🛩️The Second World War

How Britain came through its greatest 20th-century test.

1. Hitler comes to power

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   Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933. He built up arms and wanted to conquer more land for the German people.

2. Britain declares war 1939

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   When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Britain and France declared war in order to stop his aggression.

   so when he invaded Poland

3. Churchill becomes PM

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   In 1940, as German forces advanced through France, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and Britain's war leader, refusing to surrender to the Nazis.

   then as France fell

4. Dunkirk evacuation

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   As France fell, more than 300,000 British and French soldiers were rescued from the beaches around Dunkirk, helped by civilian volunteers in small boats.

   and at this crisis

5. The Battle of Britain

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   Germany needed to control the air first. Britain resisted with its fighter planes and won the crucial aerial battle, the Battle of Britain, in the summer of 1940.

   then Hitler tried to invade, but

6. Victory in 1945

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   After D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944, the Allies comprehensively defeated Germany in May 1945, and the war against Japan ended in August 1945.