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Victory Gardens
These were gardens that the government encouraged citizens to grow to feed their families so the other food could go to the soldiers fighting in the war. These became very popular during the time of rationing because people were not able to get as much food as they would normally get so this allowed them to grow food and supply more food for them and their families. -
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The Holocuast
The Holocuast was a mass killing of almost 6 million Jews by the German Nazis during WWII. The leader of these Nazis was Adolf Hitler. Hitler and his Nazis ruled Germany and persecuted all of the Jews. This was known as their "final solution." The Jews were kept in ghettos and then were sent in boxcars to "death camps" or concentration camps. -
Merchant Marines
The United States Merchant Marines provided the greatest sea protection in history. They had around 55,000 experienced mariners. Merchant ships faced danger from submarines, mines, armed raiders and destroyers, and aircrafts. -
Adolf Hitler
Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Germans and he was one of the most powerful and infamous dictators. His attack on Poland in 1939 started World War II, and by 1941 Germany occupied much of Europe and North Africa. 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. -
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Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during World War II. Albert Einstien and Enrico Fermi built the two atomic bombs. The bombs took 4 years and they were then dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. -
Flying Tigers
The Flying Tigers were the 1st American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force. They were created by US General Chennault to fight a war in which the US was not able to participate officially. Chennault acquired them and recruited US pilots who joined for adventure, money, or idealism. Not all of these pilots were fighter pilots, and several of the P-40's were crashed before the Flying Tigers entered combat. -
Hideki Tojo
Tojo was a wartime leader for Japan. He was an allied propagandists one of the most commonly caricatured members of Japan’s military dictatorship throughout the Pacific war. He gave final approval to the attacks on the United States, Great Britain, and the Dutch East Indies. Japan’s early victories greatly strengthened his personal prestige. -
Navajo Code Talkers
Philip Johnston was reading the newspaper when he noticed a story about an armored division in Louisiana that was attempting to come up with a way to code military communications using Native American personnel. This story sparked an idea. Then Johnston headed to Camp Elliot and presented his idea for a code to Lt. Col. James E. Jones. They used animals as codes fpr ships and planes so nobody but them would know what theyre talking about. -
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Atomic Bomb Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a project of the United States that was to build a bomb. This project lasted around 4 years. The project was under the control of General Leslie Groves. It employed around 130,000 people and cost 2 billion dollars to make. 90% of the cost was used to build factories and produce the materials. The other 10% was used for the development and producing of the bomb. -
Executive Order 9066
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, initiating a controversial WWII policy with lasting consequences for Japanese Americans. The document ordered the removal of resident enemy aliens from parts of the West vaguely identified as military areas. -
Bataan Death March
After the US surrendered of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during WWII, around 75,000 Filipino & American troops on Bataan were forced to make a 65 mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and had harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March. -
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Office of War Information
This was a government agency that made propaganda stronger to help bring money and soldiers to the war. Propaganda was used my making propaganda posters which symbolized or represented a certain message that they were trying to send through the poster. People would look at these and understand the message that was sent and they would usually follow that message. -
Battle of Midway
This battle was a WWII naval battle, fought almost entirely with aircraft, in which the United States destroyed Japan’s first-line carrier strength and most of its best trained naval pilots. Together with the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Battle of Midway ended the threat of further Japanese invasion in the Pacific. -
George S. Patton
George Patton reached his high point in his career during WWII when he led the U.S. Army in its planned invasion of Sicily and swept across northern France. Patton’s forces played a key role in defeating the German counterattack in the Battle of the Bulge. -
Omar Bradley
Bradley was one of the main US Army field commanders in North Africa and Europe during WWII. He took charge of the eighty-second and twenty-eighth Divisions during WWII. He commanded the Second Corps in the Tunisia and Sicilian campaigns and as commander of the First Army he was contributed to the success of the Normandy campaign. -
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. -
D-Day Invasion
More than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Continental Europe. More than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 Soldiers to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe, to defeat Adolf Hitler’s crack troops. -
Korematsu v. U.S.
During WWII, Presidential Executive Order 9066 and congressional statutes gave the military permission to exclude citizens of Japanese ancestry from areas that were critical to national defense and potentially vulnerable to espionage. Korematsu remained in San Leandro, California and violated Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 of the U.S. Army. -
Benito Mussolini
Mussolini was a leader of the National Fascist Party and became Italy's 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. After Italy's defeat, he was captured by Italian partisans, executed, and his body hung in public as the ultimate show of disrespect. -
Postdam Conference
This was the last of the WWII meetings held by the “Big Three” heads of state. The leaders arrived at agreements on the German economy, punishment for war criminals, and boundaries and reparations. Although talks primarily centered on postwar Europe, the Big Three also issued a declaration demanding “unconditional surrender” from Japan. -
Vernon Baker
Baker earned a Medal of Honor for his actions during World War II. Because of what the US government acknowledges was racism against African-Americans who performed heroically in the war, it took more than 50 years for him to get what he had earned. He joined the Army six months before the Pearl Harbor attack and was part of the 92nd Infantry Division. He eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant and was leading a platoon against entrenched German machine gun nests near Viareggio, Italy. -
Hiroshima & Nagasaki
Hiroshima was the primary target of the first atomic bomb mission. The bomb hit Hiroshima on August 6, approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout. After another bomb was dropped and resulted in Japan's surrender. The destruction was not as massive as the bomb that hit Hiroshima. -
Harry Truman
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. In 1947, he introduced the Truman Doctrine to provide aid to Greece and Turkey in an effort to protect them from communist aggression. That same year, Truman also instituted the Marshall Plan, which gave billions of dollars in aid to help stimulate economic recovery in European nations. -
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Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the Allied forces after World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany. They were held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice. The Nuremberg trials are now regarded as a milestone toward the establishment of a permanent international court.
