1935–1937 Neutrality acts.
1936 Nazi Germany occupies Rhineland.
Italian armies conquer Ethiopia.
Spanish civil war begins.
1937 Japanese troops capture Nanjing.
1938 Hitler annexes Austria.
1939 German troops occupy Czechoslovakia.
Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact.
Germany's attack on Poland begins World War II.
1940 Germany invades Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
British and French evacuate from Dunkirk.
Battle of Britain.
Tripartite Pact.
1941 Lend-Lease Act.
Germany invades Soviet Union.
Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.
1942 Internment of Japanese Americans.
Japan captures Philippines.
Congress of Racial Equality founded.
Battles of Coral Sea and Midway.
Manhattan Project begins.
U.S. forces invade North Africa.
1943 Allied leaders demand unconditional surrender of Axis powers.
U.S. and British forces invade Italy.
1944 D Day.
1945 Yalta Conference.
Roosevelt dies; Vice President Harry Truman becomes president.
Germany surrenders.
United States joins United Nations.
United States drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Japan surrenders, ending World War II.