Back to the World War II Timeline
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Jan 6 - Soviet troops advance into
Poland.
Jan 17 - First attack toward
Cassino,
Italy.
Jan 22 - Allies land at
Anzio.
Jan 27 - Leningrad relieved after a 900-day siege.
Feb 15-18 - Allies bomb the
monastery at Monte Cassino.
Feb 16 - Germans
counter-attack against the Anzio
beachhead.
March 4 - Soviet troops begin an
offensive on the
Belorussian front; First major
daylight bombing raid on
Berlin by the Allies.
March 15 - Second
Allied attempt to capture Monte Cassino begins.
March 18 - British drop 3000
tons of
bombs during an air raid on
Hamburg,
Germany.
April 8 - Soviet troops begin an offensive to liberate
Crimea.
May 9 - Soviet troops recapture
Sevastopol.
May 11 - Allies attack the Gustav Line south of Rome.
May 12 - Germans
surrender in the Crimea.
May 15 - Germans withdraw to the
Adolf Hitler Line.
May 25 - Germans retreat from Anzio.
June 5 - Allies enter
Rome.
June 6 - D-Day landings.
June 9 - Soviet offensive against the
Finnish front begins.
June 10 - Nazis
liquidate the town of Oradour-sur-Glane in
France.
June 13 - First German
V-1 rocket attack on
Britain.
June 22 - Operation Bagration begins.
June 27 - U.S. troops liberate Cherbourg.
July 3 - 'Battle of the Hedgerows' in Normandy; Soviets capture Minsk.
July 9 - British and
Canadian troops capture
Caen.
July 18 - U.S. troops reach St. Lô.
July 20 - German
assassination attempt on
Hitler fails.
July 24 - Soviet troops liberate first concentration camp at
Majdanek.
July 25-30 - Operation Cobra.
July 28 - Soviet troops take
Brest-
Litovsk. U.S. troops take
Coutances.
Aug 1 - Polish Home Army uprising against Nazis in Warsaw begins; U.S. troops reach Avranches.
Aug 4 - Anne Frank and family arrested by the
Gestapo in
Amsterdam,
Holland.
Aug 7 - Germans begin a major counter-attack toward
Avranches.
Aug 15 - Operation Dragoon begins (the Allied invasion of Southern
France).
Aug 19 - Resistance uprising in
Paris.
Aug 19/20 - Soviet offensive in the Balkans begins with an attack on Romania.
Aug 20 - Allies encircle Germans in the Falaise Pocket.
Aug 25 - Liberation of Paris.
Aug 29 - Slovak uprising begins.
Aug 31 - Soviet troops take Bucharest.
Sept 1-4 - Verdun,
Dieppe,
Artois,
Rouen,
Abbeville,
Antwerp and
Brussels liberated by Allies.
Sept 4 - Finland and the
Soviet Union agree to a cease-fire.
Sept 13 - U.S. troops reach the
Siegfried Line.
Sept 17 - Operation Market Garden begins.
Sept 26 - Soviet troops occupy
Estonia.
Oct 2 - Warsaw Uprising ends as the Polish Home Army surrenders to the Germans.
Oct 10-29 - Soviet troops capture Riga.
Oct 14 - Allies
liberate Athens;
Rommel commits suicide.
Oct 21 - Massive German surrender at Aachen.
Oct 30 - Last use of
gas chambers at
Auschwitz.
Nov 20 - French troops drive through the '
Beffort Gap' to reach the
Rhine.
Nov 24 - French capture
Strasbourg.
Dec 4 - Civil War in Greece; Athens placed under
martial law.
Dec 16-27 - Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes.
Dec 17 - Waffen
SS murder 81 U.S.
POWs at
Malmedy.
Dec 26 - Patton relieves
Bastogne.
Dec 27 - Soviet troops besiege
Budapest.