Study Tool: Chronological Events of the 1939-1945 Era 

This war is more than a catastrophic war; its terms and people become symbols¾become part of thinking of multiple generations. Click here for some examples.

( ) with specific name – Name is for reference for you can find the information in the index if needed.

Allies = Britain (Br), France (Fr), and others      Axis = Germany (Ger), Italy, Japan       Both = Russia (Ru)

 

Date

Presidential Election/Event

US Official -Unofficial Actions

Allies

Axis

US War Actions

Issue/Organization Development

Political Party Development

1920s-1930s

 

 

 

Reminders

 

 

 

1940-05

 

 

How fast they went to war

 

 

Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies

 

1940-06

 

 

Fr: Falls to Ger; Vichy (Term)

 

War Department: Surplus, old munitions, arms, planes to Br

 

 

1940-08 to 10

 

Selective Service Act

 

Battle of Britain

Japan: Bases in Indochina (from Vichy); 10-yr. pact with Ger, Italy

“Overage” destroyers to Br for 99-yr. leases (Destroyer-Bases Agreement)

America First Committee

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FDR: Embargo on steel, scrap iron to all but Br

 

 

 

 

 

1940-11

Wendell Willkie vs. F. D. Roosevelt

 

 

 

 

 

 

1940-12

Fireside chat on US as “the great arsenal of democracy”
(Dec. 29)

 

 

Japan: Embargo – “unfriendly act”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ger: US protest over US aid to Br (Dec. 21)

 

 

 

1941-01

Four Freedoms[1] speech to Congress

 

 

 

 

Threatened black march on Washington[2]

 

1941-03

 

Lend-Lease Bill

 

 

 

 

 

1941-04

 

 

 

 

Rationing starts (later Office of Price Administration)

 

 

1941-06

 

 

 

Ger invades Ru.

 

 

 

 

Lend-Lease to Ru

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Science group est.[3]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FDR: move to block march[4]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1941-08

Atlantic Charter announced[5]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1941-09, 10

“’Active defense’” to Iceland

 

 

Reuben James sunk, Iceland convoy duty

 

 

 

1941-11

 

Congress modifies Neutrality Acts

 

 

 

 

 

1941-12

 

 

 

Japan: Takes multiple areas[6]

War Production Board (WPB)

 

 

1941-12-07

 

 

 

Japan: Pearl Harbor

 

 

 

1941-12-11

 

US declares war on Japan

 

Ger, Italy: Declare war on US

 

 

 

1942

 

 

 

 

 

Detroit race riots;

CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) forms

 

1942-02

Exec. Order 9102 – Relocation[7]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1942-04

 

 

 

 

Draft starts

 

 

1942-11

 

 

Allies N. Africa campaign – victory against Vichy

 

 

 

 

1943-02

 

 

Ru: Victory at Stalingrad

 

 

 

 

 

 

US: Guadalcanal secured – 6 months (New Guinea);

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“leapfrog” campaign starts

 

 

 

 

1943-06

 

 

 

 

 

Mobs against Mexican Americans (CA)

 

1943-07-08

 

 

Sicily victory; enter into N. Italy; Mussolini flees

 

 

 

 

1944-03

 

 

 

 

 

GI Bill

 

1944-06

 

 

Allies: Normandy

 

 

 

 

1944-07

 

 

 

 

 

Port Chicago, CA – 250 black sailors killed

 

1944-12

 

 

US/Br: Battle of Bulge – stop German counter

77K US casualties

 

 

 

 

1945-02

 

 

US: Philippines victory – 7 months

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yalta Accords – UN, free elections

 

 

 

 

1945-03

 

 

US: Iwo Jima – victory – 2 months

 

 

 

 

1945-04

FDR dead; Harry S Truman President

 

 

Ger: Suicide of Hitler

 

 

 

1945-04-06

 

 

UN Conference – draft charter

 

 

 

 

1945-05

 

 

Allies: Berlin falls (May 2), Ger surrenders (May 7), V-E (May 8)

 

 

 

 

1945-06

 

 

German/Berlin occupation zones est.; Ru., US, Fr, Br

 

 

 

 

1945-07

 

 

Potsdam Conference – agree to trials[8]

Japan: Rejects unconditional surrender

US: Successful atomic bomb test (Jul. 17)

 

 

1945-08

 

 

US: Hiroshima, atomic bomb
(Aug. 6); Nagasaki (Aug. 9); V-J Day (Aug. 15)

 

 

 

 

 

 

US: occupies Japan

 

 

 

 

Reminders About the Rise of the Axis

Date

Rise of Axis Powers

1931-09

Japan:  Manchurian invasion

1933-01

Germany: Hitler, Chancellor

1935-05

Italy: Invades Ethiopia

1936

Germany: Reoccupies the Rhineland

Germany, Italy: Mutual defense pact

Spanish Civil War

1937-12

Japan: Bombs US Panay in Yangtze River in China

Japan: As part of attacks on China (with high Chinese dead counts), fall of the city of Nanking (Nanjing), Rape of Nanking – torture, rape, mass murder

1938

Germany takes Sudetenland; Munich – Chamberlain

1938-11

Kristallnacht

How Fast Did They Go to War?

Date

US

Allies

Axis

1939-03

 

 

Ger: Makes demands on Poles (Mar. 23)

 

 

Br, Fr: Promise aid to Poles (Mar. 31)

 

1939-04

 

 

Italy: Invades Albania (Apr. 7)

 

US/FDR: to Hitler and Mussolini asking assurances (Apr. 15)

 

 

1939-05

 

 

Ger/Italy: Military alliance (May 22)

1939-08

 

 

Ger/Ru: Non-aggression pact (Aug. 23)

 

US/FDR: to Poles, Hitler, Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel for negotiation (Aug. 24)

 

 

 

 

Poles: Accept conciliation. No response so mobilize (Aug. 31)

 

1939-09

 

 

Ger: Invades Poland (Sept. 1)

 

Br/Fr: declare war on Ger (Sept. 1)

 

US: Declares neutrality (Sept. 3)

 

 

 

 

Ru: Invades Poland (Sept. 17)

 

 

Ger/Ru: Partition Poland (Sept. 18)

1939-11

 

 

Ru: Invades Finland. Complete (Mar. 1940)

1940-04

 

 

Ger: Invades Denmark, Norway

1940-05

 

 

Ger: Invades The Netherlands, Belgium (May 10). Fall by June.

World WarII¾People and Terms That Became Symbols

Chamberlain, Neville

Churchill, Winston

DeGaulle, Charles

Hitler, Adolph

Mussolini, Benito

Quisling, Vidkum – Not in your textbook, the puppet leader of Norway set up by Germany

Stalin, Joseph

Wallenberg, Raoul – Also cover Auschwitz, Dachau, Holocaust

 

Auschwitz

Axis

Bataan Death March

Blitzkreig

Dachau

Dunkirk

Holocaust – from Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary: (usually cap.) “the systematic mass slaughter of European Jews in Nazi concentration camps during World War II” [from words meaning burnt whole]

Kamikaze

Luftwaffe

Maginot line, “impregnable”

Nazi - from Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary: “a member of the National Socialist Workers’ party in Germany….”

Nuremberg Trials

Siegfried line

Vichy – Not in your textbook - the French puppet government set up by Germany



 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2010

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or cjb_classes@yahoo.com

Last Updated:

2010

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/

 

 



[1] Of speech, of religion, from want, from fear

[2] During 1941, A. Phillip Randolph – Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

[3] Later radar, sonar, atomic bomb (Office of Scientific Research and Development)

[4] Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) in return for no march

[5] Not binding, but signed by 15 countries by Sept. 24

[6] Guam, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dutch East Indies, and others; Corregidor surrenders May; Bataan Death March follows

[7] 1988 – Congress – survivors $20K reparations

[8] Nuremberg