Munich, Germany · February 26, 1932 On this date in 1932 in Germany, Austrian-born Adolf Hitler was granted German citizenship. A decade earlier the Austrian was the unlikely leader of a fringe Populist-nationalist movement, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. In November 1923 he led a “beer-hall putsch” in the Bavarian capital, Munich, hoping to…
Berlin, Germany · February 25, 1941 The first flight of the German prototype Me 321 Gigant (“Giant”) took place on this date in 1941. The previous October German aircraft maker Messerschmitt had been given just 14 days to submit a proposal for a large-capacity troop- and cargo-carrying glider. The prototype glider’s maiden flight encouraged Messerschmitt to enlarge…
Tokyo, Japan · February 24, 1945 The first appearance over Japan in June 1944 of the massive four-engine B‑29 bomber—with its service ceiling of 33,000 ft, an operational range of over 3,200 nautical miles, and a maximum takeoff weight of 133,500 lb—meant that the enemy’s home islands were squarely in the crosshairs of the war’s deadliest delivery system….
Santa Barbara, California · February 23, 1942 Japanese submarines initiated the first shore bombardments of the war with an attack on the U.S. Navy base at Johnston Island in the Pacific in mid-December 1941, just days after Japanese carrier-based planes had destroyed, in their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, one half of the United…
Munich, Germany · February 22, 1943 On this date in 1943 siblings Sophie (age 21) and Hans Scholl (24) and their friend Christoph Probst (24), members of the underground White Rose (Weiße Rose) resistance circle, were charged with sedition for writing, printing, and distributing anti-Nazi leaflets and “tried” by “Hitler’s Hanging Judge,” the notorious Nazi…
SHAEF HQ, Reims, France · February 21, 1945 On this date in 1945 U.S. fighter-bombers attacked the Berghof, Adolf Hitler’s Alpine retreat on the Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden on the Bavarian-Austrian border. The Berghof served as an outpost of Hitler’s Berlin chancellery, making it an obvious target. Further north, in a less symbolic move, more than…
London, England · February 20, 1944 On this date in 1944, while Soviet armed forces were ridding their country of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, U.S. and British air forces embarked on Operation Argument in the skies over the Western Front. Unofficially dubbed “Big Week,” Operation Argument was an intensive six-day air campaign that…
Washington, D.C. · February 19, 1942 On this date in 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. It authorized the War Department to designate “military areas” in the U.S. and exclude from them anyone whom the department felt to be a danger to the security of the nation. Although the order was carefully…
Hsinking (Changchun), Manchukuo · February 18, 1932 The Meiji Restoration of Imperial rule in 1868 resulted in the downfall of Japan’s powerful military commanders, the shoguns, and the Japanese samurai warrior class. Partly as a concession to the samurai, the Japanese government embarked on an aggressive foreign policy in Manchuria in northeastern China and on the…
Task Force 58 Off Truk (Chuuk), Central Pacific · February 17, 1944 Chuuk Lagoon, known up to 1990 as Truk Lagoon, is a sheltered body of water in the Central Pacific north of New Guinea. Consisting of eleven major islands, Chuuk is part of the larger Caroline Islands group. Truk was part of the Spanish…
