World War II Summary: Synthesis by Dates

World War II Summary: summary with the chronology of the most important events.

SUMMARY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR : SUMMARY BY DATES. The day of the final exam is getting closer and closer, and for you the time has come for a general review of the programs! To help you make this undertaking simple and fast, at least in history, we offer you a very simple summary of the war, political and diplomatic events that characterized the Second World War. This complete summary of the chronology of the Second World War will help you more easily memorize the dates and facts of such an important and indelible historical event.

SUMMARY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR: CHRONOLOGY AND DATES. The Second World War was the greatest conflict in human history; it caused enormous human and material devastation. It was a total war that cost humanity approximately seventy-one thousand victims, the destruction of entire cities, economic crises, poverty and disease. It lasted almost six years, from 1939 to 1945 and was fought in the air, on land and at sea on all continents. Nations from all continents took part, the states gathered around Germany, Italy and Japan on one side, and Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union on the other. New and more advanced weapons of war were used, including the most powerful and destructive: the atomic bomb, dropped by the Americans on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
At the end of the war, international political structures changed, a new era began, characterized by the bipolar hegemony of the Soviet Union and the United States.

1939:

• The conflict began on September 1 with the German attack on Poland. France and England declared war on Germany; the USA and Japan proclaimed neutrality.

1940:

• With extreme speed, Germany took Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg.
• On June 22, 1940, France, defeated by the lightning German attack, signed an armistice with Germany, and the French Marshal Petain formed his pro-Nazi government in the south of the country, in Vichy.
• On June 10, Italy, taking advantage of the overwhelming German result, entered the conflict, declaring war on France, which granted the armistice in less than fifteen days.
• On September 17, England, governed by Churchill, thanks to the use of the first radars and the presence of an efficient air force, won the “Battle of Britain”, forcing Hitler to suspend his expansionist plans.

1941:

• Mussolini’s Italy ordered the attack on Greece, and thanks to German military support, was able to proclaim victory on 14 April 1941, while the Italian navy suffered heavy losses in the Mediterranean.
• On August 14, 1941, American President Roosevelt and Cherchill signed the Atlantic Charter, against the fascist regimes; the USA then moved first from neutrality to non-belligerence and then openly to the Anglo-French side.
• On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Air Force attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor without warning: the war was officially world war.
• June 1941 Hitler, despite the non-aggression pact, attacks the USSR with 3 million soldiers. The Italians send the ARMIR with 220,000 poorly equipped men to support the Germans, half of whom perish.

1942-1943: 

• Between March and April 1942, the Fuhrer’s forces were forced to retreat, and after a bloody battle the Soviets won the Battle of Stalingrad, which marked the first major political-military defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies.
• May 1942, in the Pacific the Japanese advance was blocked by the USA, following the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the Battle, in June, of Midway Islands and the conquest of the Japanese base Guadalcanal (Solomon Islands).
• Between November 1942 and May 1943 the Axis also suffered heavy defeats in Africa: Battle of El Alamein (in Egypt).
• On July 24-25, 1943, on the initiative of King Victor Emmanuel III and Dino Grandi, Mussolini was outvoted and arrested. The Allies landed in Sicily.
• The Italian government was entrusted to General Badoglio (45 days of government)
• On September 8, 1943, Italy announces the armistice with the Allies.
• On September 9, the Nazi reaction with the attack on Rome gave rise to the Italian Resistance.
• On September 23, Mussolini, freed by Hitler, was placed at the head of the Republic of Salò.
• December 1943, Tehran Conference.

1944:

• June 5th, the liberation of Rome
• On June 6, Operation Overlord began: the Normandy landings.
• On August 26, General De Gaulle entered Paris. France and Belgium were liberated.

1945:

• Germany is surrounded; during the Battle of Berlin, on April 30, 1945, Hitler, with no escape, took his own life in his bunker.
• On April 25, a national insurrection breaks out in Italy: Liberation.
• On April 28, Mussolini, while fleeing, was stopped and executed by partisans in Dongo
• On May 7, Germany surrendered unconditionally at Reims.
• On August 6-9, the US finally subjugates Japan with the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing many victims. On September 1, Japan signs the armistice.
• With the Tehran Conference, Yalta on February 4-11, and the Potsdam Conference on April 12, the USA, USSR and England will lay the foundations for peace.
• At the end of the conflict, Germany will be divided into four occupation zones, controlled by the USA, USSR, England, France, and the world will appear divided into spheres of influence.