WORLD WAR II   -  TIME LINE

For Americans, World War II began on December 7, 1941. But war had been going on for years elsewhere. For the Chinese, war began in 1931, when Japan invaded northeastern China, setting up a Japanese state called Manchukuo. By 1938 Japan occupied much of China and had taken Nanking, longtime capital of China, where Japanese troops killed more than 42,000 civilians. For Europeans, war began in 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. The war in Europe would end in May 1945 and in the Pacific in August 1945.......
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/history/wwii_timeline.html