3rd - Winston Churchill becomes Chairman of the British Government's Military Comittee

4th - Dutch military attaché warns Norwegian Government of impending attack, but the information was not acted on

8th - A British destroyer, HMS Glowworm, meets the Hipper and is badly damaged, but rams the German ship before sinking

9th - Hitler invades Norway

10th - First battle of Narvik joins with 10 Royal Navy and 10 Kriegsmarine destroyers, both sides losing two

13th - Second battle of Narvik. HMS Warspite and 9 destroyers attack 8 German destroyers and sink or disable them all

15th - The traitor Quisling is ousted from power in Norway and replaced by an "Administrative Council"

18th - New Norwegian government declares war on Germany

19th - British 146th Infantry Brigade reach Verdal, French Chasseurs Alpins land at Namsos

26th - German 181st and 196th Divisions succeed in joining up. British and French forces head for Tromso and Narvik

28th - French 13th Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade recapture Narvik

7th & 8th - Motion of Censure in the British House of Commons is debated and leads to Chamberlain's resignation

10th - Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain. Hitler's Fall Gelb invasion of the low countries begins

11th - The "impregnable" fort at Eben-Emael is captured by 80 German glider-borne paratroops landed on the roof

12th - French 7th Army falls back to Antwerp

13th - Battle of the Meuse begins

14th - Guderain's 1st Panzer Division crosses the Meuse at Sedan in force. Hitler orders reprisal bombing of Rotterdam

15th - Dutch army formally surrenders.

17th - German army enters Brussels

21st - 1st Panzer Division captures Amiens at midday, 2nd Division reaches Abbeville by evening

23rd - BEF hemmed in on Normandy beaches. French destroyers Jaguar and Orage are sunk

24th - Hitler orders the Panzer Divisions to halt at Gravelines - this becomes known as "The Miracle of Dunkirk"

25th - 5000 British and French troops are captured in Boulogne. The British refuse a call to surrender at Calais

26th - Every available vessel that could cross the English channel is used to evacuate troops from Dunkirk

28th - King Leopold announces the surrender of the Belgian army against the wishes of his cabinet

31st - The French 1st Army surrenders near Lille after a four-day siege

4th - Final evacuation from Dunkirk, rescuing 338,226 men in total since the 26th May

5th - Case Red, the battle for France, begins.

6th - General Erwin Rommel breaks through French lines West of Amiens

7th - French and British leave Narvik, having covered evacuation of troops from Norway

8th - Rommel advances 72km and arrives at the Seine

9th - Field-Marshal von Rundstedt's Army Group A enters the French campaign

10th - Mussolini declares war on Britain and France

12th - Rommel forces General Ihler's surrender - 46,000 French and British troops are captured

14th - German troops enter an eerily empty Paris. French Premier Paul Reynaurd appeals to America for help

15th - American President Roosevelt pledges every aid to France short of military intervention 

16th - Reynaud resigns and veteran Marshall Petain forms a new government

17th - Petain asks the Germans and Italians for terms for an armistice

18th - Rommel captures Cherbourg, and 5th Panzer Division takes Brest. French cities ordered to surrender

20th - Italian 1st and 4th Armies (450,000 men) attack General Olry's 14th and 15th Corps (185,000 men). In the next five days, the Italian casualties are almost twenty times those of the French forces, despite their numerical superiority

21st - French troopship Champlain sunk by U-65 after striking a mine in the Bay of Biscay

22nd - Hitler has the original railway carriage the 1918 Armistice was signed in brought to the Forest of Compiegne, set up exactly as it was in 1918, and signs the armistice which gives two-thirds of France over to German occupation.

25th - Germans finally take the Maginot Line. Petain concludes armistice with the Italians at Villa Inchesa, near Rome

1st - French government moves to Vichy

3rd - "Mers-el-Kebir affair"

10th - French National Assembly of Vichy gives Petain full powers to govern by 569 votes to 80

11th - President Lebrun resigns, and Petain declares himself "Head of the French State"