World War II Day by Day

With the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930s, Germany discreetly began a program of re-armament and aggression that culminated in the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Within days the world was at war – with Nazi forces quickly conquering Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France. Britain however remained resolute in its determination for justice and withstood the might of the German Nazi armed forces, particularly in the face of Hitler’s invasion plans.


Initially the Americans were a neutral country, helping the Allies with the vital sale of arms and other equipment to aid the war effort. However, the unprovoked Japanese attack on naval base Pearl Harbor in December 1941 brought the United States into the conflict (although a quick solution to Nazi dominance proved elusive). World War II ended in 1945 (May 8 in Europe; September 2 in Japan), bringing a conclusion to a conflict that had proved to be the deadliest the world had ever seen. 


More than 38 million people died between 1939 and 1945, many of them civilians, and it was only as the hostilities came to a close that many uncovered gruesome details of the true atrocities that had taken place across the globe.