WWII Timeline

Event Five

Event Six

Event Seven

Event Eight

July 7, 1937

Japan invades China, initiating World War II in the Pacific.

March 11–13, 1938

Germany incorporates Austria in the Anschluss.

March 14–15, 1939

Under German pressure, the Slovaks declare their independence and form a Slovak Republic.

The Germans occupy the rump Czech lands in violation of the Munich agreement, forming a Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

September 29, 1938

Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich agreement which forces the Czechoslovak Republic to cede the Sudetenland

, including the key Czechoslovak military defense positions, to Nazi Germany.

allied/axxis powers map

Event One

September 18, 1931

Japan invades Manchuria.

Event Two

October 2, 1935–May 1936

Fascist Italy invades, conquers, and annexes Ethiopia.

WWII Timeline

Travy B

Event Three

October 25–November 1, 1936

Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sign a treaty of cooperation on October 25; on November 1, the Rome-Berlin Axis is announced.

Event Twenty Five

Event Four

Event Ten

Event Eleven

Event Twelve

Event Nine

November 1940

Slovakia (November 23),

Hungary (November 20), and Romania (November 22) join the Axis.

Event Thirteen

November 25, 1936

Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, directed against the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement.

September 1, 1939

Germany invades Poland,

initiating World War II in Europe.

August 23, 1939

Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression agreement and a secret codicil dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence.

September 3, 1939

Honoring their guarantee of Poland’s borders, Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.

April 7–15, 1939

Fascist Italy invades and annexes Albania.

March 31, 1939

France and Great Britain guarantee the integrity of the borders of the Polish state.

Event Twenty Three

Event Twenty Four

October 1940

Italy invades Greece from

Albania on October 28.

September 27, 1940

Germany, Italy,

and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact.

Event Seventeen

Event Fourteen

Event Sixteen

Event Fifteen

April 9, 1940–June 9, 1940

Germany invades Denmark and Norway. Denmark surrenders on the day of the attack; Norway holds out until June 9.

Event Eighteen

Event Nineteen

September 17, 1939

The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east.

Event Twenty One

November 30, 1939–March 12, 1940

The Soviet Union invades Finland, initiating the so-called Winter War

. The Finns sue for an armistice and have to cede the northern shores of Lake Lagoda and the small Finnish coastline on the Arctic Sea to the Soviet Union.

Event Twenty Two

September 27–29, 1939

Warsaw surrenders on September 27. The Polish government flees into exile via Romania. Germany and the Soviet Union divide Poland between them.

Event Twenty

July 10, 1940–October 31, 1940

The air war known as the Battle of Britain

ends in defeat for Nazi Germany.

September 13, 1940

The Italians invade

British-controlled Egypt from

Italian-controlled Libya.

June 10, 1940

Italy enters the war.

Italy invades southern France on June 21.

June 28, 1940

The Soviet Union forces Romania to cede the eastern province

of Bessarabia and the northern half of Bukovina to the Soviet Ukraine.

June 14, 1940–August 6, 1940

The Soviet Union occupies the

Baltic States on June 14–18, engineering Communist coup d’états in each of them on July 14–15, and then annexing them as Soviet Republics on August 3–6.