1. TIMELINE FOR THE OUTBREAK OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR 1919: Treaty of Versailles founds a “League of Nations” 1931: Mukden Incident in Manchuria – Japan invades China 1933: The Nazi seizure of power (FDR takes office) 1935: Fascist Italy conquers Ethiopia 1936: Hitler remilitarizes the Rhineland 1937: All-out war in China 1938: Hitler annexes Austria and the Sudetenland 1939: Germany invades Poland in September; France and Great Britain declare war, but the USA remains neutral 1941: Germany invades the Soviet Union in June; Japan bombs Pearl Harbor on December 7

2. President Woodrow Wilson, who promised a “war without victors or vanquished” Georges Clemenceau, “The Tiger,” French Premier 1906-09, 1917-20

3. The impact of the Treaty of Versailles (June 1919)

4. “Can it survive?” Cartoon in the Literary Digest of July 19, 1919, on the reception given to the draft Covenant of the League of Nations by the Republican leaders of the U.S. Senate.

5. In the 1920s, only the countries in green supported the Versailles settlement

6. Italians celebrate the conquest of Ethiopia, autumn 1935

7. New Luftwaffe bombers and Wehrmacht tanks on display for the Nazi Party “Congress of Freedom” in Nuremberg, September 1935

8. National Income of the Great Powers in 1937 (billions of 1987 dollars) and Percentage Spent on Defense National Income Percentage for Defense USA681.5% British Empire225.7% France109.1% Germany1723.5% Italy614.5% USSR1926.4% Japan428.2%

9. Hitler greeted by cheering throngs as he enters Vienna on March 14, 1938, and a poster urging voters to approve the Anschluss “One People, One Reich, One Leader”

10. The ethnically German Sudetenland and the Magyar-speaking portion of Slovakia

11. The heads of government in Munich, 29 September 1938: Neville Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier, Hitler, & Mussolini

12. German troops occupy Prague, 15 March 1939: This event made Chamberlain renounce appeasement, and Great Britain and France “guaranteed” Polish independence

13. Molotov & Ribbentrop sign the Hitler-Stalin Pact, August 23, 1939

14. The first Blitzkrieg: The German conquest of Poland

15. Germany invaded France through the Argonne Forest on May 10, 1940

16. Cartoon on American isolationism, published by Dr. Seuss, October 1, 1941, in the newspaper PM

17. THE “RAPE OF NANJING” (DECEMBER 1937): The massacre of 200,000 Chinese after the capture of Nanjing outraged Americans, and the U.S. Government launched a naval build-up in the Pacific In 1938 over 75% of U.S. voters supported China in this conflict. Trade sanctions were imposed in Jan. 1940

18. Events in Europe encouraged Japanese expansion

19. Admiral Yamamoto devised a bold plan to prevent U.S. interference in the huge offensive southward

20. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941: 360 carrier-based aircraft sank 2 U.S. battleships, damaged the other 6, destroyed 188 aircraft on the ground, and killed 2,403 Americans. But the damaged ships could soon be repaired, and the fleet’s two aircraft carriers were out on patrol

21. U.S. PUBLIC OPINION WAS ENRAGED FDR signs the U.S. declaration of war on Japan, December 8, 1941

22. THE STUNNING WAVE OF JAPANESE VICTORIES IN THE PHILIPPINES, EAST INDIES, MALAYA, & SINGAPORE

23. But three U.S. aircraft carriers halted the Japanese advance at Midway, June 1-6, 1942

24. Japan found some collaborators by propagating a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” to replace European rule