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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.
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1937 Japan invades Manchuria. (Some consider this the start of World War II. Most historians disagree).
1937 Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Lugou Bridge - Japanese 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: Australian 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 joins the Axis powers
1941 World War II: Anti-Axis coup d'etat in Yugoslavia - Prince Paul exiled; 17-year-old King Peter II assumes power.
1941 World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the British Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.
1941 World War II: Germany attacks the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa
1941 World War II - Montenegro starts the second popular uprising in Europe against the Axis Powers.
1941 World War II: A BBC broadcast by "Colonel Britton" calls on the people of Occupied Europe to resist the Nazis under the slogan "V for Victory".
1941 World War II: France - German Occupation Authority announces that anyone found either working for or aiding the Free French will be sentenced to death.
1941 World War II: Operation Countenance - United Kingdom and Soviet forces invade Iran.
1941 World War II: France - Pierre Laval is shot in an assassination attempt at Versailles.
1941 World War II: Soviets announce the destruction of massive Dniepr River dam at Zaporozhye to prevent its capture by the Germans.
1941 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.
1941 World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins - German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad. Stalin orders the Volga Deutsche deported to Siberia.
1941 World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Navy to shoot on sight if any ship or convoy is threatened.
1941 World War II: First snowfall reported on Russian front.
1941 World War II: Operation Typhoon - Germany begins an all-out offensive against Moscow.
1941 World War II: Soviet Union government moves to Kuibyshev, but Stalin remains in Moscow.
1941 World War II: The destroyer USS ''Kearney'' is torpedoed and damaged near Iceland, killing eleven sailors - the first American military casualties of the war.
1941 World War II: The destroyer USS ''Reuben James'' is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors.
1941 World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French.
1941 World War II: The Hull note ultimatum is delivered to Japan by the United States.
1941 World War II: Battle of Moscow - Germans reach their closest approach to Moscow. They are subsequently frozen by cold weather and attacks by the Soviets.
ablaze after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor]]
1941 World War II: Hitler becomes Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the German Army
1942 World War II: The term "United Nations" is first officially used to describe the Allied pact.
1942 World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces. The Japanese Admiral stays in Solvec (owned by Charles Henry de Silva), Philippines.
1942 World War II: Siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins
1942 World War II The last German air-raid on Liverpool. Ironicly this raid destroyed the home of William Patrick Hitler, Adolf Hitler's nephew. After his house was destroyed William Hitler went to the USA and joined the navy to fight against his uncle.
1942 World War II: Japan declares war on the Netherlands and invades the Netherlands East Indies.
1942 World War II: The Japanese capture Kuala Lumpur.
1942 World War II: Japanese forces invade Burma.
1942 World War II: Nazis at the Wannsee conference in Berlin decide that the "final solution to the Jewish problem" is relocation, and later extermination.
1942 World War II: The Battle of Rabaul begins.
1942 World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom
1942 World War II: The first American forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.
1942 World War II: The last organised Allied forces leave Malaya, ending the 54-day campaign.
1942 World War II: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war.
1942 World War II: Singapore surrenders to Japanese forces.
1942 World War II: 242 Japanese warplanes attack Darwin, Australia.
1942 World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs executive order 9066 allowing the United States military to define areas as exclusionary zones. These zones affect the Japanese on the West Coast, and Germans and Italians primarily on the East Coast.
1942 Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first World War II flying ace
1942 World War II: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defense of the nation collapses.
1942 World War II: the USS ''Langley'', the first United States aircraft carrier, is sunk by Japanese warplanes off Java.
1942 World War II: Japanese forces begin an all-out assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula. Bataan fell on April 9 and the Bataan Death March began.
1942 World War II: Japanese Navy attacks Colombo in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Royal Navy Cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire are sunk southwest of the island.
1942 World War II: Japanese Navy launches air raid on Trincomalee in Ceylon (Sri Lanka); Royal Navy Aircraft Carrier HMS Hermes and Royal Australian Navy Destroyer HMAS Vampire are sunk off the country's East Coast.
1942 World War II: A national plebiscite is held in Canada on the issue of conscription.
1942 World War II: Operation Ironclad - United Kingdom forces invades french colony of Madagascar.
1942 World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.
1942 World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end. This is the first time in the naval history where two enemy fleets fought without seeing each other's fleets.
1942 World War II: On the night of 8/9 May 1942, gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebelled. Their mutiny was crushed and three of them were executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War.
1942 World War II: Second Battle of Kharkov - In the eastern Ukraine, the Soviet Army initiates a major offensive. During the battle the Soviets will capture the city of Kharkov from the German Army, only to be encircled and destroyed.
1942 World War II: In the United States, a bill creating the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) is signed into law.
1942 World War II: Operation Anthropoid - assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague
1942 World War II: Mexico declares war on Germany, Italy and Japan.
1942 World War II: Reinhard Heydrich is assassinated by Czechoslovakian paratroopers (Operation Anthropoid)
1942 World War II - Japanese forces invade the Aleutian Islands. This is the first invasion of American soil in 128 years.
1942 World War II: Nazis burn the Czech village of Lidice as reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich.
1942 World War II: the Gestapo massacred 173 male residents of Lidice, Czechoslovakia in retaliation for the killing of a Nazi official.
1942 July 27 - World War II: the First Battle of El Alamein
1942 World War II: German U-Boats sink three more merchant ships in Gulf of St. Lawrence.
1942 World War II: The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jets for the first time.
1942 World War II: Battle of the Atlantic - German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to an effective American convoy system.
1942 World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal begins - US Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with a landing on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
1942 World War II: In Washington, DC, six German would-be saboteurs are executed (two others were cooperative and received life imprisonment instead).
1942 World War II: The Dieppe Raid - Allied forces raid Dieppe, France.
1942 World War II: Brazil declared war on Germany and Italy.
1942 World War II: Japanese marines land at Milne Bay.
1942 World War II: Japanese forces suffer their first defeat on land at the Battle of Milne Bay.
1942 World War II: Battle of Cape Esperance - On the northwest coast of Guadalcanal, United States Navy ships intercept and defeat a Japanese fleet on their way to reinforce troops on the island.
1942 November 4 - World War II: the Second Battle of El Alamein
1942 World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein ends - German forces under Erwin Rommel are forced to retreat during the night.
1942 World War II: Operation Torch - United States and United Kingdom forces land in French North Africa.
1942 World War II: French Resistance Coup in Algiers, by which 400 French civil resistants neutralized the Vichyist XIXth Army Corps and the Vichyist generals (Juin, Darlan, et), so allowing the immediate success of Operation Torch in Algiers, and from there in the whole French North Africa.
1942 World War II: U.S serviceman Edward Leonswki hanged at Melbourne's Pentridge Prison for the "Brown-Out" Murders of three women in May
1942 World War II: In violation of a 1940 armistice, Germany invades Vichy France following French Admiral François Darlan agreement to an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.
1942 World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal begins - A naval battle near Guadalcanal starts between Japanese and American forces.
1942 World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal - Aviators from the USS ''Enterprise'' sink the Japanese battleship Hiei.
1942 World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal ends - Although the United States Navy suffered heavy losses, it was able to retain control of Guadalcanal.
1942 World War II: Battle of Stalingrad - Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.
1942 World War II: Battle of Stalingrad - The situation for the German attackers of Stalingrad seems desperate during the Soviet counter-attack Operation Uranus and General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German Sixth Army is surrounded.
1942 World War II: At Toulon, the French navy scuttles its ships and submarines to keep them out of Nazi hands.
1943 Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to travel by airplane while in office (Miami, Florida to Morocco to meet with Winston Churchill to discuss World War II).
1943 World War II: Japanese are driven off Guadalcanal.
1943 World War II: Soviet officials announce they have broken the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad.
1943 World War II: British forces capture Tripoli from the Nazis.
1943 World War II: Rostov-na-Donu, Russia is liberated.
1943 World War II: Soviet Union reconquers Kharkov, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkov
1943 World War II: Battle of the Bismarck Sea - United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships.
1943 World War II: American troops invade Attu in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
1943 World War II: Surviving RAF ''Dam Busters'' return.
1943 U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division land in North Africa prior to training at Arzew, French Morocco while serving in World War II.
1943 World War II: Battle of Kursk - The largest tank battle in history begins.
1943 World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the Battle of Kula Gulf off Kolombangara.
1943 World War II: the Wehrmacht and the Red Army fight the Battle of Prokhorovka - the greatest tank battle in history.
1943 World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the Battle of Vella Gulf off Kolombangara.
1943 World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Vella Lavella.
1943 World War II: Naples post office explosion
1943 World War II: Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Cape St. George between Buka and New Ireland.
1943 Great Depression ends in the United States: With unemployment figures falling fast due to World War II-related employment, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt closes the Works Progress Administration.
1945 World War II: The Soviet Union begin the Vistula-Oder Offensive in Eastern Europe against the Nazis.
1945 Hungary drops out of the Second World War, agreeing to an armistice with the Allies.
1945 World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill leave to meet with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference.
1945 World War II: Previously neutral Finland declares war on the Axis powers.
1945 World War II: United States troops land on Okinawa in the last campaign of the war. The Battle of Okinawa starts.
1945 World War II: The Soviet Union announces the fall of Berlin. Soviet soldiers hoist the red flag over the ''Reichstag'' building.
1945 World War II: A Japanese balloon bomb killed five children and a woman, Elsie Mitchell near Bly, Oregon, when it exploded as they dragged it from the woods. They were the only people killed by enemy attack on the United States mainland during World War II.
1945 World War II: V-E Day (Victory in Europe, as Nazi Germany surrenders) commemorates the end of World War II in Europe.
1945 World War II: The Battle of Okinawa ends.
1945 World War II: Germany is divided between Allied occupation forces
1945 World War II: French marshall Philippe Pétain, who headed the Vichy government during World War II goes on trial, charged with treason.
1945 World War II: the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The United States detonates an atomic bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan at 8:16 AM (local time).
1945 World War II: The United States detonates an atomic bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" over the city of Nagasaki, Japan at 11:02 AM (local time).
1945 World War II: The Soviet Union begins its offensive against Japan in the then Japanese controlled Chinese region of Manchuria.
1945 World War II: Japan offers to surrender to the Allies, "...provided this does not prejudice the sovereignty of the Emperor."
1945 World War II: US drops warning leaflets on Nagasaki.
1945 World War II: Allies reply to the Japanese surrender offer by saying that Emperor Hirohito would be subject to the authority of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces.
1945 World War II: Emperor Hirohito accepts the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.
1945 World War II: Emperor Hirohito announces Japan's surrender on the radio. The United States called this day V-J Day (Victory in Japan). This ends the period of Japanese expansionism and begins the period of Occupied Japan.
1945 World War II ends: The final official surrender of Japan was accepted by Supreme Allied Commander General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz from a delegation led by Mamoru Shigemitsu, aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. But in Japan August 14 is well recognized as the day the Pacific War ended.
1945 Hideki Tojo, Japanese prime minister during most of World War II, attempts suicide to avoid facing a war crimes tribunal.
1945 World War II: Former premier of Vichy France, Pierre Laval, is executed by firing squad for treason.
1945 Nuremberg Trials begin: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals of World War II start at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.
1946 Unable to resume his rule over Albania after World War II, King Zog abdicated but retained his claim to the throne.
1946 Ion Antonescu, prime minister and "Conducator" (Leader) of Romania during World War II is executed; he was found guilty of betraying Romanian people for benefits of Germany and sentenced to death by Bucharest People's Tribunal.
1946 President Harry Truman officially proclaims an end of hostilities in World War II.
1947 Prussia is legally abolished in March by the Allied Control Council following World War II and the establishment of the Oder-Neisse line as Germany's eastern border.
1947 Paris peace treaties signed between the World War II Allies and Italy, Hungary, Romaniam Bulgaria and Finland: Italy cedes most of Istria to Yugoslavia
1948 In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials to death, including General Hideki Tojo, for their roles in World War II.
1949 Notorious World War II veteran Edwin Alonzo Boyd commits his first career bank robbery in Toronto; surprising that he managed to steal $2006, as he'd guzzled a bottle of Irish whiskey, making him drunk.
1949 Mrs. Iva Toguri D'Aquino is found guilty of broadcasting for Japan as "Tokyo Rose" during World War II.
1955 The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union announces end of the war between the USSR and Germany, which began during World War II in 1941. Until then, despite the end of World War II, the USSR was formally at war with Germany.
1958 The bodies of unidentified soldiers killed in action during World War II and the Korean War are buried at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery.
1969 Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II (on January 4, 1970, the ''New York Times'' will run a long article, "Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random").
1978 The Hungarian Holy Crown (also known as Stephen of Hungary Crown) is returned to Hungary from the United States, where it was held since World War II.
1983 A special commission of the U.S. Congress releases a report critical of the practice of Japanese internment during World War II.
1985 U.S. President Ronald Reagan joins German Chancellor Helmut Kohl for a controversial funeral service at a cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, which includes the graves of 59 elite S.S. troops from World War II.
1986 An article in the ''New York Times'' charges that Kurt Waldheim, former United Nations Secretary General and candidate for president of Austria, may have been involved in Nazi war crimes during World War II.
1987 Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II.
1988 In Israel, John Demjanjuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in World War II. He was accused by survivors of being the notorious guard at the Treblinka extermination camp known as "Ivan the Terrible". The conviction is later overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.
1991 Germany formally regains complete independence after the four post-World War II occupying powers (France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union) relinquish all remaining rights.
1992 Japan apologizes for forcing Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II.
1992 The 2 remaining countries of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Montenegro form a new state under name - the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (after 2003, Serbia and Montenegro), bringing to an end the union of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Bosnian Muslims and Macedonians that existed from 1918 (with the exception of the period during World War II).
1994 The Duke of Edinburgh attends a ceremony in Israel. where his late mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg is honoured as "Righteous among the Nations" for sheltering Jewish families from the Nazis in Athens, during World War II.
2001 War on Terrorism: In the first such act since World War II, U.S. President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against any foreigners suspected of having connections to terrorist acts or planned acts against the United States.
2003 December 7 – The new Government in Exile of the pre-World War II Republic of Estonia, headed by Ahti Mänd, assumes offi
2004 Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov is killed by a landmine placed under a VIP stage during a World War II memorial parade in Grozny.
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