Key
At the selected date, the colour of each place shows who held it. To learn its story, click or tap a country or marker.
Drag to move · scroll to zoom · click a country or marker
To move the map on a touch screen, drag it. Pinch to zoom, or double-tap to zoom in.
The international order built after 1918 was meant to keep the peace. In the 1930s, it faced challenges in Asia and Europe, and failed to prevent war in either. Japan’s army manufactured an incident at Mukden in 1931 and used it to seize Manchuria; a full war on China followed. Germany and Italy, meanwhile, tested the same weakness through rearmament, Abyssinia, the Rhineland, Spain, Austria, Munich and Prague. Each gamble went unpunished, giving encouragement for the next.
Twelve chapters trace these two roads to war until they meet at Pearl Harbor. As the map darkens, charcoal identifies the aggressors and red shows the ground they hold by force. Scrub the timeline and examine a territory to follow the changes; then take the Field Exam and see whether you can read the 1930s as the chancelleries should have.
Keys: ←→ chapters · space play time · +− zoom · ⌘K search · ? all keys.
You can return to the library of twenty-one atlases at any time: select the balloon at the top left.