Season 7· 1939 - 1945 AD

WW2Understand World War II, one battlefield at a time

From the beaches of Normandy to the ruins of Stalingrad, from the North African desert to the islands of the Pacific: the greatest conflict in history, told up close. The people, places and decisions that still shape our world today.

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Chapter 01

Six years that changed the world

The world stands on the abyss.

From the beaches of Normandy to the deserts of Africa, the fate of modernity is decided. Choose your path through the smoke-blackened ruins and the strategic headquarters of an era that changed everything.

Chapter 02

Six theaters. One war.

American paratroopers descend over Normandy at night through flak and tracer fire, a burning transport plane in the distance

The Western Front: from Normandy to the Rhine

On the night before D-Day, thousands of paratroopers dropped over Normandy. From there, the Allies fought their way to the Rhine and into Germany by 1945.

An American battleship fires its main guns on turquoise Pacific water as a ship explodes on the horizon

The Pacific War: from Pearl Harbor to Iwo Jima

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the US and Japan fought for every island in the Pacific, with aircraft carriers, battleships and landings all the way to Iwo Jima.

A German Tiger tank fires at dusk in a snowy Russian winter landscape

The Eastern Front: from Moscow to Stalingrad

The largest and deadliest theater of the war: from the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 through the frozen winter outside Moscow to the turning point at Stalingrad.

British Spitfires in a dogfight over the English coast as a German aircraft explodes

The Battle of Britain

In the summer of 1940, the Royal Air Force defended the skies over England against the German Luftwaffe. Its victory stopped a German invasion.

British gunners fire an artillery piece at night in the desert near El Alamein, the muzzle flash lighting up the sand

The North African Campaign: the Battle of El Alamein

In October 1942, nearly a thousand British guns opened fire in the night. The battle in the Egyptian desert turned the tide in North Africa.

French Sherman tanks roll through Paris as cheering crowds with tricolor flags and flowers line the street

Liberation: Paris celebrates

On 25 August 1944, French tanks rolled into Paris and the city celebrated its liberation. In May 1945, the war in Europe finally came to an end.

Chapter 03

These and many more battlegrounds await you

A German Me 262 jet fighter streaks past American B-17 bombers through flak — The first operational jet fighter: the Me 262

Depth charges explode underwater around a German U-boat in the Atlantic — The Battle of the Atlantic

US Marines with a flamethrower and Sherman tanks fight a Japanese cave bunker in the rain — Island fighting in the Pacific

Resistance fighters in a forest watch supply crates float down on parachutes — Supplies for the Resistance

British warships in the harbor of Alexandria at sunset, with minarets and palm trees in the foreground — The naval base at Alexandria

An Italian frogman steers a manned torpedo underwater — Frogmen in the Mediterranean

An American paratrooper fires around a corner in a narrow street of a Normandy town — Street fighting in Normandy

Allied tanks and soldiers in battle in the North African desert, German tanks burning behind them — Tank battle in North Africa

An elderly man with a lantern guides a downed pilot through a forest at night, mountains behind them — Escape lines for downed airmen

A German soldier holds a StG 44 assault rifle in a misty forest — The StG 44 assault rifle

Commandos in berets watch from cover as a train explodes in a snowy mountain valley — Sabotage behind enemy lines

A bombardier at the Norden bombsight in the glass nose of a B-17 bomber as flak bursts all around — The Norden bombsight

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Chapter 04

What's inside the season

12h+of playtime

250lessonseach with its own collectible card

750quiz questionsto test what you've learned

The whole picture · 250 entries across five categories

50 people50 places50 events50 ideas50 objects

Chapter 05

WW2 facts: what you need to know

World War II was the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. More than 60 countries took part, over 100 million people served in uniform, and an estimated 70 to 85 million people died – most of them civilians.

When did WW2 start?

On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. In Asia, Japan had already been at war with China since 1937.

What caused WW2?

The aftermath of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, the Great Depression and the rise of Nazism set the stage. Hitler's Germany rearmed, reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, annexed Austria in 1938 and dismantled Czechoslovakia in 1939, while Britain and France pursued appeasement. The Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 finally cleared the way for the invasion of Poland.

Who fought whom?

On one side were the Axis powers: Germany, Italy and Japan. On the other were the Allies, led by Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States and China. The Soviet Union joined the Allies after Germany invaded it in June 1941, and the United States entered the war after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Where was WW2 fought?

The war raged on the Western and Eastern Fronts in Europe, in North Africa, across the Atlantic, in the skies over Europe and throughout the Pacific. Key turning points include the Battle of Britain in 1940, Stalingrad in 1942–43, El Alamein in 1942, Midway in 1942 and the D-Day landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944.

What was the Holocaust?

Nazi Germany murdered around six million European Jews, as well as hundreds of thousands of Roma and Sinti and many others. The Holocaust is the greatest crime of the war and an inseparable part of its history.

When did WW2 end?

In Europe, the war ended with Germany's unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. In the Pacific, Japan surrendered after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet declaration of war; the formal surrender was signed on 2 September 1945.

What came after the war?

The United Nations was founded in 1945, Europe was divided, and the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union began. Many of today's borders, alliances and institutions trace back to these six years.

In HistoryBytes, you experience World War II in short episodes: the people, places, events, ideas and objects that shaped the era. Piece by piece, you build the whole picture – from the invasion of Poland to Japan's surrender.