| 1935–1937 | |
| 1936 | - Nazi Germany occupies Rhineland.
- Italian armies conquer Ethiopia.
- Spanish civil war begins.
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| 1937 | - Japanese troops capture Nanjing.
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| 1938 | |
| 1939 | - German troops occupy Czechoslovakia.
- Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact.
- Germany’s attack on Poland begins World War II.
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| 1940 | - Germany invades Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
- British and French evacuate from Dunkirk.
- Battle of Britain.
- Tripartite Pact.
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| 1941 | - Lend-Lease Act.
- Germany invades Soviet Union.
- Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.
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| 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.
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| 1943 | - Allied leaders demand unconditional surrender of Axis powers.
- U.S. and British forces invade Italy.
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| 1944 | |
| 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.
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