The World War II Era

Kamikaze Missions

-In the last days of the war, the Japanese unleashed a deadly new form of combat. Suicide pilots crashed their planes into American ships

Totalitarian State

-a nation in which a single party controls the government and every aspect of people's lives Ex. The Soviet Union

Appeasement

-a policy of giving in to aggression in order to avoid war Ex. When German armies occupied Austria, European democracies did nothing to stop them

Fascism

-a political system based on militarism, extreme nationalism, and blind loyalty to the state and its leader Ex. Mussolini turned Italy into the world's first Fascist state.

Aggression

-a warlike act by one country against another without cause Exs. Japan attacks China; Italy attacks Ethiopia

Neutrality Acts

-passed by Congress. It was the first of several laws to keep the U.S. at peace. It forbade the President from selling arms, making loans, or giving any other kind of assistance to any nation involved in war.

Island Hopping

-strategy in which American forces would capture some Japanese-held islands and go around others

Rationing

-the act of setting limits on the amount of scarce goods people can buy; Americans were issued ration coupons to purchase sugar, meat, shoes, gasoline, tires, and may other goods.

Genocide

-the deliberate attempt to wipe out an entire nation or group of people Ex.The Holocost

War Crimes

-wartime acts of cruelty and brutality that are judged to be beyond the accepted rules of war and human behavior.

Importance of timeline dates

1935-Congress passes first Neutrality Act to keep the nation out of foreign wars. Italy invades Ethiopia. 1939-Roosevelt announces U.S. will remain neutral in the war. Germany invades Poland; World War 2 begins. 1941-US enters the war after Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. 1942-US Navy defeats Japanese Navy at Battle of Midway. Britain defeats German forces in Egypt. 1944-Allied troops land in France on D-day 1945- US plane drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; WW2 ends.

Invasion of the Soviet Union

A huge German force crossed into the Soviet Union breaking the pact with Stalin. As a result, the Soviet Union was forced to work with Britain to defeat the common enemy, Germany.

Role of African Americans in WW2

African Americans served in segregated units during WW2. By the end of 1944, about two million African Americans were working in war plants.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

American general that commanded the first American ground troops in combat in North Africa. They occupied Morocco and Algeria. Future president of the U.S.

Victory Gardens

Americans planted victory gardens to supplement food supplies

Munich Conference

Britain and France agreed to let the German leader occupy just the Sudetenland.

Allies

Britain, France, the Soviet Union, the United States, China, and 45 other countries

Role of FDR and Harry S. Truman in WW2

FDR promised to maintain America's neutrality which didn't happen. So his second priority was to keep Americans safe. Harry S. Truman needed to be a decisive leader.

What does this quote mean: "a day which will live in infamy"

FDR was saying that the day that Pearl was attacked will be remembered as bad and shameful day in American History.

Douglas MacArthur

General that commanded a Filipino-American force. He was ordered by FDR to go to Austalia and take command of all US troops in the region. Fired by Truman. "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."

Fall of France

German armies entered France and marched on to Paris, the French capital. Six weeks later, Hitler gleefully accepted the surrender of France.

Nazis

German soldiers

Axis

Germany, Italy, Japan, and six other nations

How was Benito Mussolini brutal?

He ended freedom of the press and banned all political parties except his own. His armies invaded Ethiopia.

What did Joseph Stalin do to take over the Soviet Union?

He ordered peasants to give crops, animals and land to government-run farms. Millions of peasants who resisted were executed or sent to labor camps. In addition, an estimated four million Soviets, including many of Stalin's rivals in the Communist Party, were killed or imprisoned on false charges of disloyalty to the state.

What did Adolf Hitler want to accomplish?

He wanted to create an empire that united all German speaking people, including those outside Germany. In defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, he began to rebuild Germany's armed forces.

Two cities that were bombed

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Nazi-Soviet Pact

Hitler and Stalin-two sworn and bitter enemies-had signed a nonaggression agreement. The two dictators promised not to one another's countries. Secretly, they agreed to divide up Poland.

Battle of Britain

Hitler ordered an air assault on Britain. German planes attacked British cities and took tens of thousands of lives, yet the British Spirit never broke. Londoners cleared the wreckage, buried the dead, and tried to carry on. Overhead, the British air force fought invading planes. After many months, Hitler had abandoned all plans to invade Britain.

Role of women in WW2 (WACs)

Hundreds of thousands of American women were in uniform during WW2. They served as nurses or in noncombat roles in special branches such as the Women's Army Corps (WACs). Women pilots ferried bombers from base to base, toward targets, and taught men how to fly.

Nuremberg Trials

In the German city of Nuremberg, Allied judges tried prominent Nazis for plunging the world into war and for the horrors of the death camps. In 1946, at the first Nuremberg trials, twelve defendants were sentenced to death by hanging.

Economy in America during WW2

Industry quickly converted its output from consumer to military goods. The government established a War Production Board to supervise the changeover and set goals for production. The war quickly ended the Great Depression. Unemployment fell as millions of jobs opened up in factories. Minority workers found jobs where they had been rejected in the past.

Lend-Lease Act

It allowed the U.S. to lend or lease supplies to Britain and other nations fighting the Nazis.

Battle of the Bulge

On December 16, 1944 the Germans counterattacked in Belgium. Hitler poured his remaining reserves into the attack. Bad weather grounded Allied aircraft for the first week of battle. This allowed the German troops to make a "bulge" in the American lines. In the end, their attempt to fight off defeat proved futile. Americans forces won the Battle of the Bulge.

Pearl Harbor

On December 7, 1941, Japanese bombers launched a surprise attack on American naval, air, and ground forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack caught American military leaders by surprise. About 2,400 Americans were killed.

D-Day

On June 6, 1954, more than 155,000 American, British, and Canadian troops crossed the English Channel. On Omaha Beach, however, Americans met an especially fierce German defense. By the day's end, some 2,500 Americans lay dead. However, they did succeed their mission.

Invasion of Poland

On September 1, 1939, Nazi troops invaded Poland causing Britain and France to declare war on Germany. This was the start of WW2.

Order of Areas taken over by Hitler before Poland

Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, and Czechoslovakia

Atlantic Charter

Roosevelt and Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter, outlining their goals for the postwar world. They agreed that their nations would seek no territorial gain from the war and emphasised the right of all people to choose their own government. They also called for a new international organization that might succeed where the League of Nations had failed.

Start and end of WW2

September 1, 1939 and May 8, 1945

Rosie the Riveter

She became a popular fictional symbol of all women who worked for the war effort.

Holocaust

Some 6 million Jews were murdered under the Nazis. Jewish families were wiped out. Millions of women, men, and children were transported to death camps in railway cattle cars. A plan orchestrated by Hitler to ensure German supremacy. It called for the elimination of Jews, non-conformists, homosexuals, non-Aryans, and mentally and physically disabled.

Winston Churchill

The British prime minister during WW2

Japanese Internment Camps

The U.S. government imprisoned 110,000 Japanese Americans for the duration of the war. The Japanese were allowed to bring only what they could carry. The internment camps were small and enclosed in barbed wire. Armed soldiers looked down on them from guard towers.

Lasting problems of the Treaty of Versailles

The terms of the treaty were very harsh, and it ruined relationships between countries, by angering the Germans.

Purpose of the atomic bomb

Truman decided to use it to save American lives, and make Japan surrender

A. Philip Randolph

Union leader and head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened a mass protest unless Roosevelt moved to end discrimination in the armed forces.

Number of American volunteers and draftees in WW2

more than 15 million

Concentration Camp

prison camps used under the rule of Hitler in Nazi Germany. Conditions were inhuman, and prisoners, mostly Jewish people, were generally starved or worked to death, or killed immediately.