Soviet forces defeat the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad

The All-India Congress Committee adopted the Quit India resolution in Bombay on 8 August, demanding an end to British rule; Gandhi urged mass nonviolent struggle. British authorities arrested national...

British-led forces began an offensive near El Alamein in Egypt, stopping Axis plans to reach the Suez Canal. The battle’s logistics depended on colonial and Commonwealth troops, port labor, and...

U.S. and British forces landed in Morocco and Algeria under Operation Torch. The campaign unfolded in territories controlled by Vichy France and under French colonial rule. Moroccan and Algerian...

The Red Army launched Operation Uranus, encircling German and allied forces around Stalingrad. Soviet victory drew on the labor, sacrifice, and mobilization of a multiethnic state whose peoples had...

The Allied declaration of 17 December condemned Nazi Germany’s mass murder of Europe’s Jews and promised punishment. It acknowledged reports of systematic killing but did not produce an immediate...

Jewish resistance organizations began an armed uprising when German forces entered the Warsaw Ghetto to deport its remaining residents. They resisted for nearly a month despite overwhelming German...

Axis forces in Tunisia surrendered to Allied armies, ending the North African campaign. More than 230,000 Axis troops were captured. The campaign had been fought across colonized North Africa, where...

British, American, and Canadian forces began Operation Husky, invading Sicily. The campaign weakened Mussolini’s government and opened the route to mainland Italy. Sicilians experienced bombing,...

New Viceroy Archibald Wavell visited Calcutta as famine devastated Bengal. War priorities, colonial procurement and shipping policies, inflation, crop disruption, and unequal access to food...

Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met in Tehran to coordinate the defeat of Nazi Germany and discuss the postwar order. Their negotiations focused on great-power strategy and borders. Colonized...