Video: 'Signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact'

(Thursday, August 24, 1939, early morning Moscow Standard Time) — Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact tonight in Moscow, agreeing not to attack each other and to remain neutral if attacked by a third power.

Video: 'The World At War 1973(World War II Documentary) 01.A New Germany (1933–1939)' (Aug. 23, 1939, at 50:26)

Signed by foreign ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop (for Nazi Germany) and Vyacheslav Molotov (for the Soviet Union), secret clauses in the pact (which was officially dated Aug. 23, 1939) divided up other countries into respective spheres of influence, including a partitioning of Poland.

Video: 'World War II - Blitzkrieg to the Bomb Documentary' (Aug. 23, 1939, at 5:11)

Eight days later, on Sept. 1, 1939, the Germans invaded Poland from the west, beginning World War II. Britain and France declared war on Germany on Sept. 3, 1939.

More than 600,000 Red Army troops invaded Poland from the east on Sept. 17, 1939, heading towards the demarcation line that had been agreed to in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Video: 'World War II: The Lost Color Archives (2/5)' (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact at 4:20)