THE PATH TO WAR'S END

1944

June 4: Rome falls to the Allies.

June 6: Allied troops land in Normandy, in northern France, on ''D-Day.''

June 19-20: United States forces defeat the Japanese in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

July 18: Japanese Premier Tojo resigns.

Dec. 16: Nazis launch their offensive in the Ardennes Forest, in what will be known as the Battle of the Bulge.

1945

Jan. 27: German concentration camp Auschwitz is liberated.

Feb. 4-11: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin meet for the Yalta Conference near the Black Sea in the Soviet Union.

March 16: US marines capture the island of Iwo Jima in the Pacific.

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

April 30: Hitler takes his life in Berlin.

May 7: In Reims, France, the Germans sign an unconditional surrender to the Allies.

May 8: The Allies proclaim Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day.

June 21: Allied forces capture the Pacific island of Okinawa.

July 17-Aug. 2: The Potsdam Conference, near Berlin, takes place. Truman, Churchill (succeeded by Clement Attlee), and Stalin discuss peace settlements.

July 26: The Potsdam Proclamation is sent to Japan, demanding unconditional surrender.

Aug. 6: The US drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

Aug. 8: The Soviet Union joins the war against Japan.

Aug. 9: The US drops a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.

Aug. 14: Japan agrees to surrender unconditionally.

Sept. 2: Japan signs surrender terms aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. President Truman proclaims Victory Over Japan Day, or V-J Day.