About the project
A Polish chronicle of the Second World War, written day by day.
TheSecondWar.pl tells the story of the Second World War in the order in which it really happened. It begins long before 1939, with the crises, conquests and decisions that prepared the ground for war. Instead of one long lecture, the timeline is built from single events: battles, declarations of war, orders, government decisions and events that changed the lives of ordinary people. Read in sequence, they show how a war that engulfed the whole world came about.
The chronicle is written in Polish, with Polish readers in mind, which is why Poland and the Poles receive particular attention.
How the articles are written
The backbone of the timeline is a set of day-by-day lists of the key events of the era. Every article, however, is checked against several independent sources. Where the sources give different dates, figures or times, we do not pick one version blindly: we say openly that they disagree, or we phrase the account more cautiously.
The length of an article depends on the weight of the event. Minor episodes take a few paragraphs, while the turning points of the war, highlighted on the timeline, have extensive articles. Links lead to Wikipedia, where you can read more about the people, places and terms.
The English edition
The English edition is being translated in stages, month by month. So far it covers 1952 events of 1952 and 183 battles. Links to articles not yet translated lead to the Polish version and are marked “(PL)”.
Authors
- Timeline →
Events day by day, from the first crises of the late nineteenth century.
- Battles →
The great battles, from background to significance, grouped into the phases of the war.