# data[].attributes.body
Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany and later assumes dictatorial powers. German rearmament takes off.

# data[].attributes.body
Germany invades Poland, inciting Poland’s allies Britain and France to declare war on Germany.

# data[].attributes.body
Working in concert with Hitler, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin orders the invasion of Poland, securing a share of Polish territory.

# data[].attributes.body
Warsaw surrenders to German troops. Poland holds out for another 9 days before capitulating.

# data[].attributes.body
British cruisers defeat a German pocket battleship at the Battle of the River Plate, the first major naval engagement of World War II.

# data[].attributes.body
Germany invades Norway, ending a 6-month period of limited land operations called the “Phony War.”

# data[].attributes.body
Winston Churchill replaces Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister. The same day, Germany invades Belgium.

# data[].attributes.body
Paris falls to German forces. France capitulates 11 days later.

# data[].attributes.body
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, starting war with the US. Sensing weakness, Hitler declares war on America 4 days later.

# data[].attributes.body
U.S. and Britain declare war on Japan. Japanese land near Singapore and enter Thailand.

# data[].attributes.body
An American B-29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.

# data[].attributes.body
On August 9, 1945, a second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan's unconditional surrender.