1755 - The British build Fort Ontario, as protection against potential French attacks.

January 30, 1933 - Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany.

March 22, 1933 - The Dachau concentration camp is established
for political opponents.

March 23, 1933 - The Enabling Act gives Hitler dictatorial powers.

September 15, 1935 - The Nuremberg racial laws reduce Jews from "citizens" to "subjects" and prohibit marriage and sexual relations between Germans and Jews, Gypsies, and blacks.

November 9-10, 1938 - Jewish synagogues, businesses and homes are wrecked by Nazis and their supporters. Over ninety Jews are killed during Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass"), and over 30,000 Jews are sent to concentration camps.

September 1, 1939 - World War II begins when Germany invades Poland; two days later Britain and France declare war on Germany.

May 20, 1940 - The Auschwitz concentration camp is established in Poland.

June 22, 1941 - German forces invade the Soviet Union. Mobile killing units and police battalions accompanying the German army kill more than one million communist officials and Jews by spring 1943.

December 7-11, 1941 - Japan bombs Pearl Harbor; the United States and Britain declare war on Japan; Germany and Italy declare war on the United States.

January 20, 1942 - Nazis, at the Wannsee Conference outside of Berlin, discuss implementation of the "Final Solution": the killing of all the Jews of Europe.

August 8, 1942 - A cable from a Berlin refugee relates that Hitler is planning to use prussic acid gas to exterminate the 3 to 4 million Jews living in Germany and its occupied territories. The cable is given to the American consul in Switzerland, only to be suppressed by the U.S. State Department.

January 21, 1943 - Another cable describes the deportation and deaths of thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe.

February 10, 1943 - A State Department cable instructs the U.S. minister in Switzerland not to accept and transmit any more such messages.

March 1, 1943 - At an anti-Hitler rally in Madison Square Garden, a speaker says, “The world can no longer believe that the ghastly facts are unknown and unconfirmed” and calls for havens.

December 1943 - Treasury Department official discover the suppressed cables.

January 1944 - Responding to the news of the cables, President creates the War Refugee Board.

March 1944 - The U.S. Army closes its camp at Fort Ontario.

May 15- July 9, 1944 - Over 430,000 Hungarian Jews are sent
to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

June 1944 - Ruth Gruber and the people of Oswego learn that President Roosevelt has decided to admit 1,000 Jewish refugees into the United States, to be housed temporarily at Fort Ontario.

Late July - August 3, 1944 - An Army ship, the Henry Gibbins, sails with Gruber and 982 refugees through the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic to New York.

August 1944 - The refugees arrive at Fort Ontario, where they are to be quarantined for a month. They get a warm reception from many children and adults who visit them at the fort's fence.

September 1, 1944 - The quarantine is lifted, and the school year begins in Oswego, with several of the refugees attending.

January 1945 - Auschwitz is abandoned and is then partially liberated
by Soviet armies.

April 1945 - American armies liberate German concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau.

April 30, 1945 - Hitler commits suicide.

May 7-8, 1945 - Germany surrenders.

July 6, 1945 - A Congressional committee vote recommends that the Departments of State and Justice look into returning the refugees to their homelands or
deporting them.

September 2, 1945 - World War II ends when Japan surrenders.

December 22, 1945 - In a radio address, President Truman says the Safe Haven refugees who want to stay will be allowed to do so.

January 17, 1946 - The first busloads leave the camp, beginning the dispersion of the Oswego refugees to various American towns and cities.