World War II in Europe
1939 CE – 1945 CE
The European and Mediterranean theatre, 1939–1945 — from the invasion of Poland through the Eastern Front to the fall of Berlin.
1192 events · 1158 people
Key events
- Gleiwitz incident1939 CEThe Gleiwitz incident, or Gliwice incident, was a false flag attack on the radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz staged by Nazi Germany on the night of 31 August 1939. Along with some two dozen similar incidents, the attack was manufactured by Germany as a casus belli to justify the invasion of Poland. Despite the German government using the attack as a justification to go to war with Poland, the Gleiwitz assailants were not Polish but were German SS officers wearing Polish uniforms.
- Moscow Peace Treaty1940 CEpeace treaty signed by Finland and the Soviet Union on 12 March 1940
- Armistice of 22 June 19401940 CEThe Armistice of 22 June 1940, sometimes referred to as the Second Armistice at Compiègne, was an agreement signed at 18:36 on 22 June 1940 near Compiègne, France by officials of Nazi Germany and the French Third Republic. It became effective at midnight on 25 June. Signatories for Germany included Colonel General Wilhelm Keitel, head of the German armed forces (OKW), while those on the French side held lower ranks, led by General Charles Huntziger.
- Dunkirk evacuation1940 CEIn the Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, more than 338,000 Allied soldiers were evacuated during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The operation began after large numbers of Belgian, British, and French troops were cut off and surrounded by German troops during the six-week Battle of France.
- Operation Weserübung1940 CE1940 code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War
- North African campaign1940 CE194–1943 military campaign of World War II
- Battle of Dunkirk1940 CE1940 battle in the Second World War between the Allies and Germany
- Katyn massacre1940 CEThe Katyn massacre was a series of mass executions of Poles carried out by the Soviet Union between April and May 1940. Though the killings also occurred in the NKVD prisons in Kalinin, Kharkiv and elsewhere, the massacre is named after the Katyn forest, where some of the mass graves were first discovered by Nazi German forces in 1943. Nearly 22,000 Polish military and police officers, border guards, intelligentsia, and prisoners of war were executed by the NKVD, on Joseph Stalin's orders.
- 1948 Palestine war1940 CEfirst war of the Arab–Israeli conflict
- Tripartite Pact1940 CEtreaty establishing the Axis Powers of World War Two
- Battle of Crete1941 CE1941 battle during WWII on the Greek island of Crete
- Battle of Smolensk1941 CEThe first Battle of Smolensk was a battle during the second phase of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, in World War II. It was fought around the city of Smolensk between 10 July and 10 September 1941, about 400 km (250 mi) west of Moscow. The Ostheer had advanced 500 km (310 mi) into the USSR in the 18 days after the invasion on 22 June 1941.
Notable people
- Adolf Hitler1889 CE – 1945 CE
- Joseph Stalin1878 CE – 1953 CE
- Winston Churchill1874 CE – 1965 CE
- Charles de Gaulle1890 CE – 1970 CE
- John Paul II1920 CE – 2005 CE
- Benito Mussolini1883 CE – 1945 CE
- Dwight D. Eisenhower1890 CE – 1969 CE
- David Ben-Gurion1886 CE – 1973 CE
- Josip Broz Tito1892 CE – 1980 CE
- Pius XII1876 CE – 1958 CE
- Heinrich Himmler1900 CE – 1945 CE
- Yizhak Rabin1922 CE – 1995 CE
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Events from Wikipedia/Wikidata (CC-BY-SA); boundaries from OpenHistoricalMap (ODbL). Spotted a mistake? Email [email protected].