1937
Japanese troops invade Shanghai, China.
1938
Nazis kill 35 Jews, arrest thousands and destroy Jewish synagogues, homes and stores throughout Germany. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, the night of the shattered glass.
1940
Start of a counter-offensive by the British Army against the Italian forces that have advanced into Egypt.
Germany expels 180,000 Frenchmen from the recently-annexed Alsace-Lorraine region of France.
Neville Chamberlain, the former British prime minister, dies from cancer at the age of 71.
1941
Germans capture Yalta in Crimea.
Royal Navy Surface Force K from Malta annihilates an Italian convoy of seven supply ships and sinks two destroyers.
1942
Naval battles off Oran and Casablanca, result in three French destroyers being sunk.
US troops advance on both sides of Oran, taking 2,000 French prisoners after stiff resistance. German paratroops are landed in Tunisia without opposition from the French.
German planes transport troops to El Aouina Airfield in French Tunisia to combat Allied landings in Algeria.
Germans force Danish King Christian to appoint pro-Nazi Erik Scavenius as prime minister.
German spy Werner Janowski is landed by U-boat U-518 at New Carlisle, Quebec, but is arrested within hours on a tip from a suspicious hotel clerk.
1943
General Charles de Gaulle is named president of the French Committee of National Liberation, the “Free French,” in the wake of the resignation of General Henri Giraud.
1944
The last Germans on Walcheren surrender. German forces evacuate the Moerdijk bridgehead across the Meuse river.
Total U.S. war casualties are now reported to have passed the 500,000 mark.