date_of_death ting chao
World War II ( often abbreviated to WWII or WW2 ), also known as the Second World War , was a global war that lasted from ___MASK54___ to 1945 , although related conflicts began earlier . It involved the vast majority of the world ' s nations  including all of the great powers  eventually forming two opposing military alliances : the Allies and the Axis . It was the most widespread war in history , and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries . In a state of " total war ", the major participants threw their entire economic , industrial , and scientific capabilities behind the war effort , erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources . Marked by mass deaths of civilians , including the Holocaust ( in which approximately 11 million people were killed ) and the strategic bombing of industrial and population centres ( in which approximately one million were killed , and which included the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ), it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities . These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history . Manchukuo was a puppet state in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia , which was governed under a form of constitutional monarchy . The area , collectively known as Manchuria by westerners and Japanese , was designated by China ' s erstwhile Qing Dynasty as the " homeland " of the ruling family ' s ethnic group , the Manchus , but the Manchus themselves never used " Manchuria " (  ) as a place name to refer to the area . In ___MASK20___ , the region was seized by Japan following the Mukden Incident and a pro - Japanese government was installed one year later with Puyi , the last Qing emperor , as the nominal regent and emperor . Manchukuo ' s government was abolished in ___MASK18___ after the defeat of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II . The territories formally claimed by the puppet state were first seized in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August ___MASK18___ , and then formally transferred to Chinese administration in the following year . The Second Sino - Japanese War ( September ___MASK81___ , 1931  September 9 , ___MASK18___ ) was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1931 to ___MASK18___ . The First Sino - Japanese War happened in 1894  95 . In January 2017 , the Chinese Government extended their official definition of the Second Sino - Japanese War back to September ___MASK81___ , 1931  the Invasion of Manchuria by Japan  as opposed to the traditional 1937 start date , defined by the Marco Polo Bridge Incident . China fought Japan , with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States . After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 , the war would merge into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War . One could call the Second Sino - Japanese War part of World War II , but the latter conflict is still mainly considered to have started in ___MASK54___ when France and the British Empire declared war on Nazi Germany following the invasion of Poland . The Second Sino - Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century . It accounted for the majority of civilian and military casualties in the Pacific War , with anywhere between 10 and 25 million Chinese civilians and over 4 million Chinese and Japanese military personnel dying from war - related violence , famine , and other causes . The Mukden Incident , or Manchurian Incident , was a staged event engineered by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the Japanese invasion in ___MASK20___ of northeastern China , known as Manchuria . The was the historical Japanese nation - state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in ___MASK26___ to the enactment of the 1947 constitution of modern Japan . The Defense of Harbin occurred during the early Second Sino - Japanese War , as part of the campaign of the Invasion of Manchuria by forces of the Empire of Japan from ___MASK8___ January to ___MASK7___ February 1932 . Harbin is the capital and largest city of Heilongjiang province in the northeastern region of the People ' s Republic of China . Holding sub - provincial administrative status , Harbin has direct jurisdiction over nine metropolitan districts , two county - level cities and seven counties . Harbin is the eighth most populous Chinese city and the most populous city in Northeast China . According to the ___MASK88___ census , the built - up area made of seven out of nine urban districts (" all but Shuangcheng and Acheng not urbanized yet ") had 5 , ___MASK66___ , 093 inhabitants , while the total population of the sub - provincial city was up to 10 , ___MASK73___ , 971 . Harbin serves as a key political , economic , scientific , cultural , and communications hub in Northeast China , as well as an important industrial base of the nation . The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on September ___MASK81___ , 1931 , when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria immediately following the Mukden Incident . The Japanese established a puppet state called Manchukuo , and their occupation lasted until the end of World War II . Ting Chao or Ding Chao ( Chinese :  ; 1883 -- 1950s ) was a military general of the Republic of China , known for his defense of Harbin during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in ___MASK20___ and 1932 .