President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the declaration of war against Japan.

Dec. 7 — Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor; also attack the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, Malaya, Thailand, Shanghai and Midway.

Dec. 8 — U.S. and Britain declare war on Japan. Japanese land near Singapore and enter Thailand.

Dec. 9 — China declares war on Japan.

Dec. 10 — Japanese invade the Philippines and seize Guam.

Dec. 23 — Gen. Douglas MacArthur begins a withdrawal from Manila to Bataan; Japanese take Wake Island.

Dec. 25 — British surrender at Hong Kong.

Jan. 11 — Japanese invade Dutch East Indies and Dutch Borneo.

Jan. 18 — German-Japanese-Italian military agreement signed in Berlin.

Feb.15 — British surrender at Singapore.

Feb. 22 — President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders Gen. MacArthur out of the Philippines.

Feb. 27-March 1 — Japan wins the Battle of the Java Sea as the largest U.S. warship in the East Asian waters, the USS Houston, is sunk.

March 11 — Gen. MacArthur leaves Corregidor and is flown to Australia. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright becomes the new U.S. commander.

March 18 — U.S. establishes War Relocation Authority which eventually will round up 120,000 Japanese-Americans and transport them to barb-wired relocation centers. Despite the internment, more than 17,000 Japanese-Americans sign up and fight for the U.S. in Europe, including the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated unit in U.S. history.

March 24 — Adm. Chester Nimitz appointed as commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific theater.

April 9 — U.S. forces on Bataan surrender unconditionally to the Japanese.

April 10 — Bataan Death March begins as more than 70,000 Allied POWs are forced to walk 60 miles under blazing tropical sun without food or water to a new prison camp, resulting in thousands of deaths.

April 18 — Surprise U.S. "Doolittle" B-25 air raid from the USS Hornet against Tokyo boosts Allied morale.

May 6 — Japanese take Corregidor as Gen. Wainwright unconditionally surrenders all U.S. and Filipino forces in the Philippines.

May 7-8 — Japan suffers its first defeat of the war during the Battle of the Coral Sea off New Guinea — the first time in history that two opposing carrier forces fought only using aircraft without the opposing ships ever sighting each other.

June 4-5 — Turning point in the war occurs with a decisive victory for the U.S. in the Battle of Midway as squadrons of U.S. torpedo planes and dive bombers from the USS Enterprise, USS Hornet and USS Yorktown attack and destroy four Japanese carriers and a cruiser, and damage another cruiser and two destroyers. The Yorktown is sunk.

June 7 — Japanese invade the Aleutian Islands.

Some 600-700 American POWs and 5,000 to 10,000 Filipinos die during the Bataan Death March.

Aug. 7 — The first U.S. amphibious landing of the Pacific War occurs as 1st Marine Division invades Tulagi and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

August 8-9 — Major U.S. naval disaster happens off Savo Island, north of Guadalcanal, as eight Japanese warships wage a night attack and sink three U.S. heavy cruisers, an Australian cruiser and one U.S. destroyer, all in less than an hour.

Sept. 9-10 — A Japanese floatplane flies two missions, dropping firebombs on U.S. forests in Oregon — the only bombing of the continental U.S. during the war. Newspapers in the U.S. voluntarily withhold this information.

Sept. 15 — A Japanese submarine torpedo attack near the Solomon Islands results in the sinking of the carrier USS Wasp, destroyer USS O'Brien and damage to the battleship USS North Carolina.

Japanese dive bombers cripple the carrier USS Yorktown during the Battle of Midway.

Oct. 13 — The first U.S. Army troops, the 164th Infantry Regiment, land on Guadalcanal.

Oct. 26 — Battle of Santa Cruz off Guadalcanal between U.S. and Japanese warships results in the loss of the carrier USS Hornet.

Dec. 2 — Enrico Fermi conducts the world's first nuclear chain reaction test at the University of Chicago.

Dec. 31 — Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives permission to his troops to withdraw from Guadalcanal after five months of bloody fighting against U.S. forces.

March 2-4 — U.S. is victorious over the Japanese in the Battle of Bismarck Sea.

April 18 — U.S. code breakers pinpoint the location of Japanese Adm. Yamamoto, flying in a Japanese bomber near Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. Eighteen P-38 fighters then find and shoot down Yamamoto.

May 31 — Japanese end their occupation of the Aleutian Islands as the U.S. completes the capture of Attu.

Aug. 1-2 — A group of 15 U.S. patrol torpedo boats attempts to block Japanese convoys south of Kolombangra Island in the Solomon Islands. PT-109, commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy, is rammed and sunk by the Japanese cruiser Aamagiri, killing two and badly injuring others.

Nov. 1 — U.S. Marines invade Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.

Nov. 20 — U.S. troops invade Makin and Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands.

Feb. 1-7 — U.S. troops capture Kwajalein and Majuro atolls in the Marshall Islands.

June 5 — The first mission by B-29 Superfortress bombers occurs as 77 planes bomb Japanese railway facilities at Bangkok, Thailand.

June 15 — U.S. Marines invade Saipan in the Mariana Islands.

July 27 — American troops complete the liberation of Guam.

Aug. 8 — American troops complete the capture of the Mariana Islands.

Sept. 15 — U.S. troops invade Morotai and the Paulaus.

Oct. 11 — U.S. air raids attack Okinawa.

Oct. 20 — U.S. Sixth Army invades Leyte in the Philippines.

Oct. 23-26 — Battle of Leyte Gulf results in a decisive U.S. naval victory.

U.S. Marines raise the flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Oct. 25 — The first kamikaze attacks occur against U.S. warships in Leyte Gulf. By the end of the war, Japan will have sent an estimated 2,257 pilots on such suicide missions. "The only weapon I feared in the war," Adm. William "Bull" Halsey would say later.

Dec. 15 — U.S. troops invade Mindoro in the Philippines.

Dec. 17 — The U.S. Army Air Force prepares to drop the atomic bomb by establishing the 509th Composite Group to operate the B-29s that will deliver the bomb.

Jan. 3 — Gen. MacArthur is placed in command of all U.S. ground forces and Adm. Nimitz in command of all naval forces in preparation for assaults planned against Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Japan itself.

Feb. 16 — U.S. troops recapture Bataan in the Philippines.

Feb. 19 — U.S. Marines invade Iwo Jima.

March 2 — U.S. airborne troops recapture Corregidor in the Philippines.

March 3 — U.S. and Filipino troops take Manila.

March 9-10 — Fifteen square miles of Tokyo erupts in flames after it is firebombed by 279 B-29s.

March 20 — British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma.

April 1 — U.S. Tenth Army invades Okinawa.

April 7 — U.S. carrier-based fighters sink the super battleship Yamato and several escort vessels which had planned to attack U.S. forces at Okinawa.

April 12 — President Roosevelt dies and is succeeded by Harry S Truman.

May 8 — Victory in Europe Day.

May 20 — Japanese begin withdrawal from China.

May 25 — U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff approve Operation Olympic, the invasion of Japan, scheduled for Nov. 1.

June 22 — Japanese resistance ends on Okinawa as the U.S. Tenth Army completes its capture.

July 5 — Philippines is declared liberated.

July 10 — 1,000 bomber raids against Japan begin.

July 16 — First atomic bomb is successfully tested in the U.S.

July 29 — A Japanese submarine sinks the cruiser USS Indianapolis, resulting in the loss of 881 men.

Aug. 6 — First atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima from a B-29 flown by Col. Paul Tibbets.

Aug. 8 — Soviet Union. declares war on Japan, invades Manchuria.

Aug. 9 — Second atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki from a B-29 flown by Maj. Charles Sweeney.

Japanese POWs bow their heads on hearing emper-or's surrender announcement.

Aug. 14 — Japanese accept unconditional surrender; Gen. MacArthur is appointed to head the occupation.

Aug. 16 — Gen. Wainwright, a POW since May 6, 1942, is released from a prison camp in Manchuria.

Aug. 30 — The British reoccupy Hong Kong.

Sept. 2 — Japan formally surrenders aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay as 1,000 carrier-based planes fly overhead; President Truman declares VJ Day.