Major Events in WWII – The War in Europe
 1938 - Germany takes over Austria and Czechoslovakia.
 1939- Germany invades Poland, splits with Russia
 1940- German subs begin torpedo attacks. Invasion of Belgium,
Netherlands, Denmark, than Norway. British and French tried to
defend, but Germany had air superiority.
Maginot Line built In France after WWI to defend France.
Germans did not cross Maginot Line, but went around it through
the thick forest of Ardennes. French soldiers, were non-military.
French couldn’t fight back, Germans like wolves surrounding and
overpowering French tanks. Germans sped to the coast, Paris in
panic. British and French evacuate at Dunkirk to Britain. France
falls. June 14, 1940, German victory parade in Paris.
Battle of Britain, aerial attack on Britain for 4 months. England
destroys 1700 German planes.
US building two ocean navy, gives England 50 destroyers in
exchange for land for bases. FDR places embargo on metal to
Japan.
 1941- Greece and Yugoslavia fall to Axis Powers
June 1941, Germany breaks non-aggression pact with Stalin and
invades, Russians push back, understood lighting war.
U.S. loses two destroyers and a ship near Brazil sunk by U-Boats.
Pearl Harbor, December 1941
 1942- War in Pacific going on.
Battle of Stalingrad, Hitler fails, hundreds of thousands die.
http://www.history.com/topics/battle-ofstalingrad/videos#world-war-ii-battle-of-stalingrad
http://www.history.com/topics/battle-of-stalingrad/videos#nazidefeat-at-stalingrad
http://www.history.com/topics/battle-ofstalingrad/videos#stalins-purges
 1943- War in N. Africa, struggle for control of Suez canal. 350k
Axis killed vs. 18.5k Allies.
US takes Sicily, end of Italian resistance, Italy declares war on
Germany
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/videos#north-africacampaign
 1944- 600 aircraft raid Berlin
D-Day in France (Operation Overlord) largest invasion in history.
Four days of fighting on beach. 4,000 ships, 600 warships, 10,000
planes, 175,000 troops. Germans surrounded in Brittany. Paris
recovered.
http://www.history.com/topics/d-day/videos#d-day-invasion-ofnormandy
Battle of the Bulge- last major German counter-offensive.
http://www.history.com/topics/battle-of-thebulge/videos#battle-bulge
 1945- 1000 bombers raid Berlin, 100,000 Germans killed at
Dresden,
 From February 13 to February 15, 1945, during the final months of World War II (1939-45),
Allied forces bombed the historic city of Dresden, located in eastern Germany. The bombing was
controversial because Dresden was neither important to German wartime production nor a major
industrial center, and before the massive air raid of February 1945 it had not suffered a major
Allied attack. By February 15, the city was a smoldering ruin and an unknown number of
civilians—estimated at somewhere between 35,000 and 135,000--were dead.
 http://www.history.com/topics/battle-of-dresden/photos#
 All Germans pushed back to Germany. US troops meet Russian
troops at Elbe. Hitler marries Eva Braun in Berlin bunker, poisons
her, then kills himself.
 http://www.history.com/videos/hitlers-military-blunders#hitlersmilitary-blunders
Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
http://www.history.com/photos/hiroshima-and-nagasaki