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Benito Mussolini
An Italian dictator who rose to power in the wake of World War I as a leading proponent of Facism. He forged the paramilitary Fascist movement in 1919 and became prime minister in 1922. Mussolini allied himself with Hitler, relying on the German dictator to prop up his leadership during World War II, but he was killed shortly after the German surrender in Italy in 1945. -
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Harry Truman
The 33rd U.S. president, assumed office following the death of President Franklin Roosevelt. In the White House from 1945 to 1953, Truman made the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan, helped rebuild postwar Europe, worked to contain communism and led the United States into the Korean War (1950-1953). -
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Hideki Tojo
Wartime leader of Japan’s government, a General, with his close-cropped hair, mustache, and round spectacles, became for Allied propagandists one of the most commonly caricatured members of Japan’s military dictatorship throughout the Pacific war. Shrewd at bureaucratic infighting and fiercely partisan in presenting the army’s perspective while army minister, he was surprisingly indecisive as national leader. -
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George S. Patton
George S. Patton (1885-1945) began his military career in World War 1. He reached the high point of his career during World War II, when he led the U.S. 7th Army in its invasion of Sicily and swept across northern France at the head of the 3rd Army in the summer of 1944.Late that same year, Patton’s forces played a key role in defeating the German counterattack in the Battle of the Bulge, after which he led them across the Rhine River and into Germany, capturing 10,000 miles of territory. -
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Adolf Hitler
Was one of the most powerful and infamous dictators of the 20th century. After World War I, he rose to power in the National Socialist German Workers Party, taking control of the German government in 1933. His establishment of concentration camps to inter Jews and other groups he believed to be a threat to Aryan supremacy resulted in the death of more than 6 million people in the Holocaust.His attack on Poland in 1939 started World War II. -
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Dwight D. Eisenhower
As supreme commander of Allied forces in Western Europe during World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower led the massive invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe that began on D-Day. In 1952, leading Republicans convinced Eisenhower to run for president; he won a convincing victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson and would serve two terms in the White House. During his presidency, Eisenhower managed Cold War-era tensions with the Soviet Union under the looming threat of nuclear weapons. -
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Omar Bradley
The first chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Omar Bradley, commanded the Twelfth Army Group in World War II, which helped the Allied victory. He captured Bizerte, Tunisia in 1943, which led to the surrender of more than 250,000 Axis troops. As a commander in World War II, he planned and participated in the Normandy Invasion. In 1949, he was named the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. -
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Vernon Baker
Vernon Baker joined the Army in 1941. He then went to Officer Candidate School, was commissioned in early 1943 as a second lieutenant, and assigned to the 92nd Infantry Division, an all-black unit. The division's soldiers were known as Buffalo Soldiers. A decisive Allied victory in which Baker wiped out four German machine. He received the Medal of Honor in 1997. Vernon Baker was the only living recipient. -
Navajo Code Talkers
In United States history, the story of Native Americans is predominantly tragic. Settlers took their land, misunderstood their customs, and killed them in the thousands. Then, during World War II, the U.S. government needed the Navajos' help. And though they had suffered greatly from this same government, Navajos proudly answered the call to duty. The talkers were involved World War 2. -
Flying Tigers
The Flying Tigers Association is a nonprofit organization composed of honorably discharged members of the American Volunteer Group. The Association offers for sale limited quantities of art, books and memorabilia having to do with the stories and exploits of the AVG Flying Tigers. Most items have original autographs of AVG members. It begun in 1941, not in Feb. 21. -
Executive Order 9066
Early in World War II, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, granting the U.S. military the power to ban tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry from areas deemed critical to domestic security.Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas "as deemed necessary or desirable." The military in turn defined the entire West Coast, home to the majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry or citizenship. -
Manhattan Project
In 1938, three chemists working in a laboratory in Berlin made a discovery that would alter the course of history. The energy needed to be stronger. But before such a weapon could be built, numerous technical problems had to be overcome.When Einstein learned that the Germans might succeed in solving these problems, he wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt with his concerns. The launched the bomb. The project was in 1942-1946. -
Bataan Death March
After the April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II (1939-45), the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March. -
Battle of Midway
Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States defeated Japan in one of the most decisive naval battles of World War II. Thanks in part to major advances in code breaking, the United States was able to preempt and counter Japan’s planned ambush of its few remaining aircraft carriers, inflicting permanent damage on the Japanese Navy. An important turning point in the Pacific campaign, the victory allowed the United States and its allies to move into an offensive position. -
Office of War information
This is from the saying "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. The OWI aimed to inspire patriotic fervor in the American public. -
Korematsu v. U.S.
Fred Korematsu refused to obey the wartime order to leave his home and report to a relocation camp for Japanese Americans. He was arrested and convicted. After losing in the Court of Appeals, he appealed to the United States Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of the deportation order. The Supreme Court upheld the order excluding persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast war zone during World War II. This begun in 1944, not on the 21st or in February. -
Merchant Marines
The Merchant Marine participated in all fronts of the war. In the Pacific, the Merchant Seamen partook in the invasions alongside the military, notably Okinawa and Iwo Jima. During the invasion of Normandy, 2,700 Merchant ships were used to transport troops and munitions.The Merchant were successful during World War 2. Motivated by a duty to their country, the men and women of the Merchant Marine valiantly risked their lives to provide the war effort with the necessary supplies. -
D-Day invasion
During World War II the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation Overlord when some 156,000 American. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. all of northern Francehad been liberated, and by the following spring the Allies had defeated the Germans. -
The Holocaust
The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community. Part of World War 2. -
Potsdam Conference
Held near Berlin, the Potsdam Conference was the last of the World War II meetings held by the “Big Three” heads of state. Featuring American President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (and his successor, Clement Attlee) and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, the talks established a Council of Foreign Ministers and a central Allied Control Council for administration of Germany. -
Hiroshima/Nagasaki
During World War II, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. -
Atomic Bomb
A bomb created by the United States to drop on an island. A B-29 bomber dropped the bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The atomic bomb was very deadly and killed anyone in site. The bomb was called Little Boy. -
Nuremberg Trials
Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949.Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) committed suicide and was never brought to trial. Although the legal justifications for the trials and their procedural innovations were controversial at the time, the Nuremberg trials are now regarded as a milestone toward the establishment of a permanent international court.
