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13/11/1940: Britain bombs Berlin while the Soviet foreign minister Molotov is discussing with Hitler about joining the tripartite pact and attacking British India 14/11/1940: Greece launches a counteroffensive against the Italian invaders and invades Italian Albania 20/11/1940: Hungary enters the war on Germany's side 23/11/1940: Romania enters the war on Germany's side 23/11/1940: Slovakia enters the war on Germany's side 26/11/1940: Germany creates a walled ghetto for the 500,000 Jews of Warszaw, Poland 9/12/1940: Britain launches a counteroffensive in Egypt 31/12/1940: Britain has placed orders for arms to the USA totaling about $4.5 billion, thereby generating an economic boom in the USA 1941: Ho Chi Minh leads a guerrilla force, the Viet Minh, against Japan 6/1/1941: Britain invades Italian Libya, capturing more than 100,000 prisoners 19/1/1941: Britain invades Italian Ethiopia 29/1/1941: The USA deploys troops in Greenland 7/2/1941: The Italians surrender to Britain in Lybia 11/2/1941: Britain invades Italian Somalia 12/2/1941: Hitler appoints Erwin Rommel commander of the German army in Africa to recapture Lybia lost by Italy 15/2/1941: Britain begins supplying the Polish partisans fighting Germany 16/2/1941: 10,000 jews are deported from Wien (Vienna) 2/1941: Hitler dispatches Erwin Rommel to Africa (the Afrika Corps) 2/1941: Germans round up and deport thousands of Jews from Belgium and the Netherlands (140,000) 1/3/1941: Bulgaria enters the war on Germany's side 1/3/1941: The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp has more than 10,000 prisoners 11/3/1941: The US Congress passes the "Lend-Lease Act" authorizing the president to sell arms to Britain, China and the Soviet Union 25/3/1941: Germany forces Yugoslavia to join the Tripartite Pact 27/3/1941: A coup ousts the king of Yugoslavia 30/3/1941: Hitler tells his generals that "this is a war of extermination" 4/1941: The USA organizes mercenary pilots, the Flying Tigers, under the command of Claire Chennault, to defend the Burma Road into China against the Japanese 3/4/1941: Rasch Ali Gailani seizes power in Iraq and enters the war on Germany's side 4/4/1941: Britain reaches Addis Abeda, Ethiopia 4/1941: In just one month the Allies have lost 688,000 tons of shipping to the German U-boats 5/4/1941: Yugoslavia signs a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union 6/4/1941: Germany bombs Yugoslavia's capital Belgrade and kills more than 10,000 civilians in two days and invades Yugoslavia with help from Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria 6/4/1941: Germany invades Greece (mainly to protect the oilfields of Ploesti in Romania) after 40,000 Italian soldiers have died fighting the Greeks 10/4/1941: Croatia declares its independence from Yugoslavia and enters the war on Germany's side 13/4/1941: The Soviet Union and Japan sign a non-aggression pact 17/4/1941: Yugoslavia surrenders and Germany establishes a puppet state in Serbia, Croatia becomes a fascist state under Italian protectorate, Italy annexes most of Slovenia, Dalmatia and Kosovo, and Montenegro becomes an Italian protectorate 18/4/1941: The Greek prime minister Alexandros Koryzis commits suicide 19/4/1941: Bulgaria invades Yugoslavia's Macedonia 26/4/1941: Greece surrenders and Germany enters Athens while Britain has to evacuate more than 40,000 soldiers 4/1941: IG Farben begins the construction of the giant Buna Werke factory at Monowitz to make synthetic rubber and oil using slave labor from the Auschwitz concentration camp on land confiscated from Polish families 2/5/1941: Britain attacks Iraq 4/5/1941: Hitler tells the Reichstag that Nazi state will last one thousand years 10/5/1941: The French police begin to round up thousands of Jews 20/5/1941: Germany launches an airborne invasion of Crete, the first time in history that an invasion relies mainly on paratroopers 27/5/1941: Britain sinks the Bismarck, the largest battleships ever built by Germany 1/6/1941: Crete surrenders but the Germans have suffered huge casualties due to civilian resistance and the British cracking of the Enigma code 2/5/1941: Herbert Backe devises the Hunger Plan to kill by starvation 30 million Soviet citizens and free land for German colonizers 16/5/1941: Italy surrenders in Africa and Ethiopia regains its independence 31/5/1941: Britain enters Bagdad 8/6/1941: Britain invades Syria and Lebanon, colonies of Vichy France allied with Germany 14/6/1941: The Soviet Union deports 60,000 Estonians, 34,000 Latvians and 38,000 Lithuanians to Siberia 22/6/1941: Germany, Finland, Romania and Hungary (3.6 million soldiers) launch a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union ("Operation Barbarossa") from East Prussia (north, into the Baltic states), Poland (center, into Belarussia) and Romania (south, into Ukraine), and Italy too declares war on the Soviet Union 6/1941: Communist partisans led by Josip Broz ("Tito") begin a guerrilla war in Serbia, and the Germans retaliate by killing 100 Serbs (usually Jews) for each German killed 6/1941: Communist partisans led by Enver Hoxha begin a guerrilla warfare in Albania against the Italians 24/6/1941: The retreating Soviet Union massacres prisoners, including 10,000 Polish prisoners and 10,000 prisoners in Bessarabia and the Baltic states 26/6/1941: Finland and Hungary declare war on the Soviet Union 29/6/1941: Germany invades Ukraine and kills thousands in Lviv 30/6/1941: The Ukrainian militia allied with Germany kills 4,000 Jews in Lviv 1/7/1941: Viktors Arajs establishes the Arajs Kommando to help Germany kill Jews in Latvia 7/7/1941: US troops replace British and Canadian troops in Iceland 8/7/1941: Germany and Finland lay siege to Leningrad, the beginning of the longest siege in centuries 9/7/1941: Germany conquers Belarus from the Soviet Union 10/7/1941: The Polish villagers in Jedwabne burn alive more than 300 of their Jewish neighbours 12/7/1941: The Vichy French surrender in Syria and Britain transfers Syria to the French government in exile 7/1941: the USA declares an oil embargo against Japan 16/7/1941: Germany conquers Smolensk from the Soviet Union and captures 700,000 prisoners 21/7/1941: Germany bombs Moscow 24/7/1941: Japan invades Indochina, a French colony 8/1941: The Ustasha of Croatia open the concentration camp at Jasenovac, one of the several in which more than 300,000 Serbs, Bosnians and Jews will be killed 4/8/1941: The Soviet Union releases 200,000 Polish prisorners of war to form an allied army 25/8/1941: Britain and the Soviet Union invade Iran, that becomes the main transit point for supplies going to the Soviet Union 31/8/1941: More than 70,000 German citizens have been killed in German gas chambers during program T4 8/1941: The Soviet Union recognizes the government in exile of Poland 3/9/1941: The insecticide Zyklon B, manufactured by IG Farben, is used to kill Soviet and Polish prisoners at Auschwitz 9/1941: The Soviet Union begins the deportation of 375,000 Volga Germans to Siberia and Kazakhstan 15/9/1941: German troops and Ukrainian militias kill more than 20,000 Jews at Berdichev 18/9/1941: Germany captures Kiev, the capital of Ukraine 29/9/1941: German troops and Ukrainian militias kill 33,771 Jews at the Babi Yar ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kiev 30/9/1941: Germany launches the first attack on Moscow 10/10/1941: Stalin appoints Zhukov in charge of the western front 10/1941: 10,000 Russian prisoners are dispatched to join the slaves working at IG Farben's Buna Werke factory 10/1941: The German military governor of Serbia, Franz Bohme, orders the execution of 2,100 Serbs (mostly Jews) in retaliation for the killing of 21 Germans by Tito's communist partisans, the first massacre of Jews outside Poland and the Soviet Union 14/10/1941: German troops are 100 kms from Moscow 15/10/1941: The Soviet Union evacuates the government from Moscow to Kuibyshev as panic spreads in the streets of Moscow 15/10/1941: Romanian troops conquer Odessa after a long siege 17/10/1941: general Hideki Tojo is appointed prime minister of Japan 22/10/1941: German and Romanian troops (mostly the Romanians) begin killing about 30,000 Jews and 15,000 gypsies in Ukraine (the "Odessa massacre") 31/10/1941: Germany has already captured 3 million Soviet prisoners 25/11/1941: Germany lays siege to Moscow 30/11/1941: German troops and Latvian militias kill 25,000 Jews in ten days in the Rumbula forest of Latvia 11/1941: Japan drops crop contaminated with plague germs on China 3/12/1941: Yasuji Okamura enacts the "Three Alls Policy" against the communist-held Chinese regions: "kill all, burn all, loot all" that cause the population to decline from 44 million to 25 million 5/12/1941: Soviet troops begin a counteroffensive against German troops about to enter Moscow 6/12/1941: Britain declares war on Finland 7/12/1941: the Japanese navy attacks the USA fleet at Pearl Harbor 7/12/1941: Japan invades Thailand and Malaysia 8/12/1941: Japan attacks Kota Bahru in Malaysia 8/12/1941: Japan bombs Singapore 8/12/1941: Britain and the USA declare war on Japan 8/12/1941: Japan invades Shanghai 8/12/1941: Japan invades the Phillipines 8/12/1941: The Germans set up the Chelmno/ Kulmhof extermination camp north of Lodz in Poland 9/12/1941: Egypt, Mexico, Panama and Cuba declare war on Japan, soon followed by New Zealand, South Africa, India, Bolivia, etc. 10/12/1941: The Japanese land in the island of Guam in the Pacific 11/12/1941: Germany and Italy declare war on the USA 13/12/1941: Bulgaria, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia and Romania declare war on the USA 14/12/1941: The USA appoints Chester Nimitz as Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet 22/12/1941: Japan invades the Philippines 23/12/1941: Japan attacks Burma/Myanmar to cut off supplies to the Chinese nationalists 25/12/1941: Japan captures Hong Kong 12/1941: German troops kill 30,000 people, half of them Jews, bury them in a mass grave at Drobitsky Yar near Kharkov in Ukraine 1/1942: Nazi leaders convene at the Wannsee Conference and approve the "final solution" to exterminate the Jews of Europe 2/1/1942: Japanese troops enter Manila in the Philippines 1/1942: More than 4,000 gypsies are gassed at Chelmno 10/1/1942: Japan invades Indonesia 12/1/1942: Japan invades Burma 13/1/1942: German U-boats attack the USA 20/1/1942: Reinhard Heydrich plans a "final solution" for the Jews, with Adolf Eichmann in charge of rounding up all Jews outside Poland, and Jews executed upon arrival in Minsk, Kaunas and Riga 21/1/1942: The USA dispatches Joseph Stilwell to become Chiang's chief of staff in China 23/1/1942: Japan invades New Guinea 26/1/1942: the USA sends the first troops to Britain 2/1942: The Soviet Union starts a project for an atomic bomb led by Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov 15/2/1942: Japan captures Singapore 2/1942: Arthur Harris is appointed to carry out area bombing of German cities to affect the "morale of the enemy civil population" 13/9/1940: Italy invades Egypt from Libya, 215,000 Italian soldiers versus 36,000 Egyptian soldiers 14/2/1942: Britain's Air Staff issues a directive that "the primary object" of bombing should focus on German civilians 16/2/1942: The National Liberation Front (EAM) formed by the Greek Communist Party creates a People's Liberation Army (ELAS) under the command of Athanasios Klaras/ Aris Velouchiotis to fight the German occupation 17/2/1942: Japan kills thousands of ethnic Chinese in Singapore 19/2/1942: Japan bombs Darwin in Australia 23/2/1942: A Soviet submarine sinks the ramshackle ship Struma, killing 768 Jews that are escaping from Romania towards British Palestine 24/2/1942: The "Struma", a ship full of Jewish emigrants and denied entry in Turkey under British pressure, is accidentally torpedoed by a Soviet submarine killing all 769 passengers 28/2/1942: About 60% of the 3.5 million Soviet prisoners held in German camps have died of starvation or disease 1/3/1942: Japan conquers Rangoon in Burma/Myanmar 3/3/1942: Harris' campaign of area bombing begins with the mass bombing of a Renault factory in France, killing 367 French civilians 17/3/1942: Belzec is the first concentration camp to adopt gas chambers for exterminating Jews 20/3/1942: Auschwitz inaugurates its gas chamber 28/3/1942: Harris' bombers destroy old Luebeck 31/3/1942: in the first three months of 1942 the German U-boats (submarines) sink more oil tanks than the USA builds 3/1942: Germany begins the annihilation of the Jews of Serbia mostly through the Sajmiste/Semlin concentration camp 18/4/1942: USA bombers drop bombs on Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka-Kobe and Nagoya ?/4/1942: to punish Chinese villages who helped the USA airmen who bombed Tokyo, Japanese troops kill 250,000 Chinese civilians ("operation Sei-Go") 14/2/1942: Japan invades Sumatra in Indonesia and seizes its oilfields 9/3/1942: Japan conquers Java from an allied force of Dutch, US, Australian and British ships 11/3/1942: US general Douglas MacArthur abandons the Philippines 12/4/1942: Japanese troops massacre 400 Filipino officers at Batanga 18/4/1942: The USA appoints Douglas MacArthur as supreme commander of Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area 4/1942: Japan drops cholera germs over Chekiang province to avenge the first US bombing of Japan 3/5/1942: Japan invades the Solomon Islands 4/5/1942: Germany shoots 72 members of the Dutch resistance 5/5/1942: Britain attacks the Vichy French controlling Madagascar 6/5/1942: The last US and Filipino soldiers surrender and Japan completes the invasion of the Philippines, taking 76,000 US and Filipino prisoners 7/5/1942: The Germans defeat the Soviet troops at Kerch, destroying 400 aircraft and 347 tanks 8/5/1942: The USA repels a Japanese advance from the Solomon Islands ("Coral Sea battle") 5/1942: Rommel launches an assault against the British in North Africa 12/5/1942: The Germans defeat Soviet troops at Kharkov, taking 240,000 prisoners 15/5/1942: Britain abandons Burma to Japan 22/5/1942: Mexico declares war on Germany and Italy 26/5/1942: German and Italian troops under Rommel's command attack British, French, New Zealander and South African troops in Egypt 27/5/1942: An assassination attempt against Reinhard Heydrich fails in Prague 30/5/1942: Harris' bombers attack Koln, 1,000 planes killing 480 people 30/5/1942: Japanese submarines attack British warships in Madagascar, the only case when the Japanese helped their German ally during the war 6/1942: Hitler moves his headquarters to Vinnytsia in Ukraine ("Werwolf") 2/6/1942: The Germans attack the Crimean port of Sebastopol 4/6/1942: The USA navy defeats the Japanese navy in the Midway battle, which ends with the sinking of five aircraft carriers (one USA and four Japanese) and the destruction of 250 Japanese aircrafts 17/6/1942: US president Roosevelt authorizes a project to develop an atomic bomb 21/6/1942: German and Italian troops take Tobruk in Egypt 28/6/1942: Germany and Hungary begin a summer offensive against the Soviet Union in the south ("Operation Blue") including the battle of Voronezh on the Don river 9/7/1942: The Germans conquer the Crimean port of Sebastopol 16/7/1942: The Paris police (9,000 officers) rounds up and deports 28,000 Jews 17/7/1942: Himmler visits Auschwitz and witnesses a mass gas-chamber execution 21/7/1942: Japanese troops land on New Guinea's north coast and are confronted by Australian troops 22/7/1942: Jews are deported from Warsaw to the Treblinka concentration camp 23/7/1942: The Germans conquer Roston-on-Don, the gateway to the Caucasus, from the Soviet Union 28/7/1942: Stalin issues the "Not one step back" order to the Soviet troops which entails killing any soldiers or officer who retreats from the German offensive 7/8/1942: The USA attack the Japanese in the islands of Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands 8/8/1942: Gandhi calls for Britain to leave India and Britain arrests him 8/1942: Japanese troops kill and eat Australian prisoners, the first cases of what would become a common practice in the Pacific 9/8/1942: Shostakovich's 7th Symphony is performed in Leningrad, to lift morale in a city where a million people have died during the winter 11/8/1942: The USA launches the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb 12/8/1942: Churchill, a staunch anti-communist, travels for the first time to the Soviet Union and meets Stalin in Moscow who wants him to launch a "second front" against Germany in France 13/8/1942: Britain appoints Bernard Montgomery as commander of its operations in North Africa (Operation Torch) 19/8/1942: British, Canadian and French troops fail to invade the port of Dieppe in France 19/8/1942: The Soviet Union launches the "Sinyavino Offensive" to avoid that German and Finnish forces link up near Leningrad, and succeeds despite the death of 40,000 soldiers 22/8/1942: Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy 23/8/1942: 1200 German aircraft carpet-bomb Stalingrad allowing German troops to advance in just one day from the Don to the Volga 30/8/1942: Rommel's troops are stopped by the British in Egypt 9/9/1942: Germany lays siege to Stalingrad 1/9/1942: French volunteers join the Soviet Union in Azerbaijan 15/9/1942: Japan begins the construction of the Burma railway employing British prisoners of war and forced local workers 14/10/1942: Germany carries out a mass execution of Jews from the Mizocz ghetto, Ukraine 10/1942: Britain counterattacks in North Africa 29/10/1942: British sailors find an Enigma machine on a sinking German submarine and mathematicians at Bletchley Park set out to decipher the secret German code 3/11/1942: Rommel's German troops are defeated by the British at Al Alamein and start retreating to Lybia 11/1942: The USA appoints Dwight Eisenhower as commarder of its operations in North Africa (Operation Torch) 11/1942: Tito sets up at Bihac a communist government for Yugoslavia, the Anti-Fascist Council for Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) 8/11/1942: The Vichy French surrender in Madagascar to the British who install a new governor under DeGaulle 8/11/1942: British and US troops invade Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, still held by Vichy France ("Operation Torch") 9/11/1942: Germany appoints Erik Scavenius as prime minister of Denmark and Denmark joins the Anti-Comintern Pact while most Danish Jews flee to Sweden 10/11/1942: French general Francois Darlan, a former German collaborator, orders all North African troops to switch side and join the Allies 16/11/1942: Australia and the USA attack the Japanese at Buna in New Guinea 19/11/1942: The Soviet Union repulses the German invasion of Caucasus and the Romanians in the north 23/11/1942: The Soviet Union surrounds the troops that are laying the Stalingrad siege (225,000 German, Romanian, Italian and German soldiers including including 40,000 Soviet volunteers fighting for the Germans) 25/11/1942: Greek Resistance groups destroy the Gorgopotamos bridge in Greece 2/12/1942: Fermi achieves a nuclear reaction in Chicago 12/1942: Following Japan's seizure of Burma's rice fields and Japan's air strikes on Calcutta, a famine kills 1.5 million in one year in India's Bengal region and diseases kill another million 17/12/1942: Britain attacks the Japanese in Burma ("Arakan campaign") 24/12/1942: Francois Darlan is assassinated by a young antifascist 31/12/1942: More than 4 million Jews have been killed in German extermination camps and 1.35 million Jews have been killed in the Soviet Union by either German troops or allied militias 31/12/1942: More than 1,100 ships have been sunk in 1942 1942: Nazi doctor Helmut Vetter begins medical experiments at Auschwitz's concentration camp using prisoners, most of which eventually die 1943: Nazi doctor Josef Mengele begins experimenting on twins (and later on midgits, dwarfs, hunchbacks) at Auschwitz's concentration camp (3000 between 1943 and 1944) 8/1/1943: The Jews of Warsaw stage an uprising 10/1/1943: The Soviet Union launches "Operation Ring" against the German troops surrounding Stalingrad 12/1/1943: The Soviet Union launches an operation, led by Zhukov, to break the siege of Leningrad 14/1/1943: Churchill and Roosevelt hold a conference at Casablanca, Morocco and decide to aim for the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan 16/1/1943: Harris' bombers carry out the first raid on Berlin 18/1/1943: The Soviet breaks the siege of Leningrad and Stalin promotes Zhukov to marshal of the Soviet Union 22/1/1943: Australia and the USA crush the last Japanese resistance at Buna in New Guinea, ending the myth of Japanese invincibility 23/1/1943: British troops conquer Lybia's capital Tripoli from Italy 31/1/1943: The main German forces in Stalingrad surrender to the Soviet Union, the first major defeat of Germany in World War II, thus ending a six-month battle that has killed 2 million people, including 500,000 civilians 2/1943: The USA appoints Dwight Eisenhower as commarder of its operations in the entire Mediterranean 8/2/1943: the USA captures Guadalcanal from Japan 18/2/1943: Goebbels delivers the speech "Total war" 21/2/1943: general Hideki Tojo becomes military dictator of Japan 22/2/1943: the Soviet Union bombs Sweden 26/2/1943: the Soviet Union bombds Finland 27/2/1943: Norwegian partisans destroy Germany's heavy water factory in Norway, thus killing German hopes for an atomic bomb 28/2/1943: Norwegian partisans blow up a German atomic facility in Norway's Vermork 3/1943: Ukrainian nationalist led by Stepan Bandera begin the massacre of the Polish population of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, mostly women and children 3/1943: Germany begins deporting the 60,000 remaining Jews of Greece, mostly from Salonika 3/1943: An article in Time magazine reveals the extent of the Chinese famine, mainly in Henan province, that has killed 3 million people 2/3/1943: US and Australian troops attack the Japanese in New Guinea, beginning the Battle of the Bismarck Sea 9/3/1943: Rommel abandons North Africa and retires to Germany 15/3/1943: Robert Oppenheimer is appointed director of the Los Alamos center (Manhattan Project) 3/1943: Wilhelm Canaris, an admiral, plans an assassination attempt on Hitler 31/3/1943: German U-boats sink 108 ships in the month of march alone 3/4/1943: Japan repels the British invasion of Burma in Arakan 7/4/1943: Bolivia declares war on Germany and Italy 13/4/1943: Germany discovers the mass graves of Katyn in Poland where thousands of Polish officers were secretely killed by the Soviet Union 17/4/1943: The Japanese bomb Guadalcanal in the largest air strike since Pearl Harbor 18/4/1943: The USA assassinate Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese navy, in the Solomon Islands 4/1943: Germany organizes Slavic volunteers (mainly from Ukraine) in the "Galician Division" to fight the Soviet Union 25/4/1943: 16,000 POws and 80,000 Asian slave labourers die during the construction of a 415 km Japanese railway between Thailand and Burma (till 24/6/1944) 7/5/1943: Britain conquers Tunis 12/5/1943: German troops in the Crimea surrender to the Soviet Union 13/5/1943: German and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Britain and the USA, a total of more than 200,000 soldiers, ending the war in North Africa 16/5/1943: German troops destroy the Warsaw ghetto after quelling the rebellion and killing thousands of Jews 27/5/1943: Jean Moulin sets up National Council of the Resistance (CNR) in France reporting to DeGaulle in England 29/5/1943: Harris' bombers create the first firestorm in a raid on Wuppertal, killing 3,400 people 30/5/1943: DeGaulle arrives in liberated Algeria 31/5/1943: The USA and Britain destroy 30% of Germany's U-boats in may alone 3/6/1943: DeGaulle sets up the French Committee of National Liberation (CFLN), basically a French government in exile 23/6/1943: Jean Moulin and other members of the National Council of the Resistance (CNR) are arrested and tortured by the Germans 29/6/1943: Harris' bombers attack Koln with firestorms, killing 4,377 civilians 5/7/1943: Germany is defeated by the Soviet Union at Kursk, the largest tank battle of the war 9/7/1943: the USA and Britain under general Patton land in Sicily, and Patton writes that the Sicilians "are the most destitute and God-forgotten people I have ever seen" 10/7/1943: Britain and the USA land in Sicily 17/7/1943: The USA and Britain complete the conquest of Sicily, thereby granting the Allies virtual control of the Mediterranean Sea, while 110,000 Italian and German troops evacuate to the continent 19/7/1943: Hitler and Mussolini meet at Feltre in northern Italy while the USA begins bombing Rome 25/7/1943: Mussolini is overthrown in Italy, arrested and secretely kept at a prison in Gran Sasso, while Pietro Badoglio is appointed prime minister, pledging to continue the war on the side of Hitler's Germany 27/7/1943: Harris' bombers attack Hamburg, creating the first "firestorm" and killing 40,000 people 27/7/1943: a British bombing erases 6 sq kms of downtown Hamburg killing 44,000 civilians in two hours 8/1943: The 25 Germans and 100 Ukrainian volunteers running the Treblinka camp have killed 800,000 Jews and gypsies in 13 months since July 1942 8/1943: Britain appoints Louis Mountbatten as Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia (the Indian subcontinent) 1/8/1943: For the first time Stalin visits the front (to congratulate the troops that won at Kursk) 2/8/1943: Zelo Bloch leads a revolt by Jews in the Treblinka extermination camp 8/1943: The USA introduces the Grumman F6F Hellcat, a carrier-based fighter aircraft 3/8/1943: The Soviet Union launches a campaign with a million troops to regain Ukraine 18/8/1943: The Soviet Union recaptures Orel (southwest of Moscow) despite the Germans killing 112,000 of its troops 23/8/1943: The Soviet Union liberates Kharkov, the second largest city in Ukraine, despite massive casualties 4/9/1943: Australian and US troops land in the Japanese-held part of New Guinea 8/9/1943: The new Italian government surrenders to the USA and Britain, and US troops land in Salerno, near Naples, while Germany invades northern Italy all the way down to Rome, disarming one million Italian soldiers, takes over Italian zones of occupation in the Balkans and southern France, and the Italian government flees to Puglia 8/9/1943: Hitler visits German-occupied Soviet Union for the last time 9/9/1943: Germany bombs the Italian fleet that is heading to Malta to surrender to the British and kills 1300 sailors 10/9/1943: Germany invades Italy, enters Rome and frees Mussolini who sets up a republic in nothern Italy 12/9/1943: German troops liberate Mussolini, who is appointed leader of a German-controlled republic in northern Italy 14/9/1943: In three days the Germans kill more than 500 people in Crete (massacres of Viannos and Kondomari) in retaliation for the civilian resistance 9/1943: John von Neumann joins the Los Alamos team 21/9/1943: 4,500 Italian troops that resisted the Germans on the Greek island of Cephalonia are summarily executed 22/9/1943: The Soviet Union crosses the Dnepr river 25/9/1943: The Soviet Union recaptures Smolensk 13/10/1943: the new government of Italy declares war on Germany 3/11/1943: German troops kill 43,000 Jews at the Majdanek concentration camp 6/11/1943: The Soviet Union liberates Ukraine's capital Kiev and discovers the mass graves of Babi Yar that now contain more than 100,000 bodies 23/11/1943: The USA conquers Tarawa (Kiribati) from the Japanese, at the cost of more than 1,000 killed 22/11/1943: Churchill and Roosevelt meet in Cairo, and Roosevelt invites China's Kai-Shek Chiang too to discuss the end of Western imperialism in Asia 28/11/1943: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin hold a conference in Teheran, Iran, where they decide to launch the invasion of northern France and the new borders of Poland (that de facto leaves Poland under Soviet control) 12/1943: British scientists join the Los Alamos team 12/1943: The USA appoints Dwight Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe 18/12/1943: Chiang appoints the US general Joseph Stilwell in charge of Chinese troops in Burma and India 31/12/1943: Six million Poles (including three million Jews) have been killed in Nazist death camps at Maidanek, Birkenau, and Auschwitz 12/1943: About three million people have died of famine and disease in Indian's Bengal 12/1943: The Soviet Union deports 200,000 Crimean Tartars to Uzbekistan 12/1943: German scientist Rudolf Spanner begins to produce soap and leather from the corpses of dead Russian and Polish prisoners in Danzig 16/1/1944: Dwight Eisenhower is appointed commander of the allied forces in Europe 22/1/1944: the Allies land in Anzio, Italy ("Operation Shingle") 1/1944: The German armed forces consist of 9.6 million men plus 700,000 allied troops in the Soviet Union 24/1/1944: Japan launches a campaign to destroy US airfields in China 27/1/1944: Leningrad is liberated by the Soviet Union after 880 days of siege 31/1/1944: The USA takes Japanese-held Marshall Islands 2/1944: Rudolf Spanner at the Danzig Anatomical Institute uses the bodies of prisoners of war for making soap and leather 15/2/1944: The Allies bomb Monte Cassino 20/2/1944: Norwegian partisans attack the convoy that is carrying Vermork's atomic material from Norway to Germany 23/2/1944: The Soviet Union deports 300,000 Chechens to Siberia and Kazakhstan 8/3/1944: The Japanese try to invade India via Imphal 19/3/1944: Germany invades Hungary and begins to deport its 750,000 Jews to Auschwitz 24/3/1944: Germans shoot 335 Italian partisans at the Ardeatine Caves near Rome in retaliation for the killing of German police officers 15/4/1944: Soviet general Nikolai Vatutin is assassinated by Ukrainian partisans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) 19/4/1944: Japan launches the Ichi-go Offensive against Chiang's Chinese army to open a land route to French Indochina and to destroy the air bases of the USA in southeast China (which are under Chennault's command), the largest military operation in the history of Japan (510,000 soldiers), but Japan has only 100 aircraft versus the USA's 230 and Chiang's 170 8/5/1944: The USA introduces the Boeing B-29 Superfortress 11/5/1944: Chinese nationalists invade northern Burma to meet with US troops 12/5/1944: the Allies bomb German factories of synthetic fuel 12/5/1944: The Soviet Union liberates Crimea from German and Romanian occupation 18/5/1944: Polish troops capture Monte Cassino from Germany (the "Gustav Line") with help from US, British and French troops 27/5/1944: The Japanese invade Hunan province in China Changsha 4/6/1944: The US troops enter Rome 6/6/1944: The Allies (156,000 troops from the USA, Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Poland, France, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands and Denmark) land in Normandy and begin the invasion of France ("D-Day") in the largest amphibious operation of all times, involving more than 5,000 ships and 8,000 aircraft 13/6/1944: Germany begins bombing Britain with V1 "flying" bombs 15/6/1944: The USA, having assembled the largest fleet in the world, consisting of 535 warships, attacks the Japanese-held island of Saipan in the Marianas 9/7/1944: The USA conquers Saipan from Japan, after 14,000 US soldiers and all of the 40,000 Japanese soldiers have died (many committing suicide), and now has an air base from which bomb Japan 22/6/1944: The Soviet Union attacks the German positions in the Baltics and Belarus ("Operation Bagration") 3/7/1944: The Soviet Union liberates Belarus' capital Minks, the greatest defeat of Germany yet ("Operation Bagration") 3/7/1944: The Japanese withdraw from India, having suffered more than 17,000 dead (many from disease and starvation) trying to invade it, the largest defeat yet in Japanese history 13/7/1944: The Soviet Union liberates Vilnius 19/7/1944: Kuniaka Koiso, a general, becomes prime minister of Japan 20/7/1944: Hitler narrowly escapes another assassination attempt, planned by Claus von Stauffenberg 21/7/1944: The Polish resistance stages an uprising in Lviv 23/7/1944: The German guards kill all remaining prisoners at Treblinka and only one survives, Max Levit 24/7/1944: The Soviet Union liberates the extermination camp of Majdanek, where about 80,000 people have been killed by the Germans, mostly Jews 25/7/1944: The Soviet Union conquers Lviv 26/7/1944: The Soviet Union reaches the Vistula river 29/7/1944: The USA conquers Guam from Japan and completes the conquest of the Marianas 1944: A famine caused by Japanese policies kills 2 million people in Vietnam's Tonkin region 1/8/1944: Polish partisans led by Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski stage an insurrection in Warsaw but the Soviet Union does not help 3/8/1944: US and Chinese troops conquer Myitkyina in Burma from the Japanese, which allows the USA to double the supplies to Chiang's Chinese army 15/8/1944: The Allies land on the French Riviera 16/8/1944: The Soviet Union liberates Treblinka's extermination camp, where more than 700,000 Jews have been killed 19/8/1944: More than 400,000 German soldiers have been killed in just 3 months on the eastern (Soviet) front during "Operation Bagration" 20/8/1944: the Soviet Union invades Romania 20/8/1944: For the first time the USA bombs the railway to Auschwitz, but only to isolate the IG Farben factory 20/8/1944: French partisans start an uprising in Paris against the Germans 25/8/1944: US troops enter Paris, the occupying Germans surrender and DeGaulle's government in exile installs itself in Paris 26/8/1944: Romania switches sides allying with the Allies, cedes Bessarabia to the Soviet Union and attacks Hungary 8/1944: The Polish resistance attacks the Germans 2/9/1944: The Soviet Union conquers Romania's capital Bucharest and the Ploesti oilfields that are the main source of oil for Germany 3/9/1944: British troops enter Brussells in Belgium 5/9/1944: The Soviet Union declares war on Bulgaria and invades it 8/9/1944: Germany begins bombing Britain with V2 rockets, the world's first long-range ballistic missile 9/9/1944: Kimon Georgiev overthrows prime minister Konstantin Muraviev in Bulgaria and switches side allying with the Allies 11/9/1944: the Allies invade Germany 17/9/1944: British, US and Polish troops try to cross the Rhine river but are defeated 24/9/1944: the Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia 1/10/1944: the Soviet Union invades Yugoslavia 2/10/1944: Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski surrenders to the Germans in Warsaw after 200,000 people have been killed (mostly civilians) and the city is destroyed while the Soviet Union refuses to help 2/10/1944: The US troops attach Aachen, the first German city to come under threat of invasion 14/10/1944: Erwin Rommel is forced to commit suicide after a failed coup against Hitler 15/10/1944: Hungary's dictator Horthy surrenders to the Soviet Union, Germany removes Horthy and replaces him with a puppet government led by the fascist Ferenc Szalasi 21/10/1944: US troops conquer the ancient German imperial capital of Aachen 23/10/1944: the Soviet Union invades Germany 25/10/1944: The Soviet Union completes the liberation of Romania 10/1944: Rommel is forced to commit suicide 20/10/1944: The USA attacks Japanese-held Philippines and MacArthur returns to the Philippines, as he had promised 25/10/1944: The Japanese launch suicide air attacks on the Philippines, the "kamikaze" 10/1944: Albert Wedemeyer replaces Joseph Stilwell as Chiang's chief of staff and begins retraining and rearming the Chinese troops 4/11/1944: the allies liberate Greece 14/11/1944: Andrey Vlasov creates the Russian Liberation Army fighting alongside the Germans against the Soviet Union 23/11/1944: French troops enter Strasbourg 2/12/1944: DeGaulle meets Stalin for the first time and signs an agreement that recognizes DeGaulle (and not the French communists) as the leader of France 4/12/1944: civil war erupts in Greece 8/12/1944: Japan's Ichi-go Offensive conquers 8 provinces from Chiang's Chinese army and destroys all the main US airfields in China 12/12/1944: The last German troops leave Greece 17/12/1944: German troops launch an offensive in the Ardennes 26/12/1944: Russian troops surround Hungary's capital Budapest trapping 79,000 German and Hungarian troops 1/1/1945: The Soviet Union is the only country to recognize the Polish Committee of National Liberation (the communists) as the legitimate government of Poland 11/1/1945: Soviet troops enter Budapest, with indiscriminate looting and raping 12/1/1945: The USA completes the Ledo Road connecting Ledo in India to Kunming in China to transport supplies to Chiang's Chinese army 13/1/1945: The Soviet Union invades East Prussia, raping German women indiscriminately 14/1/1945: Hungarian fascists slaughter 170 patients and nurses in Budapest's Jewish hospital 17/1/1945: the Soviet Union liberates Poland's capital Warsaw and begin deporting the Polish citizens of Lviv towards western Poland and 91,000 members of the Polish resistance are arrested and deported to the Soviet Union 19/1/1945: Soviet troops in Hungary arrest and deport Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, a hero who saved thousands of Jewish lives 27/1/1945: The Soviet army liberates the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp 30/1/1945: Hitler makes his last radio broadcast 31/1/1945: In the month of january 450,000 German troops are killed 3/2/1945: the USA conducts the first firebombing on Japan (Kobe) 3/2/1945: the USA bombs Berlin killing 3,000 civilians 3/2/1945: The Soviet Union reaches the Oder river 3/2/1945: US troops enter the Philippines' capital Manila 4/2/1945: Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin hold a conference in Yalta, where Roosevelt de facto allows Stalin to occupy Poland against Churchill's will in return for the Soviet Union to accept the United Nations while Stalin accepts the British occupation of Greece and Stalin accepts to declare war on Japan in return for control of Mongolia, and Churchill and Roosevelt consent to the repatriation of Soviet "prisoners of war" (mostly traitors) to the Soviet Union even knowing that Stalin was likely to kill all one million of them 13/2/1945: Two waves of British and US bombers cause firestorms and annihilate downtown Dresden, a city of no military importance full of refugees, killing between 25,000 and 135,000 civilians (Gobbels claims 250,000), the 63th German city destroyed by British air force's commander-in-chief Arthur Harris 13/2/1945: Germans launch an offensive in Hungary trying to protect the oil fields of Lake Balaton 16/2/1945: Klaus Fuchs gives the Soviet Union secrets about the atomic bomb 19/2/1945: The USA land on Iwo Jima, an island 1,200 kms south of mainland Tokyo 19/2/1945: 8.5 million German refugees are fleeing the invading Soviet troops 23/2/1945: the USA conducts the first firebombing on Tokyo 3/3/1945: Finland declares war on Germany 3/3/1945: The last Japanese troops surrender in Manila after around 100,000 Filipino civilians have been killed in the battle and after the Japanese have raped and killed thousands of women 6/3/1945: The Soviet Union installs a communist government in Romania 7/3/1945: The USA crosses the Rhein and enters Germany from the west 9/3/1945: The USA conducts its second firebombing, this time on Tokyo, destroying most of the city (25 sq kms) and killing about 83,000 civilians 9/3/1945: Japan launches the Meigo Offensive against French colonial troops in Vietnam after the pro-German government of France has collapsed 17/3/1945: The Soviet Union bans Western representatives from Poland 19/3/1945: Hitler issues the "Nero order" to destroy all bridges and factories that might fall into enemy's hands 20/3/1945: Britain reconquers Mandalay in Burma/Myanmar 25/3/1945: The USA conquers Iwo Jima after 6,800 US soldiers and all 21,000 Japanese soldiers have been killed 27/3/1945: Britain and the USA firebomb Danzig 28/3/1945: The leader of the Polish resistance against Germany, Leopold Okulicki, is arrested and deported by the Soviet Union 30/3/1945: Russian and Polish troops "liberate" Danzig, destroying the city and raping indiscriminately, and Poland takes control of Danzig 1/4/1945: The USA lands in Okinawa 1/4/1945: The USA lands in Okinawa 4/4/1945: The USA discovers the concentration camp of Buchenwald 5/4/1945: admiral Suzuki is appointed prime minister of Japan 5/4/1945: The Soviet Union and Tito's Yugoslavia sign a friendship treaty 8/4/1945: Hitler orders the execution of German political prisoners 9/4/1945: The USA and Britain, with troops from Canada, South Africa, Poland, India and New Zealand, launches an offensive to capture northern Italy, still in the hands of the fascists 10/4/1945: The Soviet Union conquers Konigsberg, completing the East Prussia campaign 11/4/1945: The USA liberates the Buchenwald concentration camp 11/4/1945: US troops reach the Elbe river 12/4/1945: Roosevelt dies and Harry Truman becomes president of the USA, while Eisenhower, against Churchill's advice, stops the US troops that are about to reach Berlin, thus allowing the Soviet Union to catch up 13/4/1945: the Soviet Union enters Vienna 13/4/1945: German troops and civilians burn more than 1,000 prisoners alive in Gardelegen 16/4/1945: The Soviet Union lays siege to Berlin with 2.5 million troops 21/4/1945: the Soviet Union and the communist government of Poland (only recognized by the Soviet Union and France) sign a treaty of mutual assistance 21/4/1945: Britain and the USA carry out the last air raid on Berlin 23/4/1945: the Soviet Union enters Berlin, where Soviet soldiers will rape about 100,000 women, 10,000 of which will die 25/4/1945: Soviet and USA troops meet on the Elbe river, thus de facto partitioning Germany in two 25/4/1945: Italian partisans liberate Milan 25/4/1945: Chiang's Chinese army defeats the Japanese at Chih-kiang, the last major battle between the two armies 27/4/1945: The founding conference of the United Nations is held in San Francisco 27/4/1945: The Soviet Union sets up a provisional government in Austria 28/4/1945: Mussolini is captured and hanged by Italian partisans 28/4/1945: The USA liberates the Dachau concentration camp, where 30,000 prisoners are still alive 29/4/1945: Britain begins "Operation Manna" to drop food on the Netherlands, where people are starving to death 30/4/1945: As Soviet troops are closing in on his bunker, Adolf Hitler commits suicide together with Joseph Goebbels 2/5/1945: Soviet troops complete the conquest of Berlin that has cost 100,000 Soviet lives 2/5/1945: British troops conquer Luebeck, following Churchill's secret orders to prevent the Soviet Union from invading Denmark 2/5/1945: German troops surrender in northern Italy and southern Austria 3/5/1945: Britain reconquers Rangoon/Yangoon in Burma/Myanmar 4/5/1945: German troops surrender in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany 5/5/1945: Soviet troops discover the charred corpse of Hitler but Stalin keeps it secret even to general Zhukov 7/5/1945: Germany surrenders to Britain, France and the USA, including 400,000 German troops still in Norway 8/5/1945: Churchill plans an invasion of Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe to liberate Poland, "Operation Unthinkable" 9/5/1945: Hermann Goering is captured by the USA 9/5/1945: The Soviet Union enters Prague and Germany surrenders to the Soviet Union 23/5/1945: Heinrich Himmler commits suicide 26/5/1945: the USA conducts a third firebombing on Tokyo 29/5/1945: France bombs its former colony Syria and tries to arrest its democratically elected leaders 5/1945: Tito's communists kill more than 100,000 people in Yugoslavia's civil war 5/1945: out of the 90,000 German soldiers who surrendered in Stalingrad, only 5,000 return to Germany alive 6/1945: The USA prepares a plan for the invasion of Japan 22/6/1945: The last Japanese soldiers commit suicide in Okinawa after 1,465 kamikaze attacks have sunk 29 US ships and killed 5,000 US sailors, and more than 100,000 Japanese soldiers and 100,000 civilians have died 1/7/1945: USA, Britain and France enter Berlin 5/7/1945: Britain and the USA recognize the Soviet-imposed Polish government and liquidate the British-supported exiled Polish government 16/7/1945: The USA tests the first atomic bomb 16/7/1945: Truman, Stalin and Churchill meet at the Potsdam Conference to discuss post-war Europe, and they all recognize Poland's new borders 22/7/1945: the USA wins the battle of Okinawa, the last major island battle, but with a casualty rate of 35% 25/7/1945: Churchill is defeated at the elections by the Labour Party of Clement Attlee in the biggest landslide since 1906 8/1945: The Viet Minh liberate Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam's independence from France 6/8/1945: the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima kills more than 100,000 civilians 8/8/1945: The Soviet Union attacks Japan in China with more than 1.6 million soldiers killing 500,000 Japanese in two weeks, raping women indiscriminately and taking 674,000 prisoners (only half of which will survive the prison camps in Siberia) 8/1945: Unit 731 is shut down after it has employed up to 3,000 Japanese scientists experimenting on thousands of Chinese prisoners 9/8/1945: The nuclear bombing of Nagasaki kills more than 100,000 civilians 14/8/1945: Japan surrenders to the USA after a coup of army officers led by Kenji Hatanaka has failed to overthrow the emperor 15/8/1945: Japan's emperor broadcasts a message calling on all soldiers to surrender, the first time ever that the Japanese nation has heard his voice 20/8/1945: The Soviet Union liberates the Japanese prison camp of Mukden where 1,485 Anglosaxon prisoners of war have been subjected to biological experiments 27/8/1945: Japan sets up brothels with 20,000 women for the US soldiers who are about to occupy Japan 30/8/1945: The USA lands at Yokohama beginning the occupation of Japan 30/8/1945: Britain returns to Hong Kong 2/9/1945: Japan signs the surrender to general McArthur and admiral Nimitz 9/9/1945: Japan surrenders to China 9/9/1945: British troops regain Burma/Myanmar 11/9/1945: Tojo tries to kill himself but is arrested alive by the USA 13/9/1945: Japan surrenders in Burma 9/1945: US general Douglas MacArthur secretly grants immunity to the scientists of Unit 731 in exchange for obtaining the results of their research on biological warfare 24/10/1945: The winning powers create the United Nations 20/11/1945: The remnants of the Nazi regime are tried at the Nueremberg trial |
Most frequently asked question: best book i've read on WWII? Answer: Antony Beevor's "The Second World War" (2012)
Deaths in World War IISources: Ragz, Gerhard Weinberg, History.net, Wikipedia |
| Country | Military Deaths | Civilian Deaths Due to War |
Total Deaths | ||
| Allies | |||||
| Australia | 23,365 | - | 23,365 | ||
| Belgium | 12,000 | 76,000 | 88,000 | ||
| Brazil | 943 | N/A | 1,000 | ||
| Britain | 264,443 | 92,673 | 357,000 | ||
| Canada | 37,476 | - | 37,476 | ||
| China | 2,000,000 | 7,750,000 | 9,750,000 | ||
| Czechoslovakia | 10,000 | 215,000 | 225,000 | ||
| Denmark | 1,800 | 2,000 | 4,000 | ||
| Estonia | 15,000 | 6,000 | 21,000 | ||
| France | 213,324 | 350,000 | 563,000 | ||
| Greece | 88,300 | 325,000 | 413,000 | ||
| Gypsies | - | 350,000 | 350,000 | ||
| India | 24,338 | - | 24,338 | ||
| Indonesia | - | 4,000,000 | 4,000,000 | ||
| Latvia | - | 70,000 | 70,000 | ||
| Lithuania | 30,000 | 140,000 | 170,000 | ||
| Malaysia | - | 100,000 | 100,000 | ||
| Netherlands | 7,900 | 200,000 | 208,000 | ||
| New Zealand | 10,033 | - | 10,033 | ||
| Norway | 3,000 | 7,000 | 10,000 | ||
| Philippines | 27,000 | 91,000 | 118,000 | ||
| Poland | 320,000 | 5,675,000 | 5,800,000 | ||
| South Africa | 6,840 | - | 6,840 | ||
| Soviet Union (minus Ukraine) | 12,000,000 | 3,000,000 | 15,000,000 | ||
| Ukraine | 6,019,000 | 4,000,000 | 10,000,000 | ||
| USA | 405,500 | - | 405,500 | ||
| Vietnam | - | 1,000,000 | 1,000,000 | ||
| Yugoslavia | 305,000 | 1,200,000 | 1,505,000 | ||
| Axis | |||||
| Bulgaria | 10,000 | 10,000 | 20,000 | ||
| Finland | 82,000 | 2,000 | 84,000 | ||
| Germany | 3,500,000 | 780,000 | 4,200,000 | ||
| Hungary | 200,000 | 640,000 | 840,000 | ||
| Italy | 242,322 | 152,941 | 395,000 | ||
| Japan | 1,300,000 | 953,000 | 2,253,000 | ||
| Romania | 300,000 | 200,000 | 500,000 | ||
| Total | 58,000,000 | ||||
These numbers include about six million Jews:
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