In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War erupted as Imperial Japan launched a lightning offensive through China, capturing Beijing and Shanghai in a blitzkrieg-style campaign that overwhelmed Chinese defenses. Culminating in the fall of Nanjing, the capital, Japanese forces unleashed the Nanjing Massacre—a six-week atrocity where tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers were killed, with widespread violence and destruction that drew global outrage and marked an early horror of WWII. Explore the