The defining features of the nation of Panama are its abundant wildlife and that it is the place where the world's two largest oceans are at their closest.

The upper levels of Japanese government (and, more important, the military) increasingly came to the view that war with the United States was necessary if Japan was to survive.

At the end of the rasputitsa, the mud season, the German Army had one final, narrow opportunity, to win the war against the USSR before winter.

Even before the first German soldier crossed the frontier into the USSR, the Nazi government in Berlin had a plan for administering occupied Russia.

The German invasion of the USSR went brilliantly for the first 2-3 weeks, but instead of collapsing as expected, the Red Army only got stronger.

On June 22, 1941, Germany began an invasion of its erstwhile trade partner, the USSR. 

The Dust Bowl ravages the central United States, Charles Lindbergh's infant son is kidnapped, the America First movement opposes US involvement in the war.

Germany executes its invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece, and the Axis encourages an anti-British coup in Iraq.

As Germany made preparations to assist its ally Italy in the war against Greece, a coup in Yugoslavia prompted Adolf Hitler to order the invasion of that country as well. 

In summer of 1940, even as the Battle of Britain was just getting started, Adolf Hitler was already laying plans for war with the Soviet Union.