Poland becomes a kingdom of very limited independence, since the Russian tsar Alexander I is to be its king

Polish composer Frédéric Chopin completes his Preludes under difficult conditions in Majorca

Karol Szymanowski and other Polish composers form a group that soon becomes known as Young Poland

A German army encircles and almost annihilates a larger Russian force at Tannenberg

Germans make an experimental but ineffective use of chlorine gas against the Russians in Poland

German armies make sufficient advances to drive the Russians out of Poland

Composer and pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes prime minister of the newly independent Poland

The prime minister of Poland, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, resigns his post so as to concentrate on his concert career

The Versailles Treaty makes Danzig (or Gdansk) a free city (from 10 January 1920), under the protection of the League of Nations

The Versailles Treaty provides a corridor of land to give Poland access to Danzig and the Baltic, thereby dividing two parts of Germany

Karel Szymanowski's opera King Roger has its first performance in Warsaw

Karol Szymanowski's Stabat Mater is performed in Warsaw and brings him international fame

Polish cryptographers succeed in breaking some of the Enigma code used by the German military

Adolf Hitler makes unacceptable demands upon Poland, including the transfer of the free port of Danzig to Germany

Adolf Hitler demands a strip of territory through the Polish corridor to reunite Germany with East Prussia

The new German technique of blitzkrieg ('lightning war') is demonstrated with devastating effect against Poland

Adolf Hitler launches a massive attack on Poland, with tanks crossing the border and air raids on Warsaw

Warsaw falls, after a brave resistance, whereupon Germany and Russia carve up Poland

Nazi murder squads (Einsatzgruppen) kill Poland's elite

More than 4000 Polish officers are massacred at Katyń on Stalin's orders

In three adapted vans at Chelmno, in western Poland, the Germans begin using poison gas to kill Jews

The Nazis build a new style of concentration camp, at Auschwitz in Poland, in which the fit will work and the unfit will be killed

German industrial enterprises are moved from the vulnerable Ruhr valley to the slave labour facilities of Auschwitz

Treblinka is constructed, in Poland, as the Nazis' first large-scale and purpose-built death camp

Jews in Warsaw resist a fierce German onslaught for a month before their ghetto is finally destroyed