Modern Era
Battle of Crete (1941): Germany's Great Airborne Invasion
German victory; Crete was captured, but losses among German airborne troops were so heavy that Germany never again launched a major parachute operation.
Era · c. 1800 – 1945
Modern Era
Industry, science and global conflict: the century and a half that built the modern world.
Modern Era
Lend-Lease Act (1941): America Becomes the Arsenal of Democracy
The United States supplied about $50 billion of war material to Allied nations, becoming the main arsenal of the anti-Axis coalition.
Modern Era
Attack on Pearl Harbor (1941): The Day the US Went to War
Japanese tactical success; eight US battleships damaged or sunk and 2,403 Americans killed, and the United States entered the Second World War.
Modern Era
Siege of Leningrad (1941–1944): 872 Days of Blockade and Hunger
The city held out; the blockade was broken in January 1943 and fully lifted in January 1944, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives.
Modern Era
Operation Barbarossa (1941): Germany Invades the Soviet Union
Huge German advances and Soviet losses, but the Red Army survived and the offensive was halted before Moscow in December 1941.
Modern Era
Manhattan Project (1942–1945): The Race for the Atomic Bomb
The United States, with British and Canadian participation, produced the first nuclear weapons, tested one on 16 July 1945 and used two against Japan in August 1945.
Modern Era
White Rose Resistance (1942–1943): Sophie and Hans Scholl
The core members were arrested in February 1943; six were executed in 1943 and the group was destroyed, but its last leaflet was later dropped over Germany by the RAF.
Modern Era
Navajo Code Talkers: The Unbreakable Code of the Pacific War
Around 400 Navajo Marines served as code talkers; Japanese forces never broke their code, and the programme was declassified in 1968.
Modern Era
Battle of Milne Bay (1942): Japan's First Defeat on Land
Allied victory; the Japanese landing force was defeated and evacuated by sea, ending the attempt to seize the Milne Bay airfields.
Modern Era
Attack on Sydney Harbour (1942): Japan's Midget Submarine Raid
The depot ship HMAS Kuttabul was sunk and 21 sailors killed; all three midget submarines were lost.
Modern Era
Battle of Gazala (1942): Rommel's Victory and the Fall of Tobruk
Decisive Axis victory; the British Eighth Army was driven back into Egypt and Tobruk surrendered with over 30,000 Allied troops.
Modern Era
Lidice Massacre (1942): The Destruction of a Czech Village
The men of Lidice were shot, the women sent to Ravensbrück and most children murdered at Chełmno; about 340 villagers died and the village was razed.