During the 1991 Gulf War and subsequent operations in no-fly zones over Iraq, Coalition air forces faced the Iraqi Air Force, the fourth largest air force in the world at the time.
The Second Sino-Japanese War began on 7 July 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge incident in the Republic of China and is often regarded as the start of World War II as full-scale warfare erupted with the Battle of Shanghai, and ending when the Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allies in August 1945.