World War Two timeline
1939 Timeline
Sep 1 Germany invades Poland, world war 2 begins.
Sep 3 Britain and France declare war on Germany.
Sep 8 The US remains neutral but president Roosevelt declares 'limited national emergency'.
Sep 17 Russia invades Poland
Sep 27 Warsaw surrenders
Oct 6 The last remaining polish forces surrender
Nov 30 Russia invades Finland
1940 Timeline
Jan 17 The first German Enigma messages are decoded by British intelligence
Mar 12 Russia-Finland war ends. It convinces Hitler that the Russian military is ineffective.
Apr 8 Germany invades Denmark and Norway.
Apr 14 British forces land in Narvik, Norway, but leave in 10 days
May 10 Germany invades France, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg. Winston Churchill becomes Britain's prime minister.
May 20 German forces reach the English channel.
May 27 Evacuation of British and French forces to Britain at Dunkirk begins.
Jun 4 The evacuation at Dunkirk ends. 338,000 troops were rescued. Churchill declares that Britain will never surrender.
Jun 9 Norway surrenders
Jun 10 Italy declares war on the collapsing France and on Britain.
Jun 14 German troops march into Paris
Jun 18 Russia invades Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
Jun 22 France surrenders
Jun 27 Russia annexes the eastern regions of Romania.
Jul 1 Germany invades the British Channel Islands.
Jul 10 The 'Battle of Britain' air campaign begins.
Jul 18 Churchill declares this is Britain's finest hour.
Aug 8 The Luftwaffe begins to bomb British early warning radars
Aug 15 The Luftwaffe loses 76 aircraft in one day
Aug 25 British night bombers bomb Berlin
Sep 3 Hitler changes the Luftwaffe's objective from destroying the Royal Air Force to bombing London. This allows the R.A.F to recover and win the battle of Britain.
Sep 13 Italy invades British-held Egypt from Libya, the north African campaign begins.
Sep 15 The largest Luftwaffe daytime bombardment, it loses 56 aircraft
Sep 27 Japan joins the 'axis'
Oct 7 German troops enter their Ally Romania, Germany's only source of oil which is threatened by Russia
Oct 12 Hitler cancels the invasion of Britain.
Oct 23 Spain rejects Hitler's offer to join the war and remains neutral.
Oct 28 Italy invades Greece from Albania, but stopped, twice.
Nov 11 British carrier aircraft sink Italian fleet in Taranto's harbour. Yamamoto in Japan is impressed by their success.
Nov 20 Hungary and Romania, both military dictatorships, join the axis.
Dec 9 British forces in Egypt counter attack the Italians and advance along the Libyan coast
1941 Timeline
Feb 12 Hitler sends Rommel and the 'Afrika Korps' to help the Italians in north Africa
Mar 1 Bulgaria joins the axis. The axis-Russian border now stretch from the Baltic sea to the black sea.
Mar 3 Rommel attacks the British forces in north Africa.
Mar 5 British troops arrive at Greece to support it.
Apr 6 Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece
Apr 13 After military clashes, Japan and Russia sign non-aggression pact.
Apr 17 Yugoslavia surrenders. British forces evacuate Greek mainland to Crete
Apr 27 German troops occupy Athens
May 9 U-boat U-110 is captured with Enigma settings tables
May 20 German paratroopers and airborne troops invade Crete by air
May 31 British forces in Crete surrender.
Jun 8 British forces aided by Israeli volunteers invade French controlled Syria and Lebanon
Jun 22 Germany invades Russia. Hitler orders "maximum cruelty" against civilians, which results in fanatic Russian resistance.
Jul 3 Stalin orders the 'scorched earth' strategy.
Jul 16 German army group 'centre' takes Smolensk, just 220 miles from Moscow.
Jul 21 The Luftwaffe bombs Moscow
Jul 24 Japan invades French Indo-China (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia)
Jul 29 Hitler, eager to occupy the rich Ukraine first, orders to stop army group centre's advance to Moscow and to transfer its two tank armies to army groups 'north' and 'south'. This is perhaps Hitler's greatest mistake. The German generals argue in vain against it.
Jul 31 Hermann Goering orders the S.S. to prepare "the final solution", the plan to murder the millions of European jews.
Sep 6 Hitler orders to restore the advance to Moscow, in order to take it "in the limited time before winter". Army group 'centre', is given back its two tank armies, plus a third tank army and additional air units.
Sep 15 The long German siege of Leningrad begins.
Sep 18 The Germans in the south occupy Kiev and reach the Crimea.
Oct 2 The final German attack towards Moscow begins (operation Typhoon).
Oct 15 Rains stop German advance to Moscow due to deep mud which stops both tanks and infantry.
Oct 16 Russian government leaves Moscow, the Germans occupy Odessa.
Oct 17 General Tojo becomes Japan's prime minister
Oct 21 Churchill orders top priority to any request by the Enigma decoders.
Oct 26 The Germans occupy Kharkov
Nov 15 With the mud frozen by the dropping temperatures, German advance to Moscow resumes.
Nov 30 The foremost German forces reach 27km from Moscow, but can advance no further due to strong Russian resistance.
Dec 6 At temperatures of -34C (-29F) and below, a major Russian counter attack near Moscow begins. Moscow is saved, and the Germans are pushed back.
Dec 7 The Japanese navy attacks Pearl Harbour and the Phillipines, and the US joins the war.
With the German failure to defeat Russia, which is marked by their failure to take Moscow, and with the United States joining the war a day later, This date marks the main turning point of world war 2
Dec 11 Germany and Italy declare war on the US.
Dec 19 Hitler orders "fanatic resistance" and appoints himself military commander-in-chief.
1942 Timeline
Jan 2 Japanese forces occupy Manila
Jan 10 Japanese forces invades Indonesia
Jan 11 Japanese forces occupy Malaysia
Jan 12 Japanese forces invade Burma
Jan 13 German U-boats begin to sink ships along the US east coast.
Jan 21 Rommel begins another offensive in north Africa
Jan 25 Japanese forces invade the Solomon islands
Jan 26 US troops begin to arrive in Britain
Feb 15 Singapore surrenders to the Japanese
Mar 20 'industrial-scale' murder of Jews by poison gas begins in Nazi death camps.
Apr 18 Doolittle's raid - US bombers bomb Tokyo.
May 7 Battle of the Coral Sea. One Japanese carrier and one American carrier are sunk
May 6 The last American troops in the Philippines surrender
May 8 The German spring offensive in southern Russia begins.
Jun 4 The battle of Midway. Four Japanese carriers are sunk, and one American carrier. Japan's naval superiority is lost.
Jul 3 Japanese forces land in Guadalcanal
Jul 28 Stalin forbids further Russian retreats, at any cost.
Aug 7 US forces land in Guadalcanal
Aug 13 Montgomery becomes commander of the British 8th army in north Africa
Aug 19 Allied landing in Dieppe fails.
Aug 23 The German 6th army reach Stalingrad, the battle of Stalingrad begins.
Sep 6 The German advance in Stalingrad is stopped.
Sep 23 The battle of El Alamein in north Africa begins.
Nov 8 Allied forces land in western north Africa, at Rommel's back
Nov 19 The Russian flanking counter attack around Stalingrad begins
Dec 19 The Germans fail to break the encirclement of their army in Stalingrad
1943 Timeline
Feb 2 The last German forces in Stalingrad surrender
May 13 The long north Africa campaign ends. The allies control north Africa
May 22 41 German u-boats sunk in 3 weeks. Doenitz retreats all u-boats from the North Atlantic
Jul 5 The battle of Kursk begins
Jul 10 The allies invade Sicily
Jul 25 Mussolini is replaced and arrested.
Aug 10 The Germans know the the Enigma was decoded, but believe the new models and procedures are safe again.
Sep 3 The allies invade Italy's mainland
Sep 8 Italy surrenders. The German forces in northern and central Italy occupy it
Sep 25 The Russians liberate Smolensk
Oct Allied anti submarine bases established in the Azores, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean
Nov 6 The Russians liberate Kiev
Nov 19 The marines land in Tarawa
Nov Rommel takes command of the 'Atlantic wall' in the French coast
Dec P-51 fighters provide all-the-way long range escort to bombers over Germany
1944 Timeline
Jan 16 Eisenhower becomes supreme commander of western allies forces
Jan 22 Allies land in Anzio, Italy
Mar The Russians advance into the Ukraine
Apr 10 The Russians liberate Odessa
May Allied bombers begin to concentrate on the German fuel industry
Jun 5 The German navy's Enigma messages are decoded almost in real time.
Jun 6 D-Day. American, British, Canadian forces invade France at the beaches of Normandy
Jun 12 1st German V-1 cruise missile attack on Britain
Jun 15 The marines land in Saipan
Jun 19 Battle of the Philippine sea
Jun 22 The Russians advance to Belarus
Jun 27 Cherbourg is liberated
Jul 20 Hitler survives an assassination attempt by senior German officers with light wounds.
Jul 21 Hitler appoints General Guderian to chief of the army (OKH). The marines land in Guam
Jul 24 The marines land in Tinian
Jul 28 The Russians reach the old German-Russian border in central Poland
Jul 30 Patton breaks out of the beachhead deep into France
Aug 1 Warsaw revolts against the Germans
Aug 15 The allies land in southern France
Aug 23 Romania surrenders to the Russians. Its oil fields were Germany's only source of natural oil
Aug 25 Paris is liberated.
Aug Allied fighters achieve air superiority over Germany
Sep 6 Finland and Bulgaria surrenders to the Russians
Sep 8 1st German V-2 ballistic missile attack on Britain
Sep 17 Operation 'Market Garden' in Holland
Oct 5 British forces land in Greece
Oct 10 The Germans evacuate Riga, Latvia
Oct 14 Athens is liberated
Oct 20 The marines land in Leyte
Nov 14 B-29 bombers begin to bomb Tokyo from bases in the Mariana islands
Dec 16 The German attack in the Ardennes begin (Battle of the Bulge)
1945 Timeline
Jan 9 The marines land in Luzon, Philippines
Jan 23 The Russians reach Germany itself at the Oder river
Jan 27 The Russians liberate the Auschwitz death camp
Jan 28 The Ardennes campaign ends
Feb 13 The Russians occupy Budapest, Hungary. Dresden bombed.
Feb 19 The marines land in Iwo Jima
Mar 4 Manila is liberated
Mar 6 The allies occupy Cologne, Germany
Mar 7 US forces cross the Rhine on the Remagen bridge
Mar 16 The battle of Iwo Jima ends
Mar 27 V-2 missile attacks end
Apr 1 German forces encircled in the Ruhr by the Americans
Apr 6 The marines land in Okinawa. Japan orders all its forces to use kamikaze suicide tactic
Apr 7 The super battleship Yamato is sunk on its way to a kamikaze fight in Okinawa
Apr 10 The allies occupy Hanover
Apr 11 The allies liberate the Buchenwald death camp
Apr 12 President Roosevelt dies.
Apr 13 The Russians enter Vienna
Apr 16 The Russians begin final advance to Berlin
Apr 25 American and Russian forces meet
Apr 26 German defence in northern Italy finally collapses
Apr 29 Mussolini is executed by the Italian resistance. The allies liberate the Dachau death camp
Apr 30 Adolph Hitler commits suicide in his bunker in Berlin. He appoints Admiral Doenitz as his successor.
May 8 Germany surrenders. The war in Europe ends
May 28 450 B-29 bombers bomb Yokohama
Jun 2 660 B-29 bombers bomb Japanese cities
Jun 21 Battle of Okinawa ends
Jul 16 the US tests the atomic bomb in New Mexico. It works
Aug 6 Hiroshima is destroyed by an atomic bomb
Aug 8 Russia declares war on Japan
Aug 9 Nagasaki is destroyed by an atomic bomb
Aug 14 Japan surrenders. World war 2 finally ends.
