1939 - 1945
The USA joins the War
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December 1941 - The Imperial Japanese Navy attacks Pearl Harbor.
A day later the USA declares war on Japan, entering World War 2.
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Japanese troops land in the Philippines, French Indo china (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), and British Singapore. By April 1942 they are all under Japanese occupation.
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Germany and the Axis countries declare war on the USA.
May 1942 - The RAF bomb Cologne. The first time mainland Germany is attacked.
June 1942 - The Royal Navy and the US Navy stop the Japanese advance in the Pacific at Midway.
Germany launches a new offensive in Russia heading for Stalingrad.
August 1942 - US forces stop the Japanese advance to Australia at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
October 1942 - Montgomery's 8th army defeats the German Afrika
Korps at El Alamein in Egypt. Rommel's army retreats to Tunisia.
November 1942 - The Island of Malta, under siege since June 1940, is free from Axis attack and is awarded the George Cross by King George VI.
November 1942 - British and US troops land at several points on the beaches of Algeria and Morocco in French North Africa. The failure of the Vichy French troops to defend against the invasion enables the Allies to move swiftly to the western border of Tunisia, and triggers the German occupation of southern France on November 11.
In Russia the Soviets counter attack trapping the German 6th Army in Stalingrad. Hitler orders his forces not to retreat but within 6 weeks they surrender.
April 1943 - The 'Warsaw Ghetto Uprising' Jewish inhabitants rebel
against forced deportation but are crushed by the German Army.
May 1943 - The German and Italian surrender in Tunisia bringing the North African desert war to an end.
Operation Chastise. The RAF 'Dambusters' attack German dams using Barnes Wallis infamous bouncing bomb.
General Montgomery watches Allied tanks advance on El Alamein in 1942.
July 1943 - A massive German tank offensive at Kursk eventually stopped after six weeks by the Soviets who immediately counter attack.
British and US forces land in Sicily taking control within four weeks.
In Italy Benito Mussolini is deposed. Marshall Pietro Badoglio forms a new government.
September 1943 - Italy surrenders unconditionally to the Allies.
Germany takes control of Rome and Northern Italy. German
commandos free Mussolini from imprisonment who then is put in
charge of a Facist regime.
Allied troops land on the beaches of Salerno near Naples.
November 1943 - Soviet troops liberate Kiev from the Germans.
January 1944 - Allied troops land successfully near Anzio, just south of Rome.
March 1944 - Germany occupies Hungary.
June 1944 - Allied troops liberate Rome. The RAF and USAF can now hit targets in South and Eastern Germany for the first time.
D Day - The Allies land on the Normandy Beaches
Source: Wikipedia / ushmm.org • Believed to be in the Public Domain
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Photo: US National Archives and Records Administration/Wikimedia • Believed to be in the Public Domain (age)
German Soldiers on Nowolipie Street during Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
Benito Mussolini, Fascist Prime Minister of Italy.
A 'Dambusters' Avro Lancaster.
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