1931–1945 · Asia · War
Japanese imperial expansion in Manchuria and China widened into a devastating Asia-Pacific war. The Nanjing Massacre of 1937–38 was one of its most notorious episodes of mass killing, sexual violence and terror against civilians and prisoners.
Atlas dossier · World WarsFree device narration · synchronized English captions · transcript available
Why it matters
Japanese imperial expansion in Manchuria and China widened into a devastating Asia-Pacific war. The Nanjing Massacre of 1937–38 was one of its most notorious episodes of mass killing, sexual violence and terror against civilians and prisoners.
Chinese civilians · Japanese soldiers · Korean and Southeast Asian peoples · resistance movements · survivors
This record places Asian victims, resistance and imperial violence within the Second World War rather than treating the conflict as a primarily European story.
Interpretation note
This dossier distinguishes the event’s basic chronology from later arguments about meaning, responsibility and legacy. When comparing religious, national, Indigenous or scholarly interpretations, consult the primary and institutional sources above alongside peer-reviewed historical work.
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