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1934 21 October: In China, Mao Zedong begins “Long March” to Shensi Province

1936 25 November: Japan signs Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany

1937 7 July: “Marco Polo bridge incident” sparks Japanese invasion of China

13 December: Japanese seizure of Nanjing precipitates massacre of Chinese

1939 May–August: Soviet and Japanese forces clash at Nomonhan on the Manchuria-Mongolia border: Japan decisively worsted

23 August: Nazi-Soviet Pact signed

1 September: Germany invades Poland

3 September: France, Britain, India, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany

1940 January: U.S. abrogates 1911 Treaty of Commerce with Japan

22 June: France signs armistice with Germany; Japan insists on closure of Haiphong–Yunnan rail link through French Indochina, supplying Chiang Kai-shek. Eight hundred French troops killed resisting Japanese forces advancing into Indochina.

26 June: U.S.A. imposes embargo on iron and steel scrap shipments to Japan

16 September: U.S. Selective Service Act becomes law, imposing the draft

27 September: Japan signs Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy

5 November: Roosevelt wins third presidential term

1941 10 January: Siam invades French Indochina

31 January: Siam and French Indochina accept Japanese “mediation” Japan occupies northern Indochina

22 June: Hitler invades the Soviet Union

26 July: U.S. imposes oil embargo on Japan and freezes Japanese assets

27 July: Japanese occupy Saigon and enter Cambodia

18 October: General Tojo replaces Prince Konoe as Japanese prime minister

7 December: Japanese aircraft bomb U.S. Pacific bases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Wake Island; Midway; Philippines

8 December: Japanese invade Malaya and Siam, Bangkok government surrenders

8 December: The United States declares war on Japan. Japan enters into a state of war with the United States and Britain.

9 December: Nationalist China declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy

10 December: Japanese sink British warships Prince of Wales and Repulse off Malaya, begin landing on Luzon, Philippines

14 December: Japanese advance into Burma

16 December: Japanese land in Borneo

20 December: Japanese attack Dutch East Indies

22 December: Japanese land at Lingayen, Philippines

24 December: Japanese seize Wake Island

25 December: Hong Kong falls

1942 25 January: Siam declares war on Britain and the United States

2 February: Maj.-Gen. Joseph Stilwell appointed C-in-C to Chiang Kai-shek and C-in-C U.S. forces in the China theatre

3 February: Japan invades Dutch East Indies; Japanese bombers attack Port Moresby, New Guinea

8 February: President Quezon, on besieged Corregidor, asks Roosevelt for immediate Philippines independence, so that the islands can declare themselves neutral and call upon both Japanese and Americans to leave. FDR refuses.

15 February: British garrison of Singapore surrenders to the Japanese; Japanese bomb Darwin, in northern Australia

23 February: Japanese submarine bombards oil refinery at Santa Barbara, California

27 February: Japanese victorious in Battle of the Java Sea

8 March: New Japanese landings on New Guinea

11 March: MacArthur escapes from the Philippines

17 March: MacArthur appointed Allied commander in the south-west Pacific

6 April: Japanese forces land on the Admiralty Islands and on Bougainville in the Solomons, and bomb two towns in eastern India

9 April: U.S. troops on the Bataan Peninsula surrender

18 April: Sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers, launched from the carrier Hornet and led by Gen. James Doolittle, bomb Tokyo; captured U.S. aircrew beheaded by the Japanese

1 May: Japanese take Mandalay

6 May: U.S. forces on Corregidor, Philippines, surrender to the Japanese

7 May: Battle of the Coral Sea costs Japanese and Americans a carrier sunk and another badly damaged on each side, but forces the Japanese for the first time to abandon an amphibious assault against Port Moresby, New Guinea

15 May: In China, Japanese execute one hundred Chinese families in reprisal for