Transcript Aggressive Steps Towards World War II

Aggressive Steps
Towards World War II
A Timeline
1931
► Japan
invades
Manchuria –
“Manchurian
Incident”
 League of
Nations
protest
1935
► Italy
invades
Ethiopia
 League of Nations
failure to stop
Japan encourages
Mussolini
 He wanted to
avenge 1890
defeat
1935
► The
Saar was
returned to
Germany after
its people voted
90% for unifying
1935
►Hitler
begins
to rearm
Germany
 Violation of the
Treaty of
Versailles, but
League of
Nations fails to
stop it
1936
► In
March,
Germany sends
troops into the
Rhineland
 French unwilling
to risk war
 British encourage
appeasement
1936
► In
October, Axis powers form – Japan,
Italy, and Germany
1937
► In
July,
Japan
takes
over
much of
Eastern
China
1938
► In
March, Germany occupies Austria, completing the
ANSCHLUSS (union) with the Germans there
 French and British do nothing
1938
► In
September at the
Munich Conference
– Chamberlain
believed he could
preserve peace by
giving into Hitler’s
demands (policy of
appeasement)
 Hitler is given the
Sudetenland
 Hitler pledged to
respect
Czechoslovakian
borders
1939
► In
March, Hitler takes all of Czechoslovakia
1939
► Italy
takes
over Albania
1939
► In
August, Nazi-Soviet Pact (Non-aggression
pact) is signed
 Secretly agreed to divide Poland
1939
► September
– Hitler
invades
Poland
1
1939
► September
3–
France and Great
Britain declare
war on Germany
1940
► In
August, Hitler began an
air war against Britain
 German planes
concentrated on bombing
cities during the Battle of
Britain
 The few thousand pilots of
the Royal Air Force bravely
defended England
 Prime Minister Winston
Churchill said “never… was
so much owed by so many
to so few”
1941
► Japan
bombs
Pearl Harbor in
Hawaii on
December 7
 Brings the
United States
into the war