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The Invasion of Poland begins at 4:30 a.m. with the German Luftwaffe attacking several targets in Poland. The United Kingdom
and France demand Germany's immediate withdrawal.
The United Kingdom home front is opened as the government declares general mobilization of the British Army and begins
evacuation plans in preparation of German air attacks.
France, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and New Zealand declare war on Germany after German refusal to withdraw
from Poland.
Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command launches a raid on the German battleship Admiral Scheer in the Heligoland Bight.
Six of the 24 attacking aircraft are lost, and while the German vessel is hit three times, all of the bombs fail to explode.
French patrols enter Germany near Saarbrücken.
Canada declares war on Germany.
The German Luftwaffe was one of the most powerful, doctrinally advanced, and battle-experienced air forces in the world when
World War II started in Europe in September 1939. Officially unveiled in 1935, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, its
purpose was to support Hitler's Blitzkrieg across Europe.
The aircraft that were to serve in the Luftwaffe were of a new age and far superior to that of most other nations in the
1930s. Types like the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka and Messerschmitt Bf 109 came to symbolize German aerial might.
The Luftwaffe became an essential component in the "Blitzkrieg" battle plan. Operating as a tactical close support
air force, it helped the German armies to conquer the bulk of the European continent in a series of short and decisive campaigns
in the first nine months of the war, experiencing its first defeat during the Battle of Britain in 1940 as it could not adapt
into a strategic role, lacking heavy bombers with which to conduct a strategic bombing campaign against the British Isles.
Despite this setback the Luftwaffe remained formidable and in June 1941 embarked on Adolf Hitler's quest for an empire
in eastern Europe by invading the USSR, with much initial success. However, the Luftwaffe's stunning victories in the Soviet
Union were brought to a halt in the Russian winter of 1942-1943. From then on, it was forced onto the strategic defensive
contesting the ever increasing numbers of Soviet aircraft, whilst defending the German homeland and occupied Europe from the
growing Allied air forces pounding all aspects of German industry.
The Soviet Union begins talks with Finland to adjust the border between the two countries.
Polish resistance in the Polish September Campaign comes to an end. Finland begins mobilizing its army; Hitler speaks
before the Reichstag, declaring a desire for a conference with Britain and France to restore peace.
Hittler issues orders to prepare for the invasion of Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
The German navy suggests occupying Norway to Hitler.
The British battleship HMS Royal Oak is sunk in Scapa Flow harbour by U-47.
Portions of Poland are formally inducted into Germany; the first Jewish ghetto is established at Lublin.
November
The Soviet Union invades Finland in what would become known as the Winter War.
December
Jews are forced to wear the emblem of the Star of David
During World War II, ghettos were established by the Nazis to confine Jews into tightly packed areas of the cities of Eastern
Europe. Starting in 1939, Adolf Eichmann, head of the Final Solution program, began to systematically move Polish Jews into
designated areas of large Polish cities. The first large ghetto at Tuliszkow was established in December 1939 or January 1940,
followed by the ód Ghetto in April 1940 and the Warsaw Ghetto in October 1940, with many other ghettos established throughout
1940 and 1941. The Ghettos were walled off, and any Jew found leaving them was shot. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of
these Ghettos, with 380,000 people and the ód Ghetto, the second largest, holding about 160,000.
Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (2 May 1892 21 April 1918) was a German fighter pilot known as "The Red Baron".
He was the most successful flying ace of World War I, being officially credited with 80 confirmed air combat victories.
By the mid-1950s musicians (Miles Davis and John Coltrane among others) began to explore directions beyond the standard bebop
vocabulary. Simultaneously, other players expanded on the bold steps of bebop: "cool jazz" or "West Coast jazz",
modal jazz, as well as free jazz and avant-garde forms of development from the likes of George Russell.
Bebop style also influenced the Beat Generation whose spoken-word style drew on jazz rhythms, and whose poets often employed
jazz musicians to accompany them. The bebop influence also shows in rock and roll, which contains solos employing a form similar
to bop solos, and "hippies" of the 60s and 70s, who, like the boppers had a unique, non-conformist style of dress,
a vocabulary incoherent to outsiders, and a communion through music. Fans of bebop were not restricted to the USA; the music
gained cult status in France and Japan.
More recently, Hip-hop artists (A Tribe Called Quest, Guru) have cited bebop as an influence on their rapping and rhythmic
style. Bassist Ron Carter even collaborated with A Tribe Called Quest on 1991's The Low End Theory, and vibraphonist Roy Ayers
and trumpeter Donald Byrd were featured on Jazzmattazz, by Guru, in the same year. Bebop samples, especially bass lines, ride
cymbal swing clips, and horn and piano riffs are found throughout the hip-hop compendium.
Bebop jazz standards are jazz tunes from the 1940s and 1930s that are widely known, performed, and recorded among jazz
musicians. Bebop is a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos and improvisation based on harmonic structure rather than
melody, that was developed in the early and mid-1940s. Hard bop later developed from bebop combined with blues and gospel
music.
There is no definitive list of Bebop jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be Bebop "jazz standards"
changes over time. Nevertheless, the songs commonly included in jazz fake books (books containing the melodies and chords
to jazz songs) and those that have been widely recorded are a rough guide to the list of Bebop jazz standards.
The Supermarine Spitfire was a British single-seat fighter, used by the Royal Air Force and many other Allied countries during
the Second World War, and into the 1950s.It was produced in greater numbers than any other Allied design. The Spitfire was
the only Allied fighter in production at the outbreak of the Second World War that was still in production at the end of the
war.
Produced by the Supermarine subsidiary of Vickers-Armstrongs, the Spitfire was designed by the company's Chief Designer
R. J. Mitchell, who continued to refine the design until his death from cancer in 1937; the position of chief designer was
then filled by his colleague, Joseph Smith. Its elliptical wing had a thin cross-section, allowing a higher top speed than
the Hawker Hurricane and many other contemporary designs.
The distinctive silhouette imparted by the wing planform helped the Spitfire to achieve legendary status during the Battle
of Britain. There was, and still is, a public perception that it was the RAF fighter of the Battle, in spite of the fact that
the more numerous Hurricane shouldered a great deal of the burden against the potent Messerschmitt Bf 109. Much loved by its
pilots, the Spitfire saw service during the whole of the Second World War and subsequent years, in most theatres of war, in
several roles and in many different variants.
The Cold War was the period of conflict, tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their
respective allies from the mid-1940s until the early 1990s. Throughout the period, the rivalry between the two superpowers
was played out in multiple arenas: military coalitions; ideology, psychology, and espionage; sports; military, industrial,
and technological developments, including the space race; costly defence spending; a massive conventional and nuclear arms
race; and many proxy wars.
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British anti-invasion preparations of World War II entailed a large-scale division of military and civilian mobilization in
response to the threat of invasion by German armed forces in 1940 and 1941. The army needed to recover from the defeat of
the British Expeditionary Force in France, and 1.5 million men were enrolled as part-time soldiers in the Home Guard. The
rapid construction of field fortifications transformed much of Britain, especially southern England, into a prepared battlefield.
Short of heavy weapons and equipment, the British had to make the best use of whatever was available.
The German invasion plan, Operation Sealion, was never taken beyond the preliminary assembly of forces. Today, little
remains of Britain's anti-invasion preparations. Only reinforced concrete structures such as pillboxes are common, and until
recently, even these have been unappreciated as historical monuments.
Operation Sealion (German: Unternehmen Seelöwe) was Nazi Germany's plan to invade the United Kingdom during World War II,
beginning in 1940. The operation was postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940.
Following swift victory in the Battle of France, Germany believed the war in the west was won, but sought direct measures
to break British resistance. Under Großadmiral Erich Raeder of the Kriegsmarine, numerous studies for a German naval assault
across the English Channel were produced, identifying several conditions for invasion, including the elimination of the Royal
Navy and the air strength of the Royal Air Force, as well as destruction of British coastal defences.
The Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) originally planned an invasion on a vast scale, extending along most of the English
Channel, from Dorset to Kent. This was far in excess of what the Navy could supply transportation for and final plans were
more modest, calling for nine divisions to land by sea with around 67,000 men in the first echelon and an airborne division
to support them.The chosen invasion sites ran from Rottingdean in the west to Hythe in the east.
The situation in the ghettos was brutal. In Warsaw, 30% of the population were forced to live in 2.4% of the city's area,
a density of 9.2 people per room. In the ghetto of Odrzywol, 700 people lived in an area previously occupied by 5 families,
between 12 and 30 to each small room.
The Jews were not allowed out of the ghetto, so they had to rely on replenishments supplied by the Nazis: in Warsaw this
was 181 calories per Jew, compared to 669 calories per non-Jewish Pole and 2,613 calories per German. With crowded living
conditions, starvation diets, and little sanitation (in the ód Ghetto 95% of apartments had no sanitation, piped water or
sewers) hundreds of thousands of Jews died of disease and starvation.
In 1942, the Nazis began Operation Reinhard, the systematic deportation to extermination camps during the Holocaust. The
authorities deported Jews from everywhere in Europe to the ghettos of the East, or directly to the extermination camps --
almost 300,000 people were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto alone to Treblinka over the course of 52 days. In some of the Ghettos
the local resistance organizations started Ghetto uprisings, none were successful, and all the Jewish populations of the ghettos
were almost entirely killed.
The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo by the British, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches
of Dunkirk, France, between May 26 and June 4, 1940, when British and French troops were cut off by the German army during
the Battle of Dunkirk in the Second World War. Winston Churchill called it the greatest military defeat for many centuries,
warning that "the whole root, the core, and brain of the British Army" was stranded in Dunkirk. He hailed their
subsequent rescue as a "miracle of deliverance.
In nine days, 331,226 soldiers 192,226 British and 139,000 French were rescued by a hastily assembled fleet of 860 boats.
Many of the troops were able to embark from the harbour's protective mole onto 42 British destroyers and other large ships,
while others had to wade toward the ships, waiting for hours to board, shoulder deep in water. Others were ferried from the
beaches to the larger ships, and thousands were carried back to England, by the famous "little ships of Dunkirk,"
a flotilla of around 700 merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft and RNLI lifeboats the smallest of which was
the 15-foot fishing boat, Tamzine, now in the Imperial War Museum whose civilian crews were called into service for the emergency.
The "miracle of the little ships" remains a prominent folk memory in Britain.
Many musical styles flourished and combined in the 1940s and 1950s, most likely because of the influence of radio had in creating
a mass market for music. World War II caused great social upheaval, and the music of this period shows the effects of that
upheaval.
In the 1940s, the major strands of American music combined to form what would eventually be coined as rock and roll. Based
most strongly off an electric guitar-based version of the Chicago blues, rock also incorporated jazz, country, folk, swing,
and other types of music; in particular, bebop jazz and boogie woogie blues were in vogue and greatly influenced the music
style. The style had developed by 1949, and quickly became popular among blacks nationwide (see 1949 in music). Mainstream
success was slow to develop, though (in spite of early success with Bill Haley & His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock"),
and didn't begin in earnest until Elvis Presley ("Hound Dog") began singing rock, R&B and rockabilly songs in
a devoted black style. He quickly became the most famous and best-selling artist in American history, and a watershed point
in the development of music.
Arthur Neville Chamberlain (18 March 1869 9 November 1940) was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940.
Chamberlain's legacy is marked by his policy regarding the appeasement of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany with his signing
of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding Czechoslovakia to Hitler. In the same year he also gave up the Irish Free State
Royal Navy ports.
After working in business and local government and a short spell as Director of National Service in 1916 and 1917, Chamberlain
followed his father and older half-brother in becoming a Member of Parliament in the 1918 general election at age 49. He declined
a junior ministerial position, remaining a backbencher until he was appointed Postmaster General after the 1922 general election.
He was rapidly promoted in 1923 to Minister of Health and then Chancellor of the Exchequer but presented no budget before
the government fell in 1924.
He returned as Minister of Health, introducing a range of reform measures from 1924 to 1929. He was appointed Chancellor
of the Exchequer in the coalition National Government in 1931 and spent six years reducing the war debt and the tax burden.
When Stanley Baldwin retired after the abdication of Edward VIII and the coronation of George VI, Chamberlain took his place
as Prime Minister in 1937.
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| A famous image of Dunkirk: "A British soldier fires at German aircraft strafing him on Dunkirk's bea |
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC, PC (Can) (30 November 1874 24 January 1965) was a British
politician known chiefly for his leadership of Great Britain during World War II. He served as Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also known as an officer
in the British Army, a historical writer, and an artist.
During his army career Churchill saw combat on the Northwest Frontier, in the Sudan and during the Second Boer War, during
which he also gained fame and notoriety, as a war correspondent. He also served in the British Army on the Western Front and
commanded the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. At the forefront of the political scene for almost sixty years,
he held many political and cabinet positions. Before the First World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade and
Home Secretary during the Liberal governments. In the First World War he served as First Lord of the Admiralty, Minister of
Munitions, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air and during the interwar years, he served as Chancellor
of the Exchequer.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation
of Neville Chamberlain on 10 May 1940, he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and led Britain to victory against the
Axis powers. His speeches were a great inspiration to the embattled Allied forces. After losing the 1945 election, he became
the leader of the opposition. In 1951, he again became Prime Minister before finally retiring in 1955. Upon his death the
Queen granted him the honour of a state funeral, which saw one of the largest assemblies of statesmen in the world.
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