World War II

Major Pacific and Asian theater of World War II, conventionally dated here from Japan’s December 1941 attacks through its surrender in 1945; the wider Sino-Japanese conflict began earlier.

Major European theater of World War II fought chiefly between Nazi Germany and its allies and the Soviet Union from the 1941 invasion until 1945.

Global geopolitical rivalry and ideological competition centered on the United States and Soviet Union from the postwar era to the breakup of the USSR.

Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, initiating the European phase of World War II and destabilizing the multiethnic eastern borderlands.

The Japanese aerial attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941, prompting the United States to enter World War II.

The extended struggle for Stalingrad, conventionally dated 17 July 1942–2 February 1943, ending in the defeat of German-led Axis forces and constituting a turning point on the Eastern Front.

Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944.

The 1944 armed uprising of the Polish Home Army and Warsaw residents against German occupation, lasting from 1 August until the capitulation on 2 October. Distinct from the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

German officers attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler and seize control of the Nazi state.

Sophie Scholl and other White Rose resistance members were arrested, tried and executed by Nazi authorities in February 1943.

Czechoslovak operatives attacked Heydrich on 27 May; he died from wounds on 4 June 1942.

Polish troops defended Westerplatte against German attacks at the opening of World War II.

U.S. and Japanese forces fought for Iwo Jima in a major Pacific battle.

Australian and Japanese troops fought along the Kokoda Track in Papua during 1942.

One of the fiercest Pacific campaigns of World War II included the assault on the Maeda Escarpment shown in the film.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, meets Harrer as a child and becomes his student and friend during the late 1940s.

Political center of the Commonwealth during the succession and mobilization period preceding the Ottoman invasion.

Nazi German concentration and extermination camp complex to which Jewish prisoners from occupied Poland were deported and murdered.

The principal setting, undergoing political centralization, military modernization, and the decline of the samurai order.

The U.S. state forming the broader regional setting of the film.

Volcanic island of Japan and major World War II battle site.

One of the five Allied landing beaches in Normandy and the site of the film’s opening battle.