| 1919 | Treaty of Versailles signed |
| 1922 | Mussolini gains power in Italy |
| 1927 | Stalin takes full control in the Soviet Union |
| 1931 | Japan invades Manchuria |
| January 1933 | Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany |
| October 1933 | Germany withdraws from the League of Nations |
| March 1935 | Hitler announces German rearmament |
| October 1935 | Mussolini invades Ethiopia |
| 1936–1939 | Civil war in Spain, culminating in establishment of Fascist regime under Franco |
| March 1936 | German armies move unopposed into the Rhineland |
| October 1936 | Rome-Berlin Axis created |
| 1937 | Japan invades China |
| March 1938 | Germany annexes Austria |
| September 1938 | Munich Conference: Britain and France agree to German seizure of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia |
| March 1939 | Germany occupies the rest of Czechoslovakia; appeasement ends in Britain |
| August 1939 | Nazi-Soviet pact signed |
| September 1, 1939 | Germany invades Poland |
| September 3, 1939 | Britain and France declare war on Germany |