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Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, DL, FRS, RA was a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. -
FDR
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known by his initials FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States. -
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician, journalist, and leader of the National Fascist Party, ruling the country as Prime Minister from 1922 until his ousting in 1943. -
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States. As the final running mate of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, Truman succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when Roosevelt died after months of declining health. -
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party. He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. -
Vernon Baker
Vernon Joseph Baker was a United States Army officer who received the Medal of Honor, the highest military award given by the United States Government for his valorous actions during World War II. -
Audie Murphy
Audie Leon Murphy was one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of World War II, receiving every military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. -
Lend Lease Act
Proposed in late 1940 and passed in March 1941, the Lend-Lease Act was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. It authorized the president to transfer arms or any other defense materials for which Congress appropriated money to “the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” -
Office of War Information
"Uncle Sam wants you!" That's what Americans read on posters during World War II. To attract U.S. citizens to jobs in support of the war effort, the government created the Office of War Information on June 13, 1942, some six months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. OWI photographers documented American life and culture by showing aircraft factories, members of the armed forces, and women in the workforce using propaganda. -
Dictator
a ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained power by force. -
Fascism
a governmental system ledby a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce,etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism. -
Nazism
is a set of political beliefs associated with the Nazi Party of Germany. It started in the 1920s. The Party gained power in 1933, starting the Third Reich. They lasted in Germany until 1945, at the end of World War II. -
U.S. declares Neutrality
The US did not enter World War II for another two years, after its naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was the victim of a surprise attack by Japanese forces in December 1941.
At the outbreak of the war in Europe President Roosevelt urged the American public to be neutral, but he also said: "I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well." -
Victory Gardens
Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I and World War II.As part of the war effort, the government rationed foods like sugar, butter, milk, cheese, eggs, coffee, meat and canned goods. Labor and transportation shortages made it hard to harvest and move fruits and vegetables to market. -
Propaganda
information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. -
Women’s Roles in WWII
They included the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, who on March 10, 2010, were awarded the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal. Meanwhile, widespread male enlistment left gaping holes in the industrial labor force. Between 1940 and 1945, the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to nearly 37 percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home. -
War Bonds and Rationing
Numerous challenges confronted the American people. The government found it necessary to ration food, gas, and even clothing during that time. Americans were asked to conserve on everything. With not a single person unaffected by the war, rationing meant sacrifices for all.
The last time the United States issued war bonds was during World War II, when full employment collided with rationing, and war bonds were seen as a way to remove money from circulation as well as reduce inflation. -
Pearl Harbor
Just before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours, but it was devastating: The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and almost 200 airplanes. More than 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked -
Rape of Nanking
The population of Nanking was subjected to an uncontrolled butchery that came to be known as "the Rape of Nanking." As the Japanese army poured into the city, fleeing residents were shot or bayoneted. Thousand of suspected members of the Chinese Army who had shed their uniforms for civilian clothing, were apprehended, their hands tied behind their backs and led en mass to killing fields where they were shot, beheaded, used for bayonet practice or killed in some other gruesome manner before being -
Fire Bombing of Dresden
The bombing of Dresden in February 1945 has remained one of the more controversial aspects of World War Two. Dresden, a city unaffected by bombing up to that point in the war, lost many thousands of civilians in the firestorm that was created by the Allies. -
Japanese-American Internment Camps
RELOCATION of all Americans of Japanese ancestry to CONCENTRATION CAMPS in the interior of the United States. Evacuation orders were posted in JAPANESE-AMERICAN communities giving instructions on how to comply with the executive order. Many families sold their homes, their stores, and most of their assets. They could not be certain their homes and livelihoods would still be there upon their return. Because of the mad rush to sell, properties and inventories were often sold at a fraction of their
