1939 - 1945
D Day
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June 1944 - British, US, and Canadian troops successfully land on
the Normandy beaches of France in 'Operation Overlord' creating a
second front attacking the Germans.
Russian troops destroy the German Army in Eastern Belorussia and drive west towards Warsaw.
July 1944 - Allied forces break out of Normandy and head towards Paris.
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August 1944 - Allied forces land in Southern France near Nice and advance towards the Rhine River to the North East.
The Free French and Allied forces liberate Paris.
Parisians line the Champs Élysées for a parade conducted by the French 2nd Armoured Division on 26 August 1944
Soviet forces reach Romania. Romanian opposition overthrows the Antonescu regime and switches sides in the war.
September 1944 - Bulgaria surrenders and the Germans evacuate Greece, Albania, and Southern Yugoslavia.
Finland signs an armistice with Russia and the Axis partnership.
'Operation Market Garden' - Battle of Arnhem takes place.
An attempt by airborne troops to secure the bridges over the River
Rhine ends in failure.
Allied forces reach the German border. Virtually all of France, most of Belgium, and part of the Southern Netherlands are now liberated.
October 1944 - US troops land in the Philippines.
General Douglas MacArthur wades ashore during initial landings at Leyte, Philippine Islands.
December 1944 - The 'Battle of the Bulge' begins. A last offensive
by the German Army and attempts to split the Allied forces.
Despite quick advances it ultimately fails.
January 1945 - The Soviets launch a new offensive, liberating Warsaw and Krakow.
Soviet troops liberate the Auschwitz Concentration Camp and discover the horror of the 'Holocaust' - the genocide of European Jewish people who were targeted for extermination.
Ferbuary 1945 - Air attacks on Berlin intensify when the American
8th Air Force launch a 1500 bomber raid on the city.
Soviet forces capture Budapest driving the Germans out of Hungary.k
March 1945 - US troops cross the Rhine River at Remagen.
April 1945 - American forces liberate the Dachau concentration camp.
Soviet forces capture Bratislava and Vienna. A short time later Berlin falls to the Red Army forces.
Raising a Flag over the Reichstag, a photograph taken during the Battle of Berlin on 2nd May 1945.
Hitler commits suicide
With the Soviet Red Army in Berlin Hitler commits suicide by gunshot
on 30th April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. Eva Braun, his wife
of one day, committed suicide with him by taking cyanide.
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May 1945 - Germany surrenders to the Western Allies in the West and the Soviets in the East. German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signs the final surrender terms on the 8th May 1945 in Berlin.
Winston Churchill waves to crowds in Whitehall in London as they celebrate VE Day, 8 May 1945.
The Atomic Bomb
August 1945 - The United States detonated two nuclear weapons
over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th
and 9th, 1945.
September 1945 - Japan unconditionally surrenders, ending World War II.
Source: Wikipedia / ushmm.org • Believed to be in the Public Domain
US Infantry wade ashore at Omaha Beach on the morning of 6 June 1944 - D Day.
Waves of paratroops land in Holland in
'Operation Market Garden'
A German machine gunner marching through the Ardennes during the 'Battle of the Bulge'.
USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses bombers in formation over Germany.
Front page of the US Armed Forces newspaper, Stars and Stripes, 2 May 1945, announcing Hitler's death.
A dense column of smoke rises more than 60,000 feet into the air over the Japanese port of Nagasaki, the result of an atomic bomb, the second ever used in warfare.
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