The History of the Twentieth Century

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, it freed the Nazis from having to worry about international opinion. Hitler and his followers could now do as they pleased.

With the other Great Powers involved in their own wars, Stalin and the USSR are now free to claim the territories Germany granted to their "sphere of influence."

Adolf Hitler wanted to attack in the west immediately after the fall of Poland, but unfavorable weather kept postponing the offensive. Then a copy of the plan fell into Allied hands.

In the final year before the war began, Winston Churchill's denunciations of Nazi Germany began to seem prescient, but Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain fiercely resisted calls to invite Churchill into the Cabinet until war came. Then Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty, for the second time in his career.

Improbably, the nation of Norway finds itself the front line of the Second World War.

The Allied debacle in Norway sparked a revolt in the British Parliament against the Chamberlain government's conduct of the war.

After months of delays and a diversion into Denmark and Norway, Hitler finally gets his Western offensive.

After German armor cut off the Allied First Army Group in Belgium, the Royal Navy attempts an evacuation of the trapped forces from the port of Dunkirk.

After the Dunkirk evacuation, the next stage of the Western offensive began, aimed at capturing Paris and defeating France.

The world reacts to the Fall of France.

We examine the advances in aviation technology between the World Wars.

Theories of strategic bombing in the 1930s suggested that it alone might be enough to win a war. But the development of radar meant that the bomber might not always get through after all.

When the Churchill government showed no willingness to talk peace, Germany attempted the world's first purely aerial military campaign, to weaken Britain in preparation for invasion, or perhaps even to defeat the enemy entirely by air.

The 1939-40 New York World's Fair.

Pulp fiction was an important form of entertainment in the twentieth century, peaking in popularity around 1940. Pulp fiction came in a variety of genres and was the birthplace for a new one: science fiction.

More on various genres of pulp fiction, and how they led to the development of comic books.

America was preoccupied with domestic issues during the run-up to the war. When the war came, the Roosevelt Administration looked for ways to aid the Allies despite the limitations of the Neutrality Act.

When France collapsed, Roosevelt redoubled his effort to aid Britain. But there was also a Presidential election to think about; Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term.

Germany found that it could not defeat the British on their home island; the UK was unable to fight the Germans in Europe. So what next?

Benito Mussolini wanted to prove that Italy was an equal partner with Germany in the Axis alliance, so he began a war with Greece.