World War II Timeline

September 1, 1939 - Germany invades Poland. Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, and France soon fall into German control, until only the United Kingdom is left to face Germany.

June 10, 1940 - Italy joins the war on the side of Germany by declaring war against Britain (UK) and France. Fighting spreads to Greece and Northern Africa.

June 14, 1940 - German troops march into Paris.

July 1940-September 1940 - Germany and Great Britain fight an air war, the Battle of Britain, along the English coastline.

September 7, 1940-May 1941 - German bombing campaign of nightly air raids over London, known as the Blitz.

January 22, 1941 - British and Commonwealth troops take over the port city of Tobruk, Libya.

June 22, 1941 - Germany invades the Soviet Union.

September 1941 - Japanese troops invade Indochina.

December 7, 1941 - Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, destroying more than half of the fleet of aircraft, and damaging all eight battleships. Japan also attacks Clark and Iba airfields in the Philippines destroying over half of the US Army's aircraft there.

December 8, 1941 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers the "a date which will live in infamy" speech to Congress, and the U.S declares war on Japan. Japan invades Hong Kong, Guam, the Wake Islands, Singapore, and British Malaya.

December 11, 1941 - Germany and Italy declare war on the United States.

By Christmas 1941, Japan had taken Thailand, Guam, Hong Kong, and Wake Island.

1942 - The Allies stop the Axis Powers' advance in Northern Africa and the Soviet Union.

February 1942 - Japan invades the Malay Peninsula. Singapore surrenders within a week.

June 4-6, 1942 - Japan's plans to invade the Hawaiian Islands, starting at Midway Island, but the United States cracks the code of the mission. Japan attacks Midway and loses four aircraft carriers and over 200 planes and pilots in the first clear victory for the United States.

August 19, 1942 - The battle for Stalingrad begins as Germany pushes further into Russia.

August 1942-February 1943 - US Marines fight for and hold the Pacific island of Guadalcanal.

October 23, 1942 - British troops push Axis troops into retreating to Tunisia in the Second Battle of El Alamein.

February 1, 1943 - The German troops in Stalingrad surrender, defeated in large part by the Soviet winter. The defeat marks the halt of Germany's eastbound advance.

July 10, 1943 - Allied forces land in Italy.

July 25, 1943 - The King of Italy is restored to full power, and Mussolini is deposed and arrested.

November 1943-March 1944 - US Marines invade the Solomon Islands at Bougainville to recapture it from the Japanese.

June 6, 1944 - D-Day in which Allied forces land on five beaches at Normandy: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The landing includes over 5,000 ships, 11,000 airplanes and over 150,000 service men.

August 25, 1944 - American and Free French forces liberate Paris.

January 27, 1945 - Soviet troops liberate the Auschwitz camp complex, located near Krakow, Poland.

February 19-March 26, 1945 - US Marines battle the Japanese for the island of Iwo Jima.

April 12, 1945 - President Roosevelt dies in Warm Springs, Georgia. Vice President Harry Truman takes the oath of office as president.

April 25, 1945 - Soviet troops surround Berlin.

April 28, 1945 - Mussolini is killed attempting to escape to Switzerland.

April 29, 1945 - US soldiers liberate the Dachau concentration camp outside of Munich, Germany.

April 30, 1945 - Hitler and wife Eva Braun commit suicide.

May 7, 1945 - Germany surrenders in a red school house in Reims, Germany, Eisenhower's headquarters. V-E Day is celebrated on May 8 because that was the day the armistice went into effect.

May 8, 1945 - V-E Day, Victory in Europe. The war in Europe is officially over.

July 16, 1945 - First successful test of the atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

July 29, 1945 - President Harry Truman warns Japan that the country will be destroyed if it does not surrender unconditionally. Japan continues fighting.

August 6, 1945 - The first atomic bomb used in warfare, nicknamed Little Boy, is dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing up to 140,000 people.

August 9, 1945 - After getting no response from the Japanese government after the Hiroshima bombing, a second atomic bomb, nicknamed Fat Man, is dropped on Nagasaki, killing up to 80,000 people.

August 14, 1945 - Japan unconditionally agrees to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and end the war. V-J Day, Victory over Japan, is declared.

September 2, 1945 - Japan signs the formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

Credit: CNN