May 30, 1942–May 1945 The British bomb Köln (Cologne), in the start of a bombing campaign that brings the war home to Germany. Over the next three years Anglo-American bombing reduces urban Germany to rubble.
January 22, 1944 Allied troops land successfully near Anzio, just south of Rome.
March 19, 1944 Fearing Hungary’s intention to desert the Axis partnership, the Germans occupy Hungary and compel the regent, Admiral Miklos Horthy, to appoint a pro-German minister president.
June 4, 1944 Allied troops liberate Rome. Within six weeks, Anglo-American bombers could hit targets in eastern Germany for the first time.
June 6, 1944 British, US, and Canadian troops successfully land on the Normandy beaches of France, opening a “Second Front” against the Germans.
June 22, 1944 The Soviets launch a massive offensive in eastern Belorussia (Belarus), destroying the German Army Group Center and driving westward to the Vistula River toward Warsaw in central Poland by August 1.
July 25, 1944 Allied forces break out of the Normandy beachhead and race eastward towards Paris.
August 1, 1944–October 5, 1944 The Home Army (the non-communist Polish resistance) rises up against the Germans in an effort to liberate Warsaw before the arrival of Soviet troops. The Soviet advance halts on the east bank of the Vistula. On October 5, the Germans accept the surrender of the remnants of the Home Army forces fighting in Warsaw.
August 15, 1944 Allied forces land in southern France near Nice and advance rapidly towards the Rhine River to the northeast.
August 20–25, 1944 Allied troops reach Paris. On August 25, Free French forces, supported by Allied troops, enter the French capital. By September, the Allies reach the German border. By December, virtually all of France, most of Belgium, and part of the southern Netherlands are liberated.
August 23, 1944 The appearance of Soviet troops on the Prut River induces the Romanian opposition to overthrow the Antonescu regime. The new government concludes an armistice and immediately switches sides in the war. The Romanian turnaround compels Bulgaria to surrender on September 8, and the Germans to evacuate Greece, Albania, and southern Yugoslavia in October.
August 29, 1944–October 28, 1944 Under the leadership of the Slovak National Council, consisting of both Communists and non-Communists, underground Slovak resistance units rise against the Germans and the indigenous fascist Slovak regime. In late October, the Germans capture Banská Bystrica, the headquarters of the uprising, and put an end to organized resistance.
September 4, 1944 Finland agrees to sign an armistice with the Soviet Union and to expel German forces.
October 15, 1944 The Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross movement carries out a coup d’état with German support to prevent the Hungarian government from pursuing negotiations for surrender to the Soviets.
October 20, 1944 US troops land in the Philippines.
December 16, 1944 The Germans launch a final offensive in the west, known as the Battle of the Bulge, in an attempt to re-conquer Belgium and split the Allied forces along the German border. By January 1, 1945, the Germans are in retreat.