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 - isolationism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Rosie the Riveter-
(6 M women)

Tuskegee Airmen

 

1942

 

 

 

 

 

Detroit race riots;

CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) forms

 

1942-02

Exec. Order 9066 – 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 – avoids the disaster of WWI

 

1944-06

 

 

Allies: Normandy- D.D. Eisenhower

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

Holocaust-“Final Solution”

 

 

 

 

Yalta[8] Accords – UN, free elections

 

 

 

 

1945-03

 

 

US: Iwo Jima – victory – 2 months

 

 

 

 

1945-04

FDR dead; Harry S Truman President

 

 

Ger: Suicide of Hitler

 

Cold War begins

Slow shift in racism

 

1945-04-06

 

 

UN Conference – draft charter

 

 

American worker pay^ Presidential power ^

 

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[9]

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

 

Aryan

Auschwitz

Axis

Bataan Death March

Blitzkreig

Dachau

Dunkirk

Gestapo

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  the French puppet government set up by Germany



 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2016

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu

Last Updated:

2016

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] Office of Scientific Research and Development - later radar, sonar, atomic bomb (or Manhattan Project)

[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] Sell all property in 48 hours; only what they could carry. Internment camps for Japanese and American-born children1988 – Congress – survivors $20K reparations

[8] FDR, Churchill, Stalin agree to the United Nations.Stalin promises aid in war against Japan, but our use of the atomic bomb ends that need. Stalin agrees to free and open elections in eastern Europe, areas the Russians hold, but does not.

[9] Nuremberg