- Africa
Execution of Omar al-Mukhtar
The resistance leader Omar al-Mukhtar, the 'Lion of the Desert', is captured and publicly hanged at Soluch, breaking organised resistance in Cyrenaica.
Era: Italian Colonisation and the Resistance
Sources: Omar al-Mukhtar · Wikipedia, Soluch concentration camp · Wikipedia
- South America
The Chaco War with Paraguay
Bolivia is defeated by Paraguay in a brutal war over the Gran Chaco, losing most of the disputed land and discrediting the old governing order.
Era: Lost Wars, the Sea, and the Tin Republic
Sources: Chaco War · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Bolivia: A Country Study · Library of Congress, Federal Research Division
- North America
Uprising and la matanza
A peasant and Indigenous revolt in the coffee districts, linked to Farabundo Marti, is crushed by the army; in the ensuing repression, the matanza, estimates of those killed range from at least 10,000 to as many as 30,000.
Era: La Matanza and the Age of Military Rule
Sources: La matanza, revolt, El Salvador · Encyclopaedia Britannica, El Salvador: Military dictatorships · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Agustin Farabundo Marti · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- South America
The Chaco War
Paraguay and Bolivia fight a costly war over the Gran Chaco; about 100,000 men die before a 1935 truce, with most of the region awarded to Paraguay by the 1938 treaty.
Era: Rebuilding and the Chaco War
Sources: Chaco War · Encyclopaedia Britannica, History of Paraguay · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Africa
Conquest of Ethiopia launched from Eritrea
Italian forces invade Ethiopia from Eritrea, taking Addis Ababa in May 1936; Eritrea is absorbed into Italian East Africa.
Era: Italy's First-Born Colony
Sources: Second Italo-Ethiopian War · Wikipedia, Italian Eritrea · Wikipedia
- Africa
Italian occupation and liberation
Fascist Italy seizes Addis Ababa after the 1935 invasion and occupies Ethiopia, but never settles it as a colony; in 1941 British and Ethiopian forces expel the Italians and Haile Selassie, crowned emperor in 1930, returns and restores independence.
Era: Haile Selassie, the Derg, Civil War and Modern Ethiopia
Sources: Ethiopia (country overview) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Haile Selassie · Wikipedia
- Africa
The Bijagós islands subdued
After repeated campaigns against the seafaring Bijagós, the Estado Novo finally imposed control over the archipelago in 1935–1936, completing the conquest more than four centuries after first Portuguese contact.
Era: Portuguese Guinea and the late conquest
Sources: History of Guinea-Bissau · Wikipedia, Portuguese Guinea · Wikipedia
- Asia
Arab Revolt in Palestine
A sustained Palestinian Arab uprising against British rule and Zionist immigration was suppressed with great severity, leaving Palestinian society weakened.
Era: The British Mandate and the Nakba
Sources: Palestine - region, history · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Europe
Spanish Civil War
A military coup against the Republic led by Franco failed to seize power outright and triggered a devastating civil war, fuelled by foreign intervention and marked by mass atrocities; the Nationalists won in 1939.
Era: Loss of Empire, Republic and Civil War
Sources: Spanish Civil War · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Asia
Second Sino-Japanese War and the Nanjing Massacre
Japan's full-scale invasion from July 1937 brings catastrophic violence, including the December 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which Japanese forces murdered many tens of thousands of civilians and prisoners and committed mass rape.
Era: The Fall of the Empire: Republic, Warlords, and War
Sources: Second Sino-Japanese War · Encyclopaedia Britannica, China · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- North America
The Parsley Massacre
Trujillo orders the army to kill Haitians and Haitian-descended people along the border; the death toll, carried out largely by machete, is estimated in the thousands to tens of thousands.
Era: U.S. Occupation and the Trujillo Era
Sources: Parsley Massacre · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Rafael Trujillo · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Europe
The Anschluss
German troops entered Austria on 12 March 1938 and on 13 March a law proclaimed reunification with the Reich; Austrian independence ended and a manipulated April plebiscite recorded near-total approval.
Era: The First Republic, Saint-Germain and the Anschluss
Sources: German Annexation of Austria · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
- Europe
German annexation of the Sudetenland
Following the Munich Agreement, German forces occupied the Sudetenland, stripping Czechoslovakia of its border defences and around three million inhabitants in its German-speaking borderlands.
Era: Czechoslovakia, the Munich Betrayal and Nazi Occupation
Sources: Munich Agreement · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Sudetenland · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Europe
Italian invasion of Albania
Fascist Italy invaded Albania on 7 April 1939; King Zog fled into exile and the Italian king Victor Emmanuel III was proclaimed king of Albania, ending its independence.
Era: Independence, the Conference of London and the Albanian Question
Sources: History of Albania · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Albania · Encyclopaedia Britannica, A Guide to the United States' History of Recognition, Diplomatic, and Consular Relations: Albania · U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
- Europe
Neutral in the Second World War
Andorra preserved its neutrality through the Second World War, its mountain passes serving as a quiet crossing-point between Vichy France and Spain.
Era: Reform, a Brief 'King', and the Strains of the Old Order
Sources: Andorra: History, Facts & Points of Interest · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Andorra: Member state · Council of Europe
- North America
Canada in the Second World War
Canada entered the Second World War by its own parliamentary decision and mobilised on a vast scale, contributing major forces to the Allied victory and emerging more industrialised and autonomous.
Era: The World Wars and growing autonomy
Sources: Canada · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Europe
Occupation and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
In breach of Munich, Germany occupied the Czech lands on 15 March 1939 and proclaimed the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, while a separate Slovak state was set up under German control.
Era: Czechoslovakia, the Munich Betrayal and Nazi Occupation
Sources: Czechoslovakia · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Munich Agreement · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Europe
The Winter War begins
The Soviet Union invaded Finland on 30 November 1939 after Finland refused to cede territory near Leningrad; the outnumbered Finns mounted a celebrated defence through the winter of 1939-40.
Era: The Winter War, the Continuation War and the Loss of Karelia
Sources: Russo-Finnish War (Winter War) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, History of Finland · InfoFinland (Finnish public authorities)
- Europe
Invasion of Poland
Germany invaded Poland, igniting the Second World War in Europe and beginning six years of conquest, occupation and total war.
Era: Weimar, the Third Reich and the Second World War
Sources: The Holocaust and World War II: Key Dates · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Europe
German ultimatum and loss of Klaipeda
Nazi Germany demanded the Klaipeda region by ultimatum on 20 March 1939, threatening invasion; Lithuania capitulated and German troops occupied the territory on 23 March.
Era: Independence and the Interwar Territorial Disputes
Sources: Memel dispute · Encyclopaedia Britannica, History of Lithuania · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Europe
German and Soviet invasion of Poland
Nazi Germany invaded on 1 September, starting the Second World War in Europe; the Soviet Union invaded from the east on 17 September, and the two powers again partitioned Poland.
Era: The Second Republic, the Second World War and the Nazi-Soviet Catastrophe
Sources: Invasion of Poland, Fall 1939 · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Invasion of Poland (1939) · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Europe
Neutrality in the Second World War
Sweden preserved its neutrality through the Second World War, remaining unoccupied while continuing controversial trade with Germany and offering refuge to those fleeing Nazi persecution.
Era: Neutrality, the People's Home and the Road to NATO
Sources: Sweden: The welfare state · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Sweden: History · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Europe
The Second World War
Britain fought Nazi Germany and the Axis, endured the Blitz, and emerged victorious but economically drained; the wartime Bengal famine of 1943 killed millions in British India.
Era: World wars, decolonisation, and the modern UK
Sources: The end of the British Empire after the Second World War · Imperial War Museums, Bengal famine of 1943 · Encyclopaedia Britannica
War & Rupture in the 1930s
Every event in the Terralore archive tagged war and rupture — wars, invasions, conquests, battles and armed conflict, narrowed to the 1930s — 23 of them, drawn from 22 nations, running from 1931 to 1939. Each entry keeps the sources it was verified against and links back to the chronicle it came from.
- Events
- 23
- Nations
- 22
- Earliest
- 1931
- Latest
- 1939
- Europe
- 12
- Africa
- 4
- North America
- 3
- Asia
- 2
- South America
- 2
Every entry below is the same record, with the same sources, as the one on its nation’s chronicle.