This is not merely a timeline of the events of the Pacific War, but an overall view to give you a better idea as to what is going on in the world in that era, rather than just one small piece of the world.

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1940

American novelist Carson McCullers publishes The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour star in the film Road to Singapore.
British air victory in the Battle of Britain prevents the German invasion of England.
Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn star in the film The Philadelphia Story.
Ernest Hemingway publishes For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Exiled revolutionary Leon Trotsky is assassinated in Mexico on Stalin's orders.
General Charles de Gaulle rallies Free French resistance in London.
German forces reach Paris; Vichy France under Marshal Petain signs an armistice.
Germany invades Denmark and Norway; Allied forces aid Norway but are defeated.
Italian forces invade Egypt but are repulsed; the British invade Libya.
Italy declares war on the Allies and invades southern France.
Japan joins the Axis alliance and occupies northern French Indochina (Vietnam).
King Carol II of Romania abdicates; Romania and Hungary join the Axis forces.
Prehistoric cave paintings are discovered at Lascaux in France.
Raymond Chandler publishes the detective novel Farewell, My Lovely.
The British expeditionary force is evacuated from Dunkerque in France.
The German army begins a blitzkrieg attack on Holland, Belgium, and France.
The Soviet Union annexes the Baltic States of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.
The Tacoma Narrows bridge collapses because of oscillations caused by the wind.
Winston Churchill becomes British prime minister after Chamberlain resigns.
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1941

A British task force sinks the German pocket battleship Bismarck.
Baseball player Joe DiMaggio sets a new record for hitting in 56 consecutive games.
Churchill and Roosevelt's Atlantic Charter meeting establishes war and peace aims.
German U-boats inflict heavy losses on British shipping in the Battle of the Atlantic.
German paratroopers land on Crete and capture the island from the British.
German playwright Bertholt Brecht writes Mother Courage and Her Children.
Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece; British forces are evacuated to Crete.
Germany invades the Soviet Union.
Gutzon Borglum completes the sculptured heads of four presidents at Mount Rushmore.
Ho Chi Minh organizes the Viet Minh to combat the Japanese in Indochina.
Japanese forces capture Hong Kong and invade Malaya and the Philippines.
Karsh's photographic portrait of Churchill becomes a symbol of British resistance.
Nazi leader Rudolf Hess flies to England on a quixotic peace mission.
Orson Welles directs the film Citizen Kane.
President Roosevelt talks of Four Freedoms in his State of the Union speech.
Swedish film actress Greta Garbo retires.
The German Africa Corps under Erwin Rommel begins an offensive in North Africa.
The German Blitz, the nighttime bombing of London, is at its height.
The German advance on Moscow is halted by the winter weather.
The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor; America enters World War II.
The Japanese occupy Indochina and move into Cambodia (Kampuchea) and Thailand.
The Lend-Lease Act allows the transfer of U.S. war materials to Britain and China.
The U.S. freezes Japanese assets in retaliation for Japan's territorial aggression.
U.S. troops occupy Iceland to forestall its occupation by Germany.
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1942

A Russian counterattack isolates the Sixth Army at Stalingrad; Hitler orders no retreat.
A U.S. fleet defeats the Japanese at the Battle of Midway.
Actor James Cagney wins an Academy Award for the film Yankee Doodle Dandie.
American B-25 bombers make the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo.
American and Filipino forces retreat to the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines.
American crooner Bing Crosby records the hit song White Christmas.
American forces in the Philippines surrender; the Bataan death march begins.
American humorist James Thurber publishes The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
French writer Albert Camus publishes The Stranger.
Gandhi is arrested after the Quit India movement demands a British withdrawal.
General MacArthur is ordered to the leave the Philippines; he vows I shall return.
German forces occupy Vichy France; the French fleet is scuttled in Toulon harbor.
Hitler proposes the Final Solution of the Jewish Question; the Holocaust begins.
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman star in the classic film Casablanca.
Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti directs his first film Ossessione.
Manhattan Project scientists under Fermi produce the first controlled chain reaction.
Rommel's Africa Corps capture Tobruk and drive the British back to Egypt.
The British Eighth Army under Montgomery begins a new drive into Libya.
The German advance in the Caucasus is halted at Stalingrad (now Volgograd).
The German advance on Egypt is halted at the Battle of El-Alamein.
The Japanese conquer Malaya, Singapore, Indonesia and Burma.
The RAF makes the first 1,000 bomber raid on the German city of Cologne.
The Soviet southern offensive is halted; the Germans advance on the Caucasus.
The U.S. government transfers 110,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps.
U.S. Marines invade Guadalcanal, beginning the campaign of re-conquest.
U.S. forces under General Eisenhower invade Morocco and Algeria.
V-2 (Vengeance Weapon 2) rockets are tested at Peenemunde in Germany.
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1943

American aircraft join the RAF in round the clock bombing of Germany.
American author Carson McCullers publishes The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.
American writer Ayn Rand publishes The Fountainhead.
Churchill and Roosevelt meet at Casablanca to plan their war strategy.
Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin meet at the Tehran Conference.
French existentialist writer Jean Paul Sartre publishes Being and Nothingness.
French writer and feminist Simone de Beauvoir publishes She Came to Stay.
German paratroopers rescue Mussolini.
Marine explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau invents the Aqualung (scuba).
Marshal Badoglio signs an armistice with the Allies; Italy declares war on Germany.
Mussolini is deposed; Marshal Badoglio assumes power in Italy.
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's musical Oklahoma! is produced.
Robert Oppenheimer establishes the Los Alamos laboratory to build the atomic bomb.
Singer Paul Robeson stars in the title role of the Broadway production of Othello.
The Allied armies invade Sicily.
The Allies invade the southern tip of Italy.
The British and American armies link up in Africa; 250,000 Axis prisoners are taken.
The German Sixth Army surrenders at Stalingrad; 100,000 are taken prisoner.
The Germans suppress a revolt by Polish Jews; the Warsaw ghetto is destroyed.
The Russian offensive reaches the Dnepr River; Kiev and Smolensk are recaptured.
The Russians defeat the Germans at Kursk in the largest tank battle in history.
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1944

A British airborne landing at Arnhem in the Netherlands is repulsed by the Germans.
Aaron Copland composes the ballet Appalachian Spring.
Allied D-Day invasion forces land at Normandy in northern France.
Allied forces break out from the Normandy enclave and liberate Paris.
Allied forces in Italy land behind the German Gustav Line at Anzio.
American aircraft from the Marianas begin the strategic bombing of Japan.
American forces under General Mark Clark occupy Rome.
An Allied invasion force lands in southern France.
British forces begin the reconquest of Burma from the Japanese.
British forces occupy Athens and intervene in a communist inspired civil war.
Child film actors Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor star in National Velvet.
Communist resistance fighters under Josip Broz-Tito liberate Yugoslavia.
English writer Somerset Maugham publishes The Razor's Edge.
Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson dies from an accidental drug overdose.
French novelist Colette writes Gigi.
German officers attempt to assassinate Hitler.
Oswald Avery determines that DNA is the hereditary material of the cell.
Polish resistance fighters are defeated by the Germans in the Warsaw Uprising.
Romania and Bulgaria sign an armistice with the Allies and declare war on Germany.
Roosevelt is reelected for an unprecedented fourth term; Truman becomes vice-president.
Soviet forces cross the Romanian border and reconquer the Crimea.
Soviet forces reach the suburbs of Warsaw in Poland.
Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie is produced.
The G.I. Bill of Rights is established to provide assistance to war veterans.
The German army launches the Battle of the Bulge, its last counteroffensive.
The Soviet's relieve the city of Leningrad after a German siege lasting 890 days.
The U.S. First Army occupies Aachen -- the first German city to fall to the Allies.
The World Bank is established to assist European postwar recovery.
U.S. Marines invade Guam and Saipan in the Marianas.
U.S. forces under Admiral Nimitz defeat a Japanese fleet in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
V-1 (and later the V-2) weapons of vengeance are launched against London.
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1945

Advancing Allied armies discover Nazi extermination camps.
Allied forces cross the Rhine and begin the final assault on Germany.
British actor Laurence Olivier wins critical acclaim for his portrayal of Richard III.
British author George Orwell publishes the satirical fable Animal Farm.
Charlie "Bird" Parker and Dizzy Gillespie make the first bebop recordings.
Churchill is defeated in the British elections by Labour leader Clement Attlee.
Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin meet at the Yalta Conference.
Churchill, Truman and Stalin hold the last wartime conference at Potsdam.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Yemen form the Arab League.
French dramatist Jean Giraudoux writes the play The Madwoman of Chaillot.
German jet aircraft are unable to prevent mass Allied air attacks.
German playwright Bertholt Brecht writes The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
German rocket engineer Wernher Von Braun continues his research in the U.S.
Germany and Austria are divided between the Allies into 4 zones of occupation.
Hitler commits suicide in his Berlin bunker; Germany surrenders to the Allies.
Ho Chi Minh proclaims the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Indonesian nationalists led by Sukarno proclaim the nation independent.
Korea is divided between U.S. and Soviet occupation forces along the 38th parallel.
Marshal Zhukov's Soviet troops launch the final attack on Berlin.
Mussolini is killed by Italian partisans.
Nationalists and Communist forces resume their civil war in China.
Romulo Betancourt becomes president of Venezuela for the first time.
Roosevelt dies; Harry S. Truman is inaugurated as the 33rd U.S. president.
Singer Frank Sinatra stars in the film musical Anchors Aweigh.
U.S. forces under MacArthur liberate the Philippines.
U.S. Marines invade the Japanese islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Suicide attacks by Japanese kamikaze pilots are unable to stem the U.S. advances.
The Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
The U.S. drops atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The trial of Nazi war criminals begins at Nuremberg in Germany.
Tito becomes head of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Japan signs an armistice with the Allies, ending World War II.
General MacArthur heads the U.S. occupation forces in Japan.
The United Nations is formed; Trygve Halvdan Lie becomes secretary-general (1946).
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