Reichstag refers to the governing institution of the German parliament (1871-1945) as well as to the actual parliament building in the German capital of Berlin. On February 27, 1933, an arsonist set fire to the Reichstag building. The Nazis, led by Hitler, blamed the fire on Communist agitators and used the event to suspend constitutional rights (Reichstag Fire Decree). This decree gave expansive power to the government and was instrumental in solidifying Nazi control over the government in 1933.
To facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in portions of the biblical land of Israel, Great Britain was granted a Mandate for Palestine in 1920, to govern affairs of the territory in cooperation with both Jewish and Arab councils. Following the United Nations resolution to partition Palestine of November 29, 1947, the British Mandate was ended, clearing the way for the creation of an independent State of Israel on May 14, 1948.
On August 6, 1945 the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. This was the first use of a nuclear weapon in the field. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, pushing Japan to surrender on August 15, 1945 and ending the war in the Pacific. Both cities were devastated and the combined death toll in the immediate aftermath of the blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki exceeded 100,000, with many more deaths recorded in subsequent months.
An administrative region of Nazi-occupied Poland established in October 1939 following the German invasion. The "General Government for the Occupied Polish Region"--with the cities of Warsaw, Lublin and Krakow--was placed under Nazi civilian administration and served as a collection point for populations deported from other areas of the Third Reich, who were condemned to slave labor or mass extermination. [...]
Under the codename Operation “Dynamo”, Allied forces evacuated 338,000 British and French troops from Dunkirk, France, to Britain between May 26-June 4, 1940. Allied troops were surrounded by Nazi forces after the German military offensive into Belgium, the Netherlands and France in May 1940, forcing their retreat across the English Channel and clearing the path for the Nazi occupation of France.
