reactor in Chicago.
December 13, 1942 : Rommel withdraws from El Agheila.
December 16, 1942 : Soviets defeat Italian troops on the River Don in the USSR.
December 17, 1942 : British Foreign Secretary Eden tells theHouse of Commons of mass executions of Jews by Nazis; U.S. declares those crimes will be avenged.
December 31, 1942 : Battle of the Barents Sea between German and British ships.
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1943 : January - June
January 2/3, 1943 : Germans begins to withdraw from the Caucasus.
January 10, 1943 : Soviets start an offensive against the Germans in Stalingrad.
January 14-24, 1943 : Casablanca conference between Churchill and Roosevelt, who announces that the war can end only with "unconditional German surrender."
January 23, 1943 : Montgomery's Eighth Army takes Tripoli.
January 27, 1943 : First bombing raid by Americans on Germany
February 2, 1943 : Germans surrender at Stalingrad in the first big defeat of Hitler's armies.
February 8, 1943 : Soviet troops take Kursk.
February 14-25, 1943 : Battle of Kasserine Pass between the U.S. 1st Armored Division and German Panzers in North Africa.
February 16, 1943 : Soviets re-take Kharkov.
February 18, 1943 : Nazis arrest White Rose resistance leaders in Munich.
March 2, 1943 : Germans begin to withdraw from Tunisia, Africa.
March 15, 1943 : Germans re-capture Kharkov.
March 16-20, 1943 : Battle of Atlantic leads to 27 merchant ships sunk by German U-boats.
March 20-28, 1943 : Montgomery's Eighth Army breaks through the Mareth Line in Tunisia.
April 6/7 1943 : Axis forces in Tunisia begin a withdrawal toward Enfidaville
April 19, 1943 : Waffen-SS attacks Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto.
May 7, 1943 : Allies take Tunisia.
May 13, 1943 : German and Italian troops surrender in North Africa.
May 16, 1943 : Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto ends.
May 16/17 1943 : British air raid on the Ruhr.
May 22, 1943 : Dönitz suspends U-boat operations in the North Atlantic.
June 10, 1943 : Pointblank directive to improve Allied bombing strategy issued.
June 11, 1943 : Himmler orders the liquidation of all Jewish ghettos in Poland.
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1943 : July - December
July 5, 1943 : Germans begin their last offensive against Kursk.
July 9/10, 1943 : Allies land in Sicily.
July 19, 1943 : Allies bomb Rome.
July 22, 1943 : Americans capture Palermo, Sicily.
July 24, 1943 : British bombing raid on Hamburg.
July 25/26, 1943 : Mussolini arrested and the Italian Fascist government falls; Marshal Pietro Badoglio takes over and negotiates with Allies.
July 27/28, 1943 : Allied air raid causes a firestorm in Hamburg.
August 12-17, 1943 : Germans evacuate Sicily.
August 17, 1943 : American daylight air raids on Regensburg and Schweinfurt in Germany; Allies reach Messina, Sicily.
August 23, 1943 : Soviet troops recapture Kharkov.
September 8, 1943 : Italian surrender to Allies is announced.
September 9, 1943 : Allied landings at Salerno and Taranto.
September 11, 1943 : Germans occupy Rome.
September 12, 1943 : Germans rescue Mussolini.
September 23, 1943 : Mussolini re-establishes the Fascist government.
October 1, 1943 : Allies enter Naples, Italy.
October 4, 1943 : SS-Reichsführer Himmler gives speech at Posen.
October 13, 1943 : Italy declares war on Germany
November 6, 1943 : Russians recapture Kiev in the Ukraine.
November 18, 1943 : Large British air raid on Berlin.
November 28, 1943 : Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin meet at Teheran.
December 24-26, 1943 : Soviets launch offensives on the Ukrainian front.
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1944 : January - June
January 6, 1944 : Soviet troops advance into Poland.
January 22, 1944 : Allies land at Anzio in Italy.
January 27, 1944 : Leningrad siege ends after 900 days
February 15-18, 1944 : Allies bomb the monastery at Monte Cassino.
February 16, 1944 : Germans counter-attack against the Anzio beachhead.
March 4, 1944 : Soviet troops begin an offensive on the Belorussian front; First major daylight bombing raid on Berlin by the Allies.
March 15, 1944 : Second Allied attempt to capture Monte Cassino begins.
March 18, 1944 : British drop 3000 tons of bombs during an air raid on Hamburg, Germany.
April 8, 1944 : Soviet troops begin an offensive to liberate Crimea.
May 9, 1944 : Soviet troops recapture Sevastopol.
May 11, 1944 : Allies attack the Gustav Line south of Rome.
May 12, 1944 : Germans surrender in the Crimea.
May 15, 1944 : Germans withdraw to the Adolf Hitler Line.
May 25, 1944 : Germans retreat from Anzio.
June 5, 1944 : Allies enter Rome.
June 6, 1944 : D-Day landings on the northern coast of France.
June 9, 1944 : Soviet offensive against the Finnish begins.
June 10, 1944 : Nazis liquidate the town of Oradour-sur-Glane in France.
June 13, 1944 : First German V-1 rocket attack on Britain.
June 22, 1944 : Operation Bagration begins, the Soviet summer offensive.
June 27, 1944 : U.S. troops liberate Cherbourg, France.
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1944 : July - December
July 3, 1944 : Battle of the Hedgerows in Normandy; Soviets capture Minsk.
July 9, 1944 : British and Canadian troops capture Caen, France.
July 18, 1944 : U.S. troops reach St. Lô, France.
July 20, 1944 : Assassination attempt against Hitler by German Army officers fails.
July 24, 1944 : Soviet troops liberate first concentration camp at Majdanek.
July 25-30, 1944 : Operation Cobra (U.S. troops break out west of St. Lô).
July 28, 1944 : Soviet troops take Brest-Litovsk. U.S. troops take Coutances.
August 1, 1944 : Polish Home Army uprising against Nazis in Warsaw begins; U.S. troops reach Avranches.
August 4, 1944 : Anne Frank and family arrested by the Gestapo in Amsterdam, Holland.
August 7, 1944 : Germans begin a major counter-attack toward Avranches.
August 15, 1944 : Operation Dragoon begins with the Allied invasion of Southern France.
August 19, 1944 : Resistance uprising in Paris.
August 19/20 : Soviet offensive in the Balkans begins with an attack on Romania.
August 20, 1944 : Allies encircle Germans in the Falaise Pocket.
August 25, 1944 : Liberation of Paris.
August 29, 1944 : Slovak uprising begins.
August 31, 1944 : Soviet troops take Bucharest.
September 01-04, 1944 : Allies liberate Verdun, Dieppe, Artois, Rouen, Abbeville, Antwerp and Brussels
September 4, 1944 : Finland and the Soviet Union agree a cease-fire.
September 13, 1944 : U.S. troops reach the Siegfried Line in western Germany.
September 17, 1944 : Operation Market Garden begins with the Allied airborne assault on Holland
September 26, 1944 : Estonia occupied by Soviet troops.
October 2, 1944 : Warsaw Uprising ends as the Polish Home Army surrenders to the Germans.
October 10-29, 1944 : Soviet troops capture Riga.
October 14, 1944 : Allies liberate Athens; Rommel commits suicide.
October 21, 1944 : Massive German surrender at Aachen, Germany.
October 30, 1944 : Gas chambers at Auschwitz used for the final time.
November 20, 1944 : French troops drive through the 'Beffort Gap' to reach the Rhine.
November 24, 1944 : French capture Strasbourg.
December 4, 1944 : Civil War in Greece; Athens placed under martial law.
December 16-27, 1944 : Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes.
December 17, 1944 : Waffen-SS murder 81 U.S. POWs at Malmedy.
December 26, 1944 : Patton relieves Bastogne.
December 27, 1944 : Soviet troops besiege Budapest.
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1945 : January - June
January 01-17, 1945 : Germans withdraw from the Ardennes.
January 16, 1945 : U.S. 1st and 3rd Armies link up after a month long separation during the Battle of the Bulge.
January 17, 1945 : Soviet troops capture Warsaw, Poland.
January 26, 1945 : Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz.
February 04-11, 1945 : Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin meet at Yalta.
February 13/14, 1945 : Dresden is destroyed by a firestorm after Allied bombing.
March 6, 1945 : Last German offensive of the war begins to defend oil fields in Hungary.
March 7, 1945 : Allies take Cologne and establish a bridge across the Rhine at Remagen.
March 30, 1945 : Soviet troops capture Danzig.
April, 1945 : Allies discover stolen Nazi art and wealth hidden in German salt mines.
April 1, 1945 : U.S. troops encircle Germans in the Ruhr; Allied offensive in northern Italy.
April 12, 1945 : Allies liberate Buchenwald and Belsen concentration camps; President Roosevelt dies, to be succeeded by Harry Truman
April 16, 1945 : Soviet troops begin final attack on Berlin; Americans enter Nuremberg.
April 18, 1945 : German forces in the Ruhr surrender.
April 21, 1945 : Soviets reach Berlin.
April 28, 1945 : Mussolini is captured and hanged by Italian partisans; Allies take Venice.
April 29, 1945 : U.S. 7th Army liberates Dachau.
April 30, 1945 : Adolf Hitler commits suicide.
May 2, 1945 : German troops in Italy surrender.
May 7, 1945 : Unconditional surrender of all German forces to Allies.
May 8, 1945 : V-E (Victory in Europe) Day.
May 9, 1945 : Hermann Göring is captured
May 23, 1945 : SS-Reichsführer Himmler commits suicide; German High Command and Provisional Government imprisoned.
June 5, 1945 : Allies divide up Germany and Berlin and take over the government.
June 26, 1945 : United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco.
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1945 : July - December
July 1, 1945 : American, British, and French troops move into Berlin.
July 16, 1945 : First U.S. atomic bomb test; Potsdam Conference begins.
July 26, 1945 : Atlee succeeds Churchill as British Prime Minister.
August 6, 1945 : First atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
August 8, 1945 : Soviets declares war on Japan and invades Manchuria.
August 9, 1945 : Second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
August 14, 1945 : Japanese agree to unconditional surrender.
August 15, 1945 : VJ (victory over Japan) Day with initial announcement of Japan's surrender
October 24, 1945 : United Nations is born.
November 20, 1945 : Nuremberg war crimes trials begin.
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POST-WAR TIMES
March 5, 1946 : Winston Churchill makes his "Sinews of Peace" address at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, using the term "iron curtain" in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe
October 16, 1946 : Death sentences as laid out by the Nuremburg trails carried out by hanging
June, 1947 : Marshall Plan is announced setting in place provisions for helping countries combat poverty, disease and malnutrition
- Some sites
of interest: - Imperial War Museum
- Churchill War Rooms
- Imperial War Museum Duxford
- Help For Heroes
- Dame Vera Lynn Trust
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