Events that shaped 20th century America
Created by rebeccaweiss on Mar 5, 2011
Last updated: 04/01/11 at 10:57 AM
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Soviet Army fought Nazi Germany for the land of Stalingrad until February, 1943, when the Soviets took the victory and land.
http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv9n2/stalingrad.htm
Japanese officials sign the Instrument of Surrender in Tokyo on British and American ships.
http://www.classbrain.com/artteenst/publish/article_107.shtml
Japan alerts US officials that it surrenders, and Truman announces this day as "Victory over Japan day" at a press conference.
http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/England-History/VJDay.htm
Due to the Japanese's lack of response in surrendering following the first bomb, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, Japan. This inflicted the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and ultimately led to the Japanese surrender.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bombing_of_nagasaki.htm
President Truman makes the controversial decision to drop the atomic bomb, US's most powerful military weapon, over the city of Hiroshima, Japan. This was an effort to make the Japanese surrender, and the bomb wiped out much of the city.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/6/newsid_3602000/3602189.stm
US decides to help build Japan so they could have a pro-western influence in Asia. This was a failure because Truman had to take more of Poland than he wanted, and had to recognize communist Warsaw would not hold free elections.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/472814/Potsdam-Declaration
The world's first atomic bomb is successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico, making the US a more powerful military threat internationally.
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Trinity.html
Red Army attacks the German territory and is eventually the bloodiest battle in history. Eventually, following this battle, Hitler commits suicide.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/21/newsid_3560000/3560175.stm
Germany signs a surrender, ending the six year long battle in Europe and world-wide.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/7/newsid_3578000/3578325.stm
Hitler and wife, Braun, commit suicide in their Bunker in Berlin following the collapse of Hitler's powerful reich.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/adolf-hitler-commits-suicide-in-his-underground-bunker
Italian antifascists capture Mussolini, their totalitarian ruler, and execute him due to different ideological beliefs.
http://www.worldwariihistory.info/1945.html
Almost 3 month long battle of the US Air Forces island hopping and attacking the Pacific Islands, and ultimately reaching the mainland of Okinawa Japan, and capturing it.
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/pacificwar/timeline.htm
Roosevelt dies from a massive stroke following the Yalta conference, and his Vice President, Truman, steps in for him.
US Air Forces 'firebombing' urban sections of Japan, including Tokyo. Hundreds of thousands were killed, wiping out much of Tokyo.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-firebombing-of-tokyo-continues
The US forces land on and capture Iwo Jima and the Empire of Japan.
The Allied forces' weapons put the city of Dresden into flames and nearly wiped out its inhabitants.
http://www.rense.com/general19/flame.htm
Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill's meeting in Yalta. Although the disagreements over Poland and Germany were not resolved, the UN was established.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/651424/Yalta-Conference
Soviet forces liberate the Auschwitz-Birkneau concentration camps.
http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/gallery/p538.htm
Hitler's attempt to break up Allied forces by attacking, essentially, American troop's stationary. One of the bloodiest wars in WWII for America, Allied forces took the victory in this battle.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battle_of_the_bulge.htm
Code name for a hardly publicized mission, Operation Market Garden was the Allied forces fired an airborne attack on Netherlands and Germany using the first airborne division.
http://www.historynet.com/operation-market-garden-historys-greatest-airborne-assault.htm
The Allies invade Paris and Germany surrenders, liberating Parisians.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/25/newsid_3520000/3520894.stm
Code name for the Normandy Invasion, Operation Overlord was the Allied surprise attack of Germany at Normandy. The Germans were unprepared, and this defeat was disastrous: planes, explosions, and many deaths occurred.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/operation_overlord.htm
Churchill, FDR, and Stalin met in Tehran to discuss the future of fighting the war and expanding military efforts to the western areas of Europe.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/585632/Tehran-Conference
Mussolini flees from Italy and the government/'black shirt party' collapses after the American and British forces invade and attack on Italian mainland.
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Mussolini-Benito.html
American and British forces used military supplies to recover from the Kasserine Pass at Tunisia, and drove the remaining Germans from Africa. Hitler could no longer support the war on the Eastern front due to substantial efforts and loses, thus surrendered in these first battles.
http://www.worldwariihistory.info/WWII/North-Africa.html
This was a conference of the Allied Powers to discuss future plans to aid the Jews being affected in the Holocaust. In the end, the decision was to not do anything significant to help them.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/peopleevents/pandeAMEX103.html
The conference was held in Morocco, and was the meeting of FDR and Churchill to discuss future courses of action for the war. Here, the two leaders plotted an Allied Invasion of Sicily.
http://www.nisk.k12.ny.us/fdr/ideas/portfolio/hoag/hoag.html
Allies invaded North Africa to fight the Germans and threatened Suez Canal. This was America's first time in combat, and they were completely unprepared.
http://www.worldwar2history.info/North-Africa/
After six months of American naval forces fighting, the Guadalcanal was captured along with Gavatu and Tulagi. The Japanese left this southern region and never returned, leaving their chance to invade the southern islands.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/general_alexander_vandegrift.htm
The Manhattan Project was a significant government investment to beat Germany's attempt to create an atomic bomb. Many scientists worked to create chain-reaction experiments with uranium and plutonium for a result of atomic fission.
http://www.energy.gov/about/origins.htm
This battle--on Midway island--was pivotal for American forces; they won against the Japanese, and caused more deaths on their side than the American one.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battle_of_midway.htm
A march in the Philippines of hundreds of thousands of Filipino and American prisoners of war forced by the Japanese. They were poorly treated, and many died on the way to the concentration camps to which they were being sent.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/55717/Bataan-Death-March
Americans began to treat Japanese-Americans poorly due to the fear that they were 'spies' and working for the Japanese government. FDR required that the Japanese be 'interned' and taken to relocation centers, where the conditions were rough.
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/japanese_internment/index.html
Germany and Italy declare war on the United States 3 days after the United States declared war on their ally, Japan
Following the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States wanted to fight back immediately. Thus the day following the attack, the House and Senate had a 388:1 vote for the declaration of war on Japan.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/sovietjapan1.html
The Japanese launched a surprise attack onto the United States at Pearl Harbor. This ultimately made the American people concerned, and we reacted with almost immediate retaliation.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/pearlhbr.htm
Roosevelt and Churchill met to discuss the future of their countries. As a result, they decided they would do whatever is necessary to end the violence and corruption of the Nazi party. Ultimately, this charter signified the United States' willingness to go to war.
http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/53.htm
Since Great Britain was bankrupt thus could no longer use the cash-and-carry laws, FDR proposed the Lend-Lease Act. This was the agreement that the United States could lend or lease military supplies to any nation that would benefit and defend the United States with them.
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=old&doc=71
The 'zoot-suit' was the style worn by Mexican Americans, and generally frowned upon by Americans. The outfits caused such concern and prejudices that it ultimately led to riots in California, rendering LA passing a law against the 'zoot-suit'.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/
Nazis invaded the Soviet Union and the USSR did not surrender. In response to this, Roosevelt had lend-lease privileges extended to the Soviet Union.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005164
Japan signs the Tripartite Pact, which binds them to a defensive alliance with Italy and Germany. The Japanese then continued to invade parts of China and Vietnam, and FDR had to cut off the resources supplied to them by the United States.
http://www.wfu.edu/history/StudentWork/AsiaPacificWar/asia-pacific-scott/commentary.htm
As Germany pushes its power farther into Europe, it eventually invades France. After Germany launches the blitzkrieg, France falls and surrenders to Germany.
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/francesurrenders.htm
When Hitler launched invasions in Poland, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, beginning the second World War.
http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/WW2/world_war_2_timeline.htm
Hitler, despite the Munich Agreement, invades Poland. This failure is often remarked as a precipitating event that caused WWII.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/invasion_poland_01.shtml
In 1939 Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler, to release the Germans from fighting a war on two fronts.
http://www.johndclare.net/RoadtoWWII8.htm
Hitler demanded the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, but France and Great Britain did not want him to expand power. For this reason, the three countries met at Munich to resolve this, and ultimately the French and British agreed to accept Germany's terms if Hitler would not expand Czechoslovakia anymore. This period of time became known as 'appeasement' until it failed in 1939.
http://www.museumofworldwarii.com/TourText/Area03b_Munich.htm
Hitler sent his troops, unopposed, into Austria and spread his rule there. Almost no nations responded to this attack, including the United States. This solidified that all of the land around Czechoslovakia was surrounded, and led to the Munich Agreement as a result of Hitler's desire to annex it.
FDR's address to the United States following Japan's continuous invasion of China was more of a warning to the American people. Essentially, he alerted Americans that the dangers of the Japanese were contagious, and their aggressive actions rendered them deserving "quarantine" from the rest of the globe. The American people did not have a significant reaction to this, for the most part.
http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3310
This 1937 revision of the Neutrality Acts stated that states in war could only sell nonmilitary supplies, and that they must be paid for in cash and transported by the buyer. This Act was an effort of the United States to remain neutral; a desire that did not last very long/
A six week period during the time in which the Second Sino Japanese War was occurring, the Japanese captured the capital of the Republic of China, Nanjing. During this time the Japanese murdered thousands of civilians, and overall caused a lot of corruption
http://www.cnd.org/njmassacre/
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