World War II
Germany invades Poland, starting history's largest war
On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland. The war between the Axis and the Allies engulfed much of the world and killed tens of millions, including the victims of the Holocaust. It ended with Germany's surrender in May and Japan's in September 1945.
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Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — 11 years earlier
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — 6 years earlier
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — 3 years earlier
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — 2 years later
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — 14 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — 10 years earlier
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — 3 years earlier
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — 2 years later
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — 3 years later
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — 6 years later
Middle East
- 1915 Armenian genocide — 24 years earlier
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — 23 years earlier
- 1916–1918 The Arab Revolt — 23 years earlier
- 1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — 7 years earlier
- 1948 Founding of the State of Israel — 9 years later
Africa
- 1922 Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb — 17 years earlier
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — 4 years earlier
- 1956 The Suez Crisis — 17 years later
- 1958 Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart — 19 years later
- 1960 Year of Africa — 21 years later
Asia
- 1931 China floods — 8 years earlier
- 1934–1935 Long March — 5 years earlier
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — 6 years later
- 1945 Indonesia proclaims independence — 6 years later
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — 14 years later
Americas
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — 25 years earlier
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — 10 years earlier
- c. 1930–1936 Dust Bowl — 9 years earlier
- 1945 ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic computer — 6 years later
- 1947 Invention of the transistor — 8 years later
Oceania
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — 3 years earlier
- 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — 2 years later
- 1942 The Battle of Midway — 3 years later
- 1954 The Castle Bravo test at Bikini — 15 years later
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty — 20 years later
Alive at the time
- Nikola Tesla (aged 83)
- Mahatma Gandhi (aged 70)
- Winston Churchill (aged 65)
- Joseph Stalin (aged 61)
- Albert Einstein (aged 60)
- Pablo Picasso (aged 58)
- Adolf Hitler (aged 50)
- Charlie Chaplin (aged 50)
- Mao Zedong (aged 46)
- Nelson Mandela (aged 21)