Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Yenisei River basin in Siberia. As the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan cemented their military alliance by mutually declaring war against the United States on December 11, 1941, the Japanese proposed a clear territorial arrangement with the two main European Axis powers concerning the Asian continent. [1]
The causes of World War II have been given considerable attention by historians. The immediate precipitating event was the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, and the subsequent declarations of war on Germany made by Britain and France , but many other prior events have been suggested as ultimate causes.
The following events played a significant role in setting the stage for the involvement of Asia and the Pacific in World War II: 1839: Outbreak of the First Opium War in Qing China against the British Empire, forcing China to import British opium from India. Britain won the war and as a result gained control over Hong Kong.
Partition of Eastern Europe between USSR and the Third Reich Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (First partition of Eastern Europe: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Eastern Poland and Bessarabia to USSR's Sphere of influence. Lithuania, Western Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania to Nazi Germany's one)
The world powers in 1939, before the start of World War II. January 25 A uranium atom is split for the first time at Columbia University in the United States. [49] January 27 Hitler orders Plan Z, a 5-year naval expansion programme intended to provide for a huge German fleet capable of defeating the British Royal Navy by 1944.
Lt.Gen Hiroshi Ōshima, Japanese ambassador to Germany before and during World War II The Tripartite Pact was signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan on 27 September 1940, in Berlin. The pact was subsequently joined by Hungary (20 November 1940), Romania (23 November 1940), Slovakia (24 November 1940), and Bulgaria (1 March 1941).
In the aftermath of World War II, European colonies, controlling more than one billion people throughout the world, still ruled most of the Middle East, South East Asia, and the Indian Subcontinent. However, the image of European pre-eminence was shattered by the wartime Japanese occupations of large portions of British, French, and Dutch ...
World War II [b] or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all the world's countries—including all the great powers—participated, with many investing all available economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities in pursuit of total war, blurring the distinction between military and ...