Europe 1939: Invasion of Poland
16 September 1939
16 Sep 1939
World War II: Blitzkrieg
1815–1848 Congress Europe
1848–1850 The Springtime of Peoples
1850–1859 The Crimean War
1859–1862 Italian Unification
1862–1871 German Unification
1871–1914 Imperial Europe
1914–1918 The Great War
1918–1922 Armistice Europe
1922–1939 The Rise of Fascism
1939–1942 World War II: Blitzkrieg
1942–1945 World War II: Fall of the Third Reich
1945–1990 The Cold War
1990–2010 Post-Cold War Europe
2010–pres The Crisis of Europe
Invasion of Poland
16 Sep 1939 Invasion of Poland
11 Mar 1940 Winter War
21 Apr 1940 Invasion of Denmark and Norway
25 May 1940 Blitzkrieg in the West
21 Jun 1940 Fall of France
07 Sep 1940 Battle of Britain
03 Nov 1940 Italian Offensives
26 Feb 1941 Italian Fiascos
16 Apr 1941 Germany in the Mediterranean
21 Jun 1941 Eve of Barbarossa
31 Aug 1941 Operation Barbarossa
04 Dec 1941 Battle of Moscow
20 Jan 1942 The War Expands
27 Jun 1942 Western Desert Campaign
16 Sep 1942 Case Blue
The signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop_Pact in August 1939 removed the threat from Russia, allowing Hitler to invade Poland on 1 September. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. The Second World War had begun.