This is where the Daily Chronicles are posted
Cologne, Germany • May 30, 1942 During World War II in Europe Allied air power had several principle objectives. Foremost among them were destroying Nazi Germany’s war-making capacity, oil installations, and transportation networks; demoralizing Germans by laying waste to their population centers, where mostly civilians lived, many working for the military-industrial firms in the area;…
Dongo near Lake Como, Northern Italy • April 27, 1945 On this rainy date in 1945, with the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) in Italy in full retreat—indeed, their commanders had signed surrender documents on this date—61-year-old Italian strongman Benito Mussolini was en route to what he hoped would be safe haven in neutral Switzerland and from…
Berlin, Germany • April 25, 1945 In the same month World War II began in Europe, September 1939, the German Army Weapons Agency (Heereswaffenamt, or HWA) placed all programs associated with the nation’s nascent nuclear energy project under its authority. The weapons program eventually expanded into three main efforts: setting up a nuclear reactor (which…
German 12th Army HQ, Larissa, Greece • April 21, 1941 On this date in 1941 representatives of the Greek government, leaderless after Prime Minister Alexandros Koryzis committed suicide three days earlier, signed a document of capitulation at the headquarters of the German 12th Army at Larissa in Central Greece. Fourteen Greek divisions laid down their…
London, England • April 13, 1939 Following the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia’s German-speaking Sudetenland in October 1938 and the invasion and incorporation of the rest of Czechoslovakia into the Reich in mid-March 1939, Great Britain, France, Poland, Greece, and Romania entered into mutual assistance pacts in case of a military invasion by “a European power,”…
Japanese Naval Base, Truk Lagoon, South Pacific • March 20, 1943 Although Japanese submarines attacked far fewer ships than the Allies or Germany did, they were involved in a dozen or so documented atrocities—naval war crimes—against crew survivors. On this date in 1943 Rear Admiral Takero Kouta, commander of the First Submarine Group at the large Japanese…
Rome, Italy • March 2, 1939 On this date in 1939 in Vatican City, Roman Catholic Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected pope on his sixty-third birthday. His coronation took place ten days later. Son of a Vatican lawyer, Pacelli took the name Pius XII. Pius’ actions during the Holocaust are controversial. Critics have accused him of…
Berlin, Germany • February 28, 1933 On this date in 1933, with the Reichstag (German parliament building) still smoldering following the fire allegedly set by 24‑year-old Dutch Communist Marinus van der Lubbe the day before, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler persuaded 87‑year-old President Paul von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Edict. The emergency decree suspended…
London, England • February 27, 1942 Under the cover of darkness on this date in 1942, 119 British paratroopers kicked off Operation Biting when they parachuted into Nazi-occupied Normandy close to a German radar station in the parish (commune) of La Poterie-Cap-d’Antifer, 12 miles/19 km north of the large French harbor of Le Havre. A number of what…
Anzio, Italy • February 16, 1944 On this date in 1944, a day after the historic Benedictine abbey at Monte Cassino was bombed by Allied aircraft, the Germans launched their long-delayed counterattack on the Allied-held beachhead at Anzio, a small Mediterranean resort and port some 35 miles/56 kilometers south of the Italian capital, Rome. Just the month…