1939 “Elections” are held in Soviet-occupied Poland now called “Western Byelorussia” and “Western Ukraine.” The USSR confiscates all property including bank accounts, and replaces Polish currency with the ruble. Poles are fired from their jobs and thrown into jail as the NKVD compiles lists for deportation. Factories, hospitals, schools, are dismantled and shipped to the USSR.

1939 The Luftwaffe starts attacks against North Atlantic convoys. As war heats up with Germany, the British war cabinet holds its first meeting in the underground war room in London. The Germans start deporting Poles from Posen (Poznan), largest city of western Poland (250,000 people), in their attempt at establishing “pure and Germanic provinces” in

1939 Pope Pius XII publishes his first encyclical, Summi pontificatus,decrying racism, dictators, and treaty violations. 1940 Italian planes bomb Cairo for the first time, also bomb US-run oil facilities in Bahrain. 1941 The Aircraft Carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) commissioned under Capt. Marc Mitscher. Germans massacre 2300 Serbians in Kragujevac in response to partisan killing of 10