History Module 4 B Notes

Battle of Britain

-After defeating France, Germany hoped to force a British surrender, and to eliminate all serious opposition in the west. Through summer and fall of 1940, the Nazi air force (Luftwaffe) tried to destroy Britain's air force, it's cities, and industrial centers, with a series of nighttime raids and bombings called the Battle of Britain. The Germans hoped to weaken the British navy so that they could launch a military invasion. -But, the Battle of Britain was a failure. Winston Churchill was able to convince the public to not surrender, and in the end, Germany inflicted little damage on Britain's air force and navy, and British fighter pilots outmaneuvered and outgunned the Germans. -The cost of the Battle of Britain became too high for Germany, so Hitler gave up and turned his attention elsewhere.

Germany Vs France

-After success in Poland, Germany focused its attention on France, in spring of 1940. The blasted through Belgium and the Netherlands to maneuver around strong French defense along the German Border. -However, the French were unprepared for the Blitzkrieg style of warfare, and the Germany army advanced more quickly than the French could respond. -The British army was cut off at a port called Dunkirk, and instead of forcing a surrender, the Germans allowed 340000 british soldiers to escape via boat. -Without the help from the British, French military commanders couldn't prevent the Nazis from reaching Paris. They surrendered to Hitler on June 22, 1940, and France was split in two. The upper region was Nazi-controlled Vichy France, and the lower region was Free France, in which people resisted Nazi occupation until 1942. At this point, Italy entered the war because Mussolini wanted to gain territory.

Battles during Island hopping

-After the Battle of Midway, the US advanced its navy toward Japan. To reach Japan, they used a strategy called island hopping in which American soldiers invade a small island in the Pacific and use it as a base to invade another island, and so on. - The deadliest battles in the Pacific theater occurred as American soldiers fought Japanese defenders on the islands surrounding Japan. These battles include the Battle of Iwo Jima (February-March, 1945) and the Battle of Okinawa (April-June, 1945). The intention of the Japanese fighters on the islands wasn't to prevent the American advance, but to inflict as much damage and kill as many Americans as possible. 110,000 Japanese soldiers were killed or committed suicide during the battles. Some Japanese soldiers who surrendered were surprised when they were offered coffee and cigarettes. Others were harshly treated by their American captors, who were angry about the pointlessness of the combat.

After the atomic attacks, the end of the era of global war

-After the bombs were dropped, the immediate political consequence was the almost unconditional surrender of Japan, which occurred on August 15. The devastated Japanese morale and removed their ability to defend against an invasion. The surrender was not completely unconditional because Japanese leaders had requested that the emperor be allowed to continue his rule, and the Allies accepted. -Allied leaders were less afraid of a Soviet takeover of Europe, and the US emerged as the world's most powerful and feared country. With such a destructive weapon in their arsenal, US leaders could dictate the terms of peace with authority. In 1949 the Soviet developed its own atomic weapons and the Cold War began. -The Cold War was an indirect conflict between the US and the Soviet Union, a battle for power and influence around the world. The Cold War lasted throughout the second half of the 20th century, but the fact that each side possessed enough atomic weapons to annihilate the other prevented the outbreak of a full military conflict. Although the Us and the Soviet Union had conflict after WWII, the era of total global war was over.

development of atomic bombs

-Albert Einstein figured out that matter and energy are the same thing. As the wars of the early 20th century progressed, scientists in Europe, Asia, and the Americas began to wonder how this discovery could benefit their military efforts. They turned .02 ounces of mass into energy (in the form of heat and light) to create an explosion that could wipe out a city. -Throughout WWII, Germany and Japan were trying to develop an atomic bomb. Unfortunately for the Nazis, their racist policies caused many scientists and engineers in Europe, who happened to be Jewish, to flee to Britain, the US, and other safer countries. Japan's progress was too slow.

Denial

-Allied armies sometimes brought German citizens to the sites of concentration camps and forced them to walk past rows of dead bodies and then dig graves. The intention was to show the civilians the horrors that the Nazis had committed, and to ensure that no one could deny that genocide had occurred in the Nazi empire. -Even today, there are people who deny that the Holocaust happened, or that its scope was so large. The evidence of the Holocaust includes documents, photographs, and videos, as well as firsthand accounts both from survivors and former Nazi camp guards. There is also physical evidence of the concentration camps themselves and the mass graves. -Denial is actually a common feature of genocide. Because genocide leads to severe punishments (for the killers) and strong feelings of guilt, those involved try to deny that it happened. Others argue that the act was much smaller in scope than people believe, or that most people involved were unaware of what they were doing. -Today, some people claim that the Holocaust was a hoax, or that the Jewish death toll was around 200,000 people.

The German Invasion

-Although Poland has several hundred tanks, the Germans invaded with almost 2400, and they were faster and more powerful. The invasion was an example of total war; civilians were targeted with bombs and machine guns, and tens of thousands of civilians were executed and dumped into mass graves. -One of Germany's goals for war against Poland was to free up space for ethnic German people. By executing many people, they opened land to be redistributed among the "master race".

The Great Depression and Expansion

-As Fascism and militarism movements gained power, the great depression sent many countries into economic decline, which made government vulnerable to takeovers by extreme politicians. After the worst years of economic decline, the totalitarian regimes of the Axis powers were in place. -Italy, Germany, and Japan were confident that they would improve their economic growth and military strength, and to make that happen, they needed more resources. This resulted in aggressive expansion into the lands near their borders. -In response, the Allies cut off trade with the Axis countries, but that encouraged more aggression because expansion was now necessary for survival without foreign trade. -As the Axis expanded, other countries were too worried about their economy and devastation from the first war to intervene. Little was done to stop the Axis powers from growing and expanding.

Cold War

-As WWII ended, the Allies created the conditions for a cold war, a conflict dealt with words and symbolic acts instead of military battles. The Cold War that began in 1947 and lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 was an ideological conflict (a conflict of beliefs and ideas) between the capitalist West and the communist East. During those years, the US was the chief representative of capitalism and the West, and the Soviet Union was the leader of communism and the East. -The origins of the Cold War go to the Russian Revolution of 1917, but the conflict between capitalism and communism erupted at the end of WWII.

gas vans

-At first, the Nazis used guns to execute detained Jews. However, leaders were worried that shooting thousands of unarmed men, women, and children had a negative effect on their soldiers' mental health. "Gas vans" were vehicles that were packed with people and then slowly filled with the vehicle's exhaust, which suffocated the victims inside. This method was also problematic, however, because it took a long time to work, and the soldiers were still disturbed by the screams of the people inside.

before D-day

-Before D-Day, the German army held the entire northern coast of Europe. Fortresses, bunkers, guard towers, and minefields were in place all along the North Sea and the English Channel to prevent an Allied invasion from Britain. As a group, these defenses were called the Atlantic Wall. On D-Day, the Allies pierced the Atlantic Wall using a clever deception. -Planning proceeded over a year before the invasion. Almost all of Germany's spies in Britain had been caught and were instructed to give the Germans false information about the upcoming attack. German leaders believed the misinformation and moved their forces to Norway and other parts of France, away from Normandy. On the day of the actual invasion, bad weather almost delayed the landings for another month. The Nazis were confident that an invasion couldn't take place with the weather conditions, and relaxed.

Racial purity and ideology

-Beliefs in racial purity led to violence against citizens that weren't a part of the "master race" -Ex: Germany seized lands where germanic culture/genetics were the majority because they wanted all realms of herrenvolk under their control. They justified aggression as the subjugation of inferior races in service of the master race. -These were ideological reasons for aggression from the Axis powers, and were convenient excuses to fulfill practical needs, such as seizing lands high in resources to help the master race grow stronger.

Soviet Bloc

-By 1950, Eastern Europe became the Soviet Bloc. A bloc is a group of countries working together toward the same goals. The Soviet Bloc was a collection of countries that were forced to join the communist movement and obey the Soviet Union after the end of World War II. -Areas of Ukraine and the states on the Baltic Sea were absorbed into the Soviet Union. Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, East Germany, and other countries became satellites of the USSR. A satellite country is technically independent, but it exists under the political and economic control of a "master" country. -When the satellite countries were forced to adopt communism, citizens tried to leave, and for the first few years, the Soviets allowed them to depart. However, they eventually forbade travel outside the Soviet Bloc: communism needed people to work for the state, and Stalin feared betrayals against his regime. To feel safe, Stalin needed control, so he monitored and regulated how people lived, how people worked, and where they could go.

Conflict in Japan

-By summer 1945, the American military had island bases within hours of Japan, and the Japanese navy and air force was reduced to a fraction of their effective fighting power. American bombers dropped incendiary bombs (designed to start fires) on Japanese cities, whose buildings were mostly made of wood and paper. Cities were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians were burned, but leaders refused to agree to an unconditional surrender. -The Soviet Union was advancing its army toward Japan with the intention of invading the island. Soviet assistance wasn't necessary, and American leaders feared that Stalin wanted to annex parts of Japan. They were faced with the choice of a bloody land war that could place parts of the country under communist control, or unleashing the atomic bomb, with the hope that Japan would surrender.

Chiange Kai-Shek

-Chiang Kai-shek, or Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese general and the leader of the Kuomintang 1925-1949. He was born into a wealthy family, but his father died when he was young so he was forced to join the military. During the Chinese Civil War, Chiang was Mao Zedong's rival for political control. -China was not a unified country during the years of imperial occupation (early 20th century). On maps, China seemed like a single country, but it was a collection of "independent" states, ruled by different warlords. Chiang and the Kuomintang united the country's urban areas into a single nation that declared itself at war with the communists and warlords of rural China. -Even though Chiang was opposed to communism, he also hated capitalism. Chiang hoped to build a state like modern-day China, with single-party rule but a free-market economy.

communist People's Republic of China

-China had a poor, hungry, frustrated, and humiliated population. After the May Fourth Movement, protest spread throughout China. Communists in the Soviet Union noticed and helped Chinese communists create a legitimate political organization. In 1921, the Chinese Communist Party was founded by a group of teachers, librarians, students, and other intellectuals in Shanghai. -Mao Zedong, the eventual leader of communist China, was present at the party's earliest meetings. From 1922 until the end of WWII, the Chinese Communist Party struggled for influence and for survival against the Kuomintang (a nationalist party that wanted China to be a controlled republic). The struggle between the communists and the Kuomintang became the Chinese Civil War, which lasted 1927-1949. After the conflict, China became the communist People's Republic of China.

Genocides in the 20th century (other than the holocaust)

-During WWI, the Ottoman Empire murdered all ethnically Armenian men and deported their wives and children on death marches. -From 1904-1907, the German government drove the Herero and Namaqua peoples of southwestern Africa into the desert to starve to death. -From 1975-1979, a communist regime in Cambodia systematically killed many minorities in a policy called "social engineering." Young children who were killed by Khmer Rouge soldiers in an area called "the killing fields."

effects of the invasions in china

-During the 19th century, China experienced a series of military defeats to technologically superior European armies. Each time a European power defeated China, the more of China's land and resources were seized. These invasions by countries like Britain, France, Germany, and Japan, combined with an enormously high poverty rate, inspired China to embrace nationalism and become hostile towards foreigners. -Chinese citizens were divided on how to free their lands from European control. Some hoped to drive out the invaders with military force, and others wanted to make political change and reorganize the country. After theRussian Revolution, communism became the most appealing alternative to the current system.

The Shandong province

-During the early 20th century, the imperial powers of Europe and Japan still occupied Chinese land. Chinese leaders pledged to provide military assistance to the Allies during WWI if those European powers promised to return some land to Chinese control, particularly the Shandong province. The Allies accepted the offer, but once the war was over, European leaders ignored their promise and handed the province to Japan. The Chinese saw this as a massive betrayal: Poland was granted its own free government and territory while Chinese land was divided between Britain, France, and Japan.

The league's flaws

-Even though American president Woodrow Wilson was one of the leading creators of the League, the American government never approved the Treaty of Versailles. Americans were opposed to making a commitment that involved their country in world affairs, they thought the US' participation in World War I was a mistake. -Without the US, one of the most powerful countries, the League did not have enough authority to be effective. And without Germany and the Soviet Union, the League seemed like a club for the winners of WWI, rather than a universal organization. -The League's insistence on unanimous decisions meant that any country could prevent a unified action by the rest of the world, and even when unanimous decisions were made, there was no way to enforce them since they had no military. Dictators and totalitarian regimes ignored the League, and another war broke out.

China vs USSR

-Even though China and the USSR were both communist states, they were enemies in an ideological sense, and fought periodically, with words and military actions. In spite of all their similarities, the governments of China and the USSR never became allies. They fought over their borders and sought alliances with the United States against each other. -Chinese communism was a rural, peasant movement that looked at modern industrial lifestyle with suspicion. The Russian Revolution was also a movement of the working class, but its leaders wanted to build a society with the modern comforts of the industrial West. This difference was a huge gap that kept the two countries separated. -Chinese and Soviet communism came to power through similar circumstances. Both movements fought a civil war to gain authority, and had to fight a civil war against enemies who enjoyed the benefit of Western aid. Both countries were ruled by totalitarian dictators who suppressed opposition and took extreme measures to isolate their societies from criticism. They also forced through modernizing policies at the cost of millions of lives.

Before the Meiji Restoration

-From 1633-1853, Japan was closed off (or isolated); foreigners couldn't get in, and citizens couldn't get out. (breaking this rule had a penalty of death). -American ships used threat of canons to force them to open their borders. Japanese leaders saw that most of the world was far more advanced in technology, and wanted to reform society to include foreign technology and practices.

fire-bombings

-From 1942-1945, the American and Allied navies proceeded from Hawaii to Japan through island hopping.The Allies ignored Japan's major military bases in the Pacific, and preferred capturing the surrounding areas and then blockade the bases before moving forward. As a result of the blockades, many of Japan's major bases were unable to receive food and supplies, so they slowly withered while the Allied navies came closer to the main islands. -Starting in 1944, American planes were close enough to bomb military and civilian targets on the Japanese homeland. The fire-bombings of Tokyo and other cities destroyed large residential areas and killed many civilians. Japanese leaders could not resist the fire-bombings because their navy and air force was mostly eliminated. -However, the government of Japan refused to surrender without placing conditions on the Allies.

Poverty

-Germany had high unemployment, poverty, and a worthless currency. Jews who weren't poor were targeted and accused of working against the state and the general population. Poverty can lead to racism and genocide when people blame their economic suffering on a group of people easily recognizable as "different." Economic problems sometimes lead to scapegoats, such as "immigrants who take jobs."

Blitzkrieg

-Germany used a military strategy called Blitzkrieg (lightning-war). The strategy made efficient use of airplanes, tanks, and other vehicles. Soldiers weren't the main fighting force, but were used for support for the machines. This resulted in a lightning-fast attack that overwhelmed the enemy. -Blitzkrieg explains how quickly the war developed. Between April and June of 1940, Germany invaded Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium, and France, and conquered these countries within days or weeks. Italy joined the invasion of France in June 1940 and set its sights on Egypt, North Africa, and the Balkan Peninsula.

Benito Mussolini

-His father was a socialist. As WWI approached, Mussolini realized that he did not believe in an equal society. He thought that some Italians were superior to others, and that they should rally around their culture and national identity. He was abandoned by his socialist friends, who dismissed him as an opportunist who betrayed his ideals to gain power over others. Mussolini served in the trenches of World War I and began his own political movement, fascism. -during mussolini's youth, Agostino Depretis served as the Italian prime minister on and off from 1876-1887, and leaned toward socialism. Him and his officials were extremely corrupt, and Italian citizens fell into poverty. During WWI, Italian nationalists forced the country into war against the Central Powers so they could take land from Austria-Hungary, even though they had an alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary. During the negotiations to create the Treaty of Versailles, the other World War I Allies did not grant Italy its requests. Many saw socialism as one of the main reasons for Italian poverty and humiliation following the war. -To the wealthy elite, the worst fate for the country was a socialist revolution. When Mussolini created fascism, it seemed like a good alternative to Italians who feared losing their power and privileges. -As political and military leaders supported Italy's fascist movement, Mussolini created a personal army called the Blackshirts, which he used to intimidate or silence his opponents. In 1922, Mussolini and his followers marched into Rome, and the prime minister was forced to resign, and Mussolini took his place. But, with many Blackshirts, few people were willing to question him or deny his requests. -Over the next 5 years, Mussolini used his personal military force to consolidate (unite and strengthen) his power. Italy's king did nothing to stop him, and became a figurehead. By 1929, Mussolini was the supreme ruler of Italy, and fascism was its official form of government.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

-In 1948, the UN' General Assembly voted in favor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that defines the world's goals for freedom, justice, and human rights. It wasn't a legally binding document, so no one can be prosecuted for violating it, but it placed the safety and happiness of individuals in front of politics for the first time in history. -For political reasons, the UN cannot enforce human rights standards everywhere, but it made many steps forward, like organizing democratic elections and providing food and shelter to people struck by wars or natural disasters.

Development of the UN

-In August 1941, four months before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the official entry of the US into WWII, the leaders of Britain and the US met in Canada to draft the Atlantic Charter, a statement of the Allied nations' goals for post-war Europe. According to the charter, the Allies wouldn't seize land from other countries, change other countries' boundaries, deprive people of self-government or economic materials, restrict trade, or control the passage of any country's ships across the sea. -These goals were partially based on Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms": freedom of speech, worship, from want, and from fear. Eventually, all Allied nations agreed to the Atlantic Charter. -From August 21 to October 4, 1944, representatives from the Allied nations met again at Dumbarton Oaks to create a new system of international cooperation. During the conference, most details of the structure of the UN were settled on. The invasion of Normandy on D-Day occurred two months earlier, and the Allies were confident in their victory and their vision for the post-war world.

europe split by ideologies

-In Europe, the two competing ideologies of the war split the continent; Western Europe formed the democratic and capitalist side, and Eastern Europe formed the communist side. This split was visible in the East German city of Berlin, where the Berlin Wall divided the city into two parts. The western half was free and democratic, but communism ruled on the other side of the wall, and armed guards kept citizens from going around the wall into the free section of the city. -The division between East and West Germany was one of the most obvious sites of Cold War conflict. A physical wall separated Berlin after World War II. East Germany, which included East Berlin, was a communist "satellite" of the Soviet Union while West Germany was an independent capitalist republic and aligned with the United States and other Western powers. -The Berlin Wall was more than 140 kilometres (87 mi) long. In 1962, a second, parallel fence was built on the eastern side. The houses between the fences were torn down and their inhabitants moved elsewhere. Throughout the Cold War, reinforcements were added to the wall

Scorched Earth

-Initially, the German surprise attacks in 1941 were successful. Stalin countered their advances by withdrawing important individuals and materials deeper into the Soviet Union and ordering special squads to burn everything else. Soviet towns, farms, schools, and factories were destroyed by their own military. The goal of the scorched earth policy was to delay the German advance and prevent them from obtaining supplies from their surroundings. -After the destruction was complete, civilians were left to evacuate on their own. Many could not escape the invading Germans, and they were dealt with cruelly by the Nazis.

Similar feelings in Italy and Germany

-Italy was impoverished by its leaders, and was further crippled by the war. Italians blamed socialists and jews, and the hatred for these groups (in both Italy and Germany) led to increased militarism, racism, and nationalism. They wanted to lash out at their "enemies". -Like Herrenvolk in Germany, Italy believed that the Mediterranean people whose ancestors created the Roman Empire were the master race.

Mao Zedong

-Mao Zedong, or Mao Tse-tung, was a communist revolutionary and the first leader of the People's Republic of China, the communist state created in 1949 and has endured to the present day. After his rise to power, he was known as Chairman Mao. He was the son of a wealthy farmer, but became interested in communism and Chinese nationalism. Mao became the leader of Chinese Communism in the middle of the 1930s, when he led the retreating communist Red Army to safety away from the Kuomintang during the Chinese Civil War. -His legacy is mixed. He turned China into a major world power, modernized the country, evicted foreign powers, restored Chinese pride, and brought liberal reforms to traditional Chinese society. But, he was also a totalitarian dictator whose policies resulted in the deaths of millions of people. Mao built a regime based on his persona as an infallible, ideal leader, and he suppressed and murdered those who criticized him.

Chamberlain's strategy

-Neville Chamberlain, a British prime minister, proposed a strategy called appeasement. He adopted this strategy to counter Germany's conquest to Czechoslovakia, and created a treaty called the Munich Agreement. -Britain never discussed the arrangement with the leaders of Czechoslovakia, who were against the idea of giving up their land, but they were forced to comply. -People in Europe and the US were pleased with appeasement because they wanted to avoid war, but Hitler had contempt for his promise with Chamberlain. Some politicians believed Hitler was taking advantage of him.

the US and Britain, and US vs Soviet

-Of the three major Allied powers, the British and the Americans had the leaders with the closest personal relationships. Roosevelt and Churchill didn't trust Stalin. As WWII ended, British and American leaders worried about future Soviet aggression. They wondered if they would have to fight the Soviets when the fight against Japan finished. -The advance of the Soviet Union toward Japan was one of the key factors in convincing Japan to surrender, but because of the tensions between the Allied powers, it also played a role in the US' decision to use its new atomic weapons. Two days after the drop of the first atomic bomb, the soviet declared war on Japan. Within a day, the Red Army made huge gains in northern China and Korea. Japan was trapped, with two massive armies on both sides and atomic weapons destroying its cities from the air. -The US and the Soviet Union weren't working together with openness and honesty. Stalin was using the end of the war as an excuse to expand Soviet territory, and U.S. President Harry Truman was using atomic weapons to break free of the Allies' dependency on the Soviet army. He also hoped to send a message to Stalin that further aggression and war with the US would have devastating consequences for the Soviet Union.

Little boy and fat man

-On August 6, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb (Little Boy) on Hiroshima, a major industrial center with a nearby military base in the southwest portion of Japan. Hiroshima was chosen because it was large, industrially significant, and relatively undamaged by conventional bombings. American leaders wanted an accurate picture of how much damage this new weapon could inflict. -On August 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb (Fat Man) was dropped on Nagasaki, a city near the southernmost tip of Japan's main island. The Japanese military used Nagasaki as a center for shipbuilding and as a military base. American leaders originally selected another city to bomb, but bad weather detoured the plane. Nagasaki's mountainous terrain reduced the impact of the explosion, but the northern sections were annihilated in less than a second. The bomb turned most structures and people into dust.

The attack on pearl harbor

-On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the US. Japanese planes attacked the US Naval Base of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. They intended to destroy all American ships, and preventing the US from challenging Japan for control over the Pacific Ocean. -However, their plan failed because they did not destroy the fuel tanks and supply dumps, and the Americans were determined to avenge the attack. So, the US declared war on all Axis powers.

German-Soviet Conflict

-On June 22, 1941, Germany broke its non-aggression pact with the USSR and invaded their territory. 4 millions troops were sent in. Hitler always intended to invade Russia for its natural resources, and because he believed that the Bolshevik party that led a successful communist revolution was a part of the Jewish conspiracy to control the world -Although the Nazis initially fought successfully, they never fully captured Moscow, Stalingrad, or any major political center. Blitzkrieg was less useful in the muddy terrain and cold weather, and Soviet fighters were willing to fight to the death. -The conflict lasted 3 years, until summer of 1944 when the Red Army drove out the Germans. This conflict was the deadliest of WWII because almost 15% of the Soviet Union's large population was wiped out, and tens of millions were injured or wounded. German casualties were equally bad. Prisoners taken by both sides lost their lives, and civilians were killed or starved.

D-Day

-On June 6, 1944, a force of British, American, Canadian, and other Allied troops landed in Normandy of France. This invasion is called D-Day, and It was the largest naval invasion in world history. Over five days, more than 300,000 soldiers and 50,000 vehicles forced their way onto beaches (defended by Nazi bunkers) after Allied ships and airplanes bombarded the German defenses. -After D-Day, the Nazis faced a significant military threat on the western front. Germany was being assaulted from all sides: the Soviet Union in the east, the other Allies from France and Italy, and the British navy destroyed Germany's navy in the North Sea. -Less than a year later Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. On that day, Soviet troops were blocks away from his bunker in Berlin, and the other Allied armies were storming toward Berlin from the west. Seven days later, Germany surrendered, and the fighting in the European theater was over.

The Start of WWII

-On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland after forming a secret alliance with the Soviet Union. This date was the start of the war. -Two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany. Two weeks later, The USSR invaded Poland, and by the beginning of October, Poland was conquered and divided between Germany and the USSR.

The Soviet Union's communism vs other developed countries

-Russia's culture developed somewhat independently from the other world powers of Europe, since it's lands were far East of Britain, France, and German Kingdoms. Its customs were influenced by Asian and Middle Eastern societies just as much as by European ones. Although Russian rulers forced citizens to adopt western culture, the other powers still thought they were different and inferior, especially since they become industrialized later. -The growth of socialism and communism in the 19th centuries caused fear in Europe. Leaders of capitalist countries say communists as criminals that encouraged disobedience and revolution. Western nations tried to overthrow Russia's communist regime. -These prejudices created a gap between the Soviet Union and the rest of the developed world. When WWII ended, the capitalist Allies wanted to contain/destroy communism, and the Soviet Union wanted to spread communism around the world and defend itself.

The Battle of Midway

-Six months after Pearl Harbor, at the Battle of Midway, the fight for the Pacific turned permanently against the Japanese. Midway is a small island between Asia and the Americas. The Battle of Midway was a Japanese attack that was supposed to demoralize the United States and discourage its leaders from pursuing the war in the Pacific, but ended up having the opposite effect. -In June 1942, Japanese naval leaders wanted to lure the Americans into a trap: they intended to launch a surprise attack against Midway Island so they could sink the American aircraft carriers operating in the Pacific. However, the American military deciphered the code that Japanese ships used to communicate, so they knew about the plan. American bombers were able to pick off the separated Japanese ships, and the Japanese navy lost four aircraft carriers, the largest and most crucial ships in either naval force, and numerous planes and pilots. The American victory at Midway started a series of victories that would eventually lead to Japan's surrender in 1945.

Soviet POWs (prisoners of war)

-Soldiers captured by an opposing army become prisoners of war, or POW. Soviet POWs captured during the conflict in the USSR were brutally exterminated. They were confined behind fences and given no shelter from the cold, so they had to dig holes in the ground and huddle together for warmth. They were given little food, and were sometimes given a bowl of water with grass in it. Anyone who tried to escape was shot, but most starved or froze to death. Of the 5.5 million Soviet prisoners, 3.5 million died. The others survived only by escaping, accepting service in the German army, or being freed at the end of the war. -The systematic elimination of Soviet POW's was typical of modern genocide: The victims were dehumanized, treated like animals, and then killed.

Stalin's plan of occupying Europe

-Stalin wasn't an elected leader. He was a dictator who held unlimited power in his country, and oppressed any resistance. -Roosevelt died just before the end of the war, and was replaced by Harry Truman. Churchill lost an election around the same time, and was replaced. These new figures were equally suspicious of Stalin and of communism. -Leaders of the West wanted the captured states of eastern Europe to return to their pre-war boundaries and independent rule. But, Stalin wanted the Soviet Union to occupy all of Eastern Europe. Soviet armies advanced all the way to Berlin to defeat Hitler, and Stalin had no intention of pulling them back.

Joining forces

-The Chinese Civil War, a conflict between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party, lasted 1927-1949. It ended with the defeat of the Kuomintang and their exile to Taiwan. Mainland China became the People's Republic of China led by Mao Zedong. -The communists and the Kuomintang nationalists first became enemies when Chiang Kai-shek betrayed his communist allies and tried to kill them in a 1927 massacre in Shanghai.They joined forces 1937-1945 to resist an invasion by Japan. When the Japanese surrendered and WWII ended, the Chinese Civil War resumed, and the communists and nationalists were enemies again.

indirect conflict

-The Cold War was "cold" because its two main participants didn't engage in a direct conflict. They never declared war and their armies never fought directly. Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. fought indirectly when smaller countries wavered between communism and capitalism: The United States would support one army, the Soviet Union would support the other, and their supplies and troops would be used to kill each other without a direct declaration of war.

The Cultural revolution

-The Cultural Revolution was a disaster. From 1966-1976, the Cultural Revolution was an attempt to solidify communist rule by wiping out foreign influences and evidence of China's cultural history before communism. Temples, books, and religious statues were burned, and people accused of non-communist feelings were persecuted and killed.

Structure of the UN

-The General Assembly: A yearly meeting of all member nations in which each member has equal power. The General Assembly sets the UN's budget and settles any issues which aren't being considered by the Security Council. -The Security Council: A group of 15 nations that settles issues of peace and security. Five members are permanent: The US, The UK, China, Russia, and France. The other ten are elected by the General Assembly to two-year terms. The permanent members must agree unanimously on any decision. -The Secretariat: The administrative wing of the UN led by the Secretary-General. The Secretariat keeps the organization working and makes communication between members easier -The International Court of Justice: The legal wing of the UN, settles legal disputes between members and tries anyone accused of war crimes or other "crimes against humanity." -The Economic and Social Council: Makes sure that the UN and its subgroups have enough money, and that worldwide economic issues are being addressed. -Trusteeship Council: Controls territories under UN supervision. -The league had all of these parts except for the trusteeship and the economic and social council. The UN is also more flexible, only a two-thirds majority is required for a successful vote in the General Assembly, and the Security Council representatives remain constantly together so they can meet and respond to important issues quickly.

Events of Mao's reign

-The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution shaped China's image in the West, where Mao and Chinese communism were viewed with suspicion. -Mao's Great Leap Forward put farmers to work in communes where they received free meals. They could not leave the communes, however, and when food production fell, the free meals ended. -At a secret meeting about the widespread famine, Mao said, "When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill." Mao's government decided who received food and who didn't, so the people suspected of being Mao's enemies received the smallest amounts. -In 1956 Mao instituted the "Hundred Flowers Campaign," which encouraged criticism and free speech. The people who spoke out were denounced and sent to prison camps. -Few historians have a positive view of the Cultural Revolution, when millions were persecuted, numerous historical relics were destroyed, and Mao exerted almost god-like power over China's youth

gas chambers

-The Holocaust became efficient with gas chambers, which were sealed rooms that accommodated hundreds or thousands of people. Nazis would crowd the rooms with victims, seal the doors, and then drop in pellets that released hydrogen cyanide gas. The people would die in minutes. The bodies were then taken outside to be burned or buried. Nazis used machines to crush the bones of their victims, to concealing the actual number of Holocaust victims.

Genocide

-The Holocaust is probably the most famous example of genocide, the planned extermination of a specific group of people. Even though genocide was not uncommon in the 20th century, the Holocaust shocked the world when it became public knowledge. Millions of innocent civilians of all ages were murdered or worked to death. Most acts of genocide are motivated by a desire to change society and are based on the belief that eliminating a particular group will improve humanity. -While genocide has existed throughout human history, it's also a particularly modern event. They all share some common characteristics. They tend to occur in a climate of poverty, absolute government control, and widespread denial of the complexity of a society's problems. Events or societal changes that lead to dehumanizing feelings can support genocide. -The scope of the Holocaust inspired the creation of the term genocide. What the Nazis called the "Final Solution" was a government operation involving thousands of German soldiers and a massive amount of resources.

Success and Failure of The League of Nations

-The League of Nations was not immediately embraced, it was initially a "last resort" option for troubling issues. But, in the late 1920s, more nations became involved. The US would send representatives to the League when they wanted to conduct business with another country. -The League was occasionally successful in defusing international incidents. For example, in 1932, Colombia and Peru had a conflict over the rights to Leticia, a border settlement on the Amazon river. After battles and negotiations failed to produce a result, both countries agreed to let the League of Nations occupy the territory temporarily and negotiate an agreement. -The League's greatest failure was its inability to prevent totalitarian dictatorships in Europe. When powerful leaders like Hitler ignored the Treaty of Versailles and the international community, the League could do nothing to stop him. It had no military or political authority to change the situation in Germany.

The long march

-The Long March refers to a series of marches that the Chinese Communist Party made to escape the army of the Kuomintang, who were trying to encircle and destroy the communists. The hardships of the march built solidarity and turned Mao into the respected leader of the party. The events of the Long March are difficult for historians to confirm. The march occurred, but the Chinese government makes claims about the march's total distance and Mao's role that are hard to believe. It is likely that the march and Mao's role in it have been exaggerated to glorify the communist revolution.

The Manhattan Project

-The Manhattan Project, which ran from 1942-1946, was a top-secret U.S. program created to develop an atomic weapon in the deserts of the American Southwest. Sites all across the US contributed to the progress at the project's headquarters in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Some scientists and their families lived in sealed communities so that no one could find out. -After years of effort, the first atomic weapons were completed and tested in July 1945, less than three weeks before their first use in war. -The deserts of the American Southwest were vast and empty landscapes that were scarcely populated. Few people had any reason to visit the desert, so it was easier to maintain security and secrecy in a desert laboratory.

Italy

-The Mediterranean Sea and North Africa saw significant fighting during the war because of Italy's invasions of its neighbors. -Between 1940-1941, Italy invaded Egypt, Greece, and Yugoslavia, but were defeated by the Allies because of poor planning, leadership, and equipment. -In July 1943, with Britain and the US bombing Italy and preparing to invade, Italians turned against the war, and voted to strip power from Mussolini and return it to the king, who then imprisoned Mussolini. -However, he was rescued by Nazi forces, and continued to fight alongside German and Italian fascists in Italy until 1945. In April 1945, Mussolini was captured and murdered by Italian communists, who hanged him in the city of Milan. -By 1944, Italy had been defeated and the war in the Soviet Union was turning against the Nazis. The final shift in the war against Nazi Germany occurred in France.

The targeted

-The Romani people, a traveling ethnic group located mostly in eastern Europe, was specifically targeted for extermination by the Nazis. The disabled and handicapped were also killed. Nazis considered the people of Poland to be racially inferior. Nearly 2 million non-Jewish civilians were killed in Poland. -The Nazis killed 67 percent of the Jewish people they conquered. The total number of victims of the Holocaust, including non-Jewish "undesirables," is close to 11 million.

Cuban Missle Crisis

-The UN Security Council played a large role in solving some global conflicts before they could erupt into war. In October 1962, the US and the Soviet Union had a conflict called the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviet Union had decided to install nuclear missiles in communist Cuba, south of the US in the Caribbean Sea. Their goal was to prevent another American attempt to overthrow the communist government there. -However, the American government didn't want hostile nuclear weapons so close to its borders. So, the American navy created a blockade to prevent Soviet ships from reaching Cuba. The Soviets were warned that their ships would be fired upon if they came too close. Tensions quickly increased and people around the world feared a nuclear war. -When the Soviet Union denied that it was bringing nuclear weapons to Cuba, American leaders showed photographs to the UN Security Council proving that the Soviets were lying. The resulting embarrassment for the USSR and the UN's Secretary General were key in creating a compromise that avoided nuclear war.

The League of Nations

-The UN evolved from the League of Nations, a similar international organization from 1919-1946. The League was created in the aftermath of a global war (WWI) and its primary goal was to prevent another devastating conflict. Its headquarters were in Geneva, Switzerland. The authority to form the League was granted by the Treaty of Versailles. The first meeting was in 1920. -To accomplish its goal of worldwide peace, the League wouldn't act unless its decisions were approved by all member nations. The creators of the League didn't want a world in which a powerful majority could impose its will on smaller nations. -The League Was an unarmed organization, It didn't have any permanent military power to enforce its decisions. It had to rely on the armies of Britain, France, and the other major world powers to support it. -The League. During the two decades of its existence, the major powers of the world increased the sizes of their armies dramatically, and another global conflict erupted.

Creation of the UN

-The UN was created two months before WWII was officially over. On June 26, 1945, 50 of the UN's 51 original members signed the United Nations Charter, the treaty that formally created the international organization. One important element of the treaty was that it overruled any other existing treaties: A country's obligations to the UN were given priority over any other existing obligations. The goals of the UN are laid out in the charter's preamble (introductory statement) -In 1946, the League of Nations was eliminated and the UN took its place. Its headquarters was established in the US on the east coast of Manhattan Island in New York City. The UN's property in New York City is officially recognized as international territory belonging to all countries. Today, 193 states are members of the UN, and there are major UN buildings in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, and Kenya.

Atomic Bombs

-The atomic bomb was a weapon that instantaneously releases the energy contained within matter, and was developed in secret by American scientists throughout the war. It was tested and approved for use in July of 1945. In August, president Harry Truman ordered atomic bombs dropped on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. -The bombs almost completely destroyed the cities, and hundreds of thousands of people were killed instantly or died from radiation poisoning. On August 15, 1945, six days after the second bomb dropped, Japan proposed an unconditional surrender, and WWII was over.

Examples of UN Peacekeeping

-The city of Sarajevo was besieged by a Serbian army from 1992-1996. UN peacekeepers flew supplies into the city to ensure that its citizens had food and supplies. -Tanks from India were sent to Somalia during a civil war in 1993. As part of a UN peacekeeping force, they were present to ensure that supplies could be delivered to civilians. -Eritrea and Ethiopia went to war over their border in the late 1990s. UN peacekeepers patrolled the border in 2005, when tensions between the two countries were rising again.

political unrest in China (early 20th century)

-The failed Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901 featured rebels trying to drive foreign imperialists and Christians out of China. -The Xinhai Revolution in 1911 began when civilians tired of poverty and foreign occupation drove the ruling emperor from power and replaced imperial rule with a republic. -The May Fourth Movement was a response to the continued foreign occupation of China, in spite of the rebellions and leadership changes in the recent past.

Dehumanization

-The killing of Japanese soldiers wasn't genocide, because the US and Japan were at war. But, the ethnic and cultural differences between them led to racism and dehumanization, which occurs when people look at other people as "less than human." -All genocides involve dehumanization. For example, In an area of China occupied by Japan during the war, the Japanese army built an experimentation camp called Unit 731. Chinese and Russian prisoners were subjected to vivisection (surgery performed on a live, conscious patient), deliberate infection with disease, and various types of torture to see how the human body would respond. -Dehumanization is a by-product of war, and plays a major role in genocide. Before the Holocaust, the Nazis forced Jews to sew a gold Star of David into their clothing so they could be identified easily, like cattle. On November 9, 1938--a night known as Kristallnacht, Nazi militants destroyed Jewish stores and synagogues and sent tens of thousands of Jews to concentration camps. The implication was that the Jews' property and lives were considered less valuable than those of other citizens.

May Fourth Movement

-The outrage led to the May Fourth Movement, a protest movement that began on May 4, 1919. During the movement, middle-class businessmen and students went on strike and sought out radical movements like communism. Peasant farmers demanded a better life and more human rights. The Chinese republic seemed to be failing its citizens, and people wanted a new political system, new values, and new ideas that can turn their lives around and restore their pride.

The First atomic attack (little boy on the enola gay)

-The plane that dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima was a bomber called the Enola Gay. The Enola Gay flew to Hiroshima as part of a small formation. Japanese leaders didn't attack or pursue the plane because they didn't believe it could inflict much damage. Little Boy exploded when it was 2,000 feet above Hiroshima. Despite the distance, it annihilated everything within five square miles of the blast, and further destruction (heat, fire, and radiation) extended even farther.

Stab in the back myth

-The treaty of versailles put harsh economic and military penalties on Germany. Germans became poor and their currency became worthless. Their leaders surrendered German land and resources to France, which striked anger and bitterness against those leaders, and the supporters of surrendering. -Those feeling led to the stab in the back myth, the belief that Germany would have won the war if it's leaders weren't forced to surrender by "traitors" at home. According to the myth, socialists, jews, and communists were working against Germany. (Although there was no way Germany could have won the war against the combined forces, especially because they were running out of food and ammunition.)

The Holocaust

-The word holocaust means "entirely burnt up." The Nazi Holocaust was the planned, systemic murder of European Jews and other "undesirable" members of Nazi society during WWII. Hitler encouraged his followers to blame the Jews for society's problems. When the Nazis came to power, they decided to permanently eradicate all Jews, in an attempt at genocide called the "Final Solution." -9 million Jews lived in Europe before the war, and after the war, 6 million had been murdered in the Holocaust. Along with the Jews, the ethnic Romani were also systematically executed, and homosexuals and the physically handicapped and mentally disabled. -Whenever the Nazis gained control of an area, they would gather "undesirables" and either shoot them or ship them in trains to concentration camps, enclosed prisons where inmates were either starved, worked to death, or executed and buried in mass graves. Sometimes doctors in the camps would perform medical experiments on living inmates. -Reports of the Holocaust reached the Allies toward the end of the war, when escaped prisoners rom concentration camps reached the front lines, or when planes took aerial photographs of the compounds. The Allies took little action to stop the killings. Some commanders wanted to focus on military targets, and others argued that destroying the camps would be counterproductive, they reasoned that bombing them would kill the prisoners. Most leaders found it difficult to believe that any government would systematically kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians every hour. Allied soldiers were in horror when they reached concentration camps in 1945, and saw that it was worse than the rumors.

the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany

-Throughout D-Day and the following week, Allied ships dropped over 300,000 soldiers on the coast of Normandy. Within a month, the Allies brought more than a million soldiers to the European mainland, along with 150,000 vehicles and tons of supplies. -D-Day was the first part of a larger plan called Operation Overlord, which was designed to free France from Nazi control and force the enemy to retreat back toward Germany. Less than three months later, those goals had been accomplished. The success was partially due to the fact that Hitler insisted on absolute control of his military, despite repeated poor decisions and growing mental instability. The nine months following D-Day were a slow march toward the death of Hitler, the capture of Berlin, and unconditional German surrender. -The D-Day invasion was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. They were already weakened by losses in the Soviet Union, and didn't have the manpower or supplies to sustain a battle on two fronts.

The Modernization of Japan

-To modernize Japan, leaders eliminated the rigid structure of Japanese society, especially the samurai class, who was the elite warrior class that became corrupt and received payments from the government even though they didn't contribute much. Although they resisted, their rebellion was easily defeated, and actually preferred their new social roles/government positions in the new society. -Under emperor Meiji, Japan became a capitalist society (instead of feudalistic). Landowning farmers became rich and Japanese society was like Western European society. People could advance in social standing by acquiring property and wealth, and could move up the social ladder through education, talent, and business. -The Meiji government sent students to the west to learn about the Scientific and Industrial Revolution. The merchant class then adopted free market capitalism and mass production. -Because of Japan's previous isolation, their natural resources were still intact, which made its transformation into an industrial nation easy. -European industrialists were eager to invest their money in a developing nation, and Japan became rich and powerful almost overnight, from a historical standpoint.

The Great Leap Forward

-Under Mao's leadership, China's population doubled, from 550 million to more than 900 million. Unfortunately, Mao's devotion to extreme socialist ideals and his hatred of intellectuals held China back technologically for decades. -The Great Leap Forward, Mao's plan to change China into an industrial nation, was enacted between 1958 and 1961. It called for a collective approach to farming and the creation of "backyard furnaces" that would turn Chinese farmers into steel workers. The plan crippled Chinese agriculture and starved tens of millions of citizens. The furnaces where peasants were forced to work failed to produce results, many weren't hot enough to change iron into steel.

Peacekeeping

-Unlike the League, the UN can enforce its decisions using its authority to create a military "peacekeeping force" at any time using soldiers or police officers from its member nations. Today, the countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh contribute the most peacekeeping troops, but all members must contribute in some way. -The Security Council decides when a peacekeeping force is necessary. UN peacekeepers wear a distinctive light-blue helmet or beret. When a peacekeeping mission is ordered or requested, the UN begins the process of choosing troops and acquiring materials, in a long process that doesn't allow for a quick response. -The UN also tries war criminals in The Hague, a district of the Netherlands.

Axis vs allies

-WWII lasted from 1939-1945, and the opposing sides were the Axis and the Allies. -The major axis powers were Germany, Italy, and Japan (and included bulgaria and iraq). -The major allies were Britain, the USSR, and the US (and included France, China, Brazil, and Greece)

Pearl harbor

-War began in the Pacific Theater after the Japanese military bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Over the next three and a half years, Japan, the United States, and their allies fought for control of the Pacific Ocean. For decades, Japan had been taking control of parts of Korea, China, and Southeast Asia, as well as numerous smaller Pacific islands. -On the morning of December 7, planes from six Japanese aircraft carriers dropped bombs on Pearl Harbor's ships and naval stations. The attack was over in 90 minutes. More than 2,400 Americans were killed, more than eight battleships were rendered useless, and hundreds of planes were destroyed. However, fuel depots and other important supply stations weren't targeted. -The purpose of the attack was to keep America out of the war in the Pacific by crippling its navy and demoralizing its people. However, the American navy was still operational, and Americans were furious. The US declared war on Japan the following day, and declarations of war against the other Axis powers soon followed.

distorted facts of chinese history

-Western governments claim that Chinese leaders distorted some facts to glorify their movement, and the Chinese government claims that western capitalists are trying to undermine their authority. -For example, Chinese history texts describe the battle of Luding Bridge as a heroic victory over superior nationalist forces. However, some witnesses claim that only a small band of mercenaries was holding the bridge, and that they ran away instead of trying to protect it. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping explained that they had to dramatize the story.

Reason behind genocide

-When genocide occurs in a society where the government controls all aspects of life and interferes with the way people interact. Some groups will fail to live up to the totalitarian leader's cultural ideal, which is seen by a totalitarian regime as hostility against the state. This may result in a drive to exterminate the threat, to kill the people who don't represent the ideal citizen. -The absolute control of the totalitarian regime and the desire to remold society are the factors that led to genocide in the 20th century.

Devastations and controversy of atomic bombs

-When the Enola Gay was put on display in the Smithsonian in 1995, some groups protested the exhibit's focus on Japanese casualties and suffering. They wished that the exhibit paid attention to Japan's crimes during the war. Other groups protested that the museum was glorifying a destructive weapon that caused suffering to civilians who weren't involved in combat. -The effects of the atomic bombs on civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were initially suppressed in the United States and occupied Japan. The heat at the center of the explosions was so intense that people were instantaneously vaporized, and the only remnant of their existence was a shadow burnt into the ground. People outside that immediate area were less fortunate: Their skin was severely burned and scarred, and their bodies absorbed fatal or disfiguring amounts of radiation. -Censors, people who examine and edit materials to prevent the release of information, prevented the publication of stories about the victims or descriptions of their injuries, and some officials labeled the evidence of radiation poisoning as "Japanese propaganda." Most journalists were barred from entering the bomb sites, and photographers working in the area had their film taken by American authorities. The suffering caused by the war fostered racist and dehumanizing opinions of Japanese people.

Taiwan

-after the war, the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan. Chiang Kai-Shek and other leaders proclaimed that the government of Taiwan was the "true" Republic of China. The island's official name is "The Republic of China," although most people call it Taiwan. The communist government in China claims that Taiwan is not independent and belongs to mainland China.

The Meiji Restoration

-from 1868-1912, Japan went from an underdeveloped country to an industrial power. They quickly adapted to modern industry, and defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. -Japanese politics became right-winged and fascist, with intense nationalism, and forced worshipful attitude towards the emperor. They built an impressive military and conquered areas of Korea and China. The Japanese military wanted to conquer any country bordering the Pacific Ocean.

Mussolini vs Hitler

Alliances formed within the Axis powers in the early 1920s' when Italy's leader, Mussolini, proposed an alliance with Germany against France. At this time, Hitler wasn't in power, and Germany refused. -When Hitler came into power, him and Mussolini didn't trust each other at first, and both wanted control over Austria and the leading role in any alliances. This caused a tension that almost led to alliances against each other. -However, when Italy expanded into Ethiopia, Germany was one of the only countries to stand by their side. Their desire to protect their borders and resist international pressure to limit their aggression drove the Axis powers into an alliance against the rest of the world.

The French resistance sabotage mission

Allied commanders were also coordinating with members of the French resistance. Encoded messages instructed them to perform an elaborate sabotage mission that involved cutting power, destroying trains, and rendering roads impassable. The goal was to delay any support sent by German commanders to Normandy. Some members of German intelligence intercepted the messages and guessed correctly that they were the prelude to an attack, but their warnings were ignored.

Joseph Stalin

Before 1917, he was a socialist revolutionary who worked to overthrow the tsar's government. After the revolutions of 1917, he was a member of Vladimir Lenin's inner circle. He was a violent man who used his military authority to intimidate and execute anyone who opposed Lenin's administration. Lenin gradually gave Stalin more power. When Lenin died, Stalin suppressed Lenin's final wishes, which was to strip him of power, and began to solidify his position as the country's supreme leader. -By the late 1920s, Stalin was the undisputed ruler of the USSR. He renamed numerous towns after himself, rewrote history to give himself a larger role in the revolution, and ordered hundreds of thousands of arrests and executions of people suspected of plotting against him. Stalin was an opportunist: When he couldn't work out a treaty with France and Britain before the beginning of World War II, he signed a pact with Hitler instead. As the war went on, though, Stalin would become a key ally against the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini.

Maoism

China's version of communism in the early years of the People's Republic of China was called Maoism, to distinguish it from Marxism or Leninism.

The plan that carried the first atomic bomb

Enola Gay (the atomic bomb destroyed the Japanese city of hiroshima 8:15 AM on August 6, 1945).

Slavic populations

Hitler and his followers considered the Slavic populations of the Soviet Union to be untermenschen (subhuman). According to Nazi ideology, the Nazi master race was in a "war of annihilation" with the people of eastern Europe. To bring peace and the "New Order," Germany would have to invade and conquer the Soviet Union and annihilate its people.

superiority in Japan

In Japan, children were taught that people from other countries were naturally inferior, or less than human, when compared to the Japanese.

Germany's attack on the Soviet Union

In June 1941, Germany broke their alliance with the USSR (in which both sides promised to not attack each other, and to divide Poland in half) and began their attack, with an invasion of 4 million Nazi troops (which represented the largest invasion in military history). The Soviet Union then sided with the Allies instead of the Axis.

Iron Curtain

In March 1946, Churchill made a speech that described the physical division between capitalist and communist countries in Europe as an "Iron Curtain": -Europe's dividing line during the Cold War was known as the Iron Curtain after Churchill's speech.

Events that ensured allied victory

In the European and Pacific theaters of war, the events that assured Allied victory were very different were both large-scale events that the world had never seen before. In Europe, the Allied invasion of France was one of the biggest sea-to-land invasions that has ever occurred in history. Of the two events, the atomic bombings were the most destructive. The technology that caused such devastation was new, and changed world history.

Concentration Camps

Jews and other "undesirables" were sent to concentration camps like Dachau and Auschwitz. Women and children were not considered useful for labor. The Nazis wanted to kill them because they believed in ethnic and cultural purity. They considered Jews to be inferior and expendable. The working inmates of concentration camps lived in terrible conditions. They received barely any food and slowly starved. In the living quarters four or more inmates were assigned to each bed.

The full moon

June 6th became D-Day because it coincided with a full moon. The Allies needed a full moon to illuminate their progress and to raise the tide on the landing beaches. The weather was bad on the days leading up to D-Day, with cloudy skies and choppy waves, but the next full moon wouldn't occur until July. The Allies decided to risk the invasion, which was a good decision, because the bad weather convinced the Germans that an invasion was impossible, so they were unprepared.

Herrenvolk (master race)

Nazis in Germany promoted Herrenvolk, which was the master race of German/Nordic people with light skin, light hair, and light eyes. They believed that to increase German strength, they had to eliminate those were weren't a part of the "master race".

reopening of the western front

On D-Day, Allied troops assaulted five beaches on the coast of Normandy, while thousands of other troops parachuted from planes to assault the German defenses from behind and confuse their reinforcements. The Germans were unable to withstand the invasion. More than 4,000 Allied soldiers died, but through their sacrifice they reopened the western front of the Second World War. The reopening of the western front stretched the resources of the German army past their limit.

Operation Bodyguard

Operation Bodyguard was the series of operations designed to fool German leaders into thinking the Allies were landing somewhere else. There were fake invasions planned for almost the entire region along the Atlantic Wall. They involved fake equipment and structures, such as an inflatable tank. German planes flying overhead would see the inflatable tanks, thinking they were preparing to be shipped across for an invasion. The real tanks were waiting across from Normandy.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. In 1921, FDR contracted polio, Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. The Roosevelts were a wealthy and famous family in the US. His distant cousin Theodore Roosevelt served as president, and many other relatives were leading, successful businessmen. FDR became the state senator of New York in 1911 and supported Woodrow Wilson during Wilson's successful run for president. FDR became the governor of New York in, and won presidency in 1932. Since there was no formal limit on how many terms a president could serve, FDR got reelected two more times (served for 12 years). In addition to leading the Allies to victory in World War II, he is known for turning the American economy around following the onset of the Great Depression.

Russia's Mud season

Russia's mud seasons make transporting an army difficult and slow, and the cold conditions of the Russian winter are damaging to military equipment and devastating to the distribution of food and other supplies. A large-scale military invasion of the region is almost impossible.

Battle of Stalingrad

The Battle of Stalingrad lasted from August 1942 to February 1943. At the beginning of the battle, the German air force destroyed most of the city with bombing raids. Stalin issued an order that retreat was unacceptable for any soldier in the Red Army, and special groups were put in place to shoot and kill anyone suspected of running away. Although the Germans controlled than 90 percent of the city, they refused to surrender. -Throughout the months, the Soviet army outside the city gained enough strength to cut off the German forces. The Germans who were supposed to be capturing Stalingrad were trapped inside of it. In the cold Russian winter, German rifles froze shut, and German soldiers ran out of food. Even though Hitler ordered German soldiers in Stalingrad to fight to the death and commit suicide rather than be captured, the German commander surrendered on February 2, 1943.

United Nations (UN)

The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 in response to the destruction of WWII. Today, almost every country in the world is a member of the UN, which has its headquarters in New York City. Its mission is to ensure cooperation and peace throughout the world, and to work toward universal justice and human rights.

Ideaology

The collection of ideas that guides the actions of a nation or group

Theaters of war

The fighting generally took place in two theaters of war (areas of military conflict): the European theater and the Pacific theater. However, there was significant fighting on almost every continent.

Adolf Hitler

born in Austria-Hungary, and wanted to become an artist, but his father did not approve. His father died, then his mother a few years later. He was consistently rejected by the art establishment in Vienna, where he lived after his mother's death. During these impoverished years, he became a German nationalist and an intense racist with a hatred for Jewish people. Hitler served in the German army during WWI, and Germany's defeat and humiliation after the war made him more committed to the idea of German identity and superiority. He blamed the military loss on what he imagined were betrayals by socialists and Jews. -After his service in WWI, he became a political activist, and helped turn the German Workers' Party into the Nazi Party. He became the leader of the Nazis and spearheaded the Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt to overthrow the German government. It was a failure, but Hitler was still well-liked by the majority of the German people, so he received a light prison sentence. During his year in prison He wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), which was part autobiography and part political manifesto. In it, he claimed that Germany's problems were caused by communists and Jews. When he was released, he resumed his position as leader of the Nazis and spent ten years building the Nazi Party into a major political force in Germany. -Hitler made a failed attempt to run for president, but the victor appointed him chancellor; but Hitler changed the chancellor position into the most powerful one in Germany, starting with a reaction to a fire in the Reichstag building. he blamed the fire on his communist rivals and won the power to arrest and imprison them without a trial. Hitler used his power to arrest any political opposition and to pass the Enabling Act, which granted the Nazis full political power for four years, and granted Hitler almost dictatorial power.

Winston Churchill

the Prime Minister of the UK from during the majority of Britain's involvement in World War II. He ran for office in Parliament but transferred back to the military and fought in the trenches of WWI. He preferred fighting on the front lines because alcohol was permitted there, officers in safer quarters had to drink tea. In the 20 years between WWI and WWII, Churchill was a fixture in Parliament. His opposition to independence for India and initial support for fascism have caused historians to look on him less favorably. However, he is remembered most for his opposition to Hitler (even when it wasn't popular) and his strong leadership against the Axis Powers of WWII. To the victorious Allies, Churchill remains one of the heroes of the war. He drank heavily, smoked several cigars a day, and was frequently depressed, but his leadership transformed Britain into the only country trying to stop the advance of Nazi Germany.