-
Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany
Hitler proved to be such a effective public speaker and organizer that he rapidly grew to become the party’s leader, he promised to pull Germany out of chaos. -
Benito Mussolini's Fascist Government in Italy
Benito Mussolini was establishing a totalitarian regime in
Italy, the place unemployment and inflation produced bitter strikes, some communist-led. Alarmed by means of these threats, the center and upper instructions demanded better leadership. Mussolini took benefit of this situation. A effective speaker, Mussolini knew how to enchantment to Italy’s wounded countrywide pride. He performed on the fears of monetary crumple and communism. In this way, he won the help of many discontented Italians. -
Joseph Stalin's totalitarian Government in the Soviet Union
By 1939 Stalin had finally established a totalitarian government that tried to exert complete control over its citizens. In a totalitarian state individuals have no rights and government suppress all opposition. -
Mein Kampf
Hitler's book: Hitler set forth the basic beliefs of
Nazism that grew to be the graph of action for the Nazi Party. Nazism the German company of fascism, was once based totally on severe nationalism. Hitler, who had
been born in Austria, dreamed of uniting all German-speaking people in a great German empire two -
Storm Troopers
Many who were out of work joined Hitler’s personal army, the storm troopers (or Brown Shirts). The German people were desperate and became to Hitler as their closing hope. Stormtroopers were specialist soldiers of the German Army in World War II -
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
In September 1931, they claimed that Chinese soldiers had sabotaged the railway, and attacked the Chinese army,Japan launched an attack on Manchuria. Within a few days Japanese armed forces had occupied several strategic points in South Manchuria. ignoring the protests of extra moderate Japanese officials, the militarists launched a shock assault and seized manage of the Chinese province of Manchuria Within quite a few months, Japanese troops controlled the entire province -
Third Reich
Once in power, Hitler rapidly dismantled Germany’s democratic Weimar Republic. In its location he established the Third Reich, or Third German Empire. According to Hitler, the Third Reich would be a “Thousand-Year Reich” it would final for a thousand years, Third Reich, official Nazi designation for the regime in Germany from January 1933 to May 1945, as the presumed successor of the medieval and early modern Holy Roman Empire of 800 to 1806 (First) and the German Empire of 1871 to 1918 (second) -
Hitler's military build up in germany
Hitler pulled Germany out of the League. In 1935, he began a military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. On March 16, 1935, Adolf Hitler announced that he would rearm Germany in violation of the Treaty of Versailles -
Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia
His first target was Ethiopia, one of Africa’s few
remaining independent countries. By the fall of 1935, tens
of thousands of Italian troopers stood prepared to strengthen on
Ethiopia. Ethiopia, one of the only two independent African nations at the time, was invaded on Oct. 3, 1935 by Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini. The Italians committed countless atrocities on the independent African state. Poisonous gas, aerial bombardment, flame throwers, and concentration camps were all employed. -
Hitler invades the Rhineland
A year later, he sent troops into the Rhineland, a German place bordering France and Belgium that was once demilitarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop Hitler. -
Francisco Franco
A group of Spanish army officers who were lead by Francisco Franco rebelled against the spanish republic. He lead the rebel nationalist army to victory in spain and gained complete control of the country in 1939. He rose to power during the bloody Spanish Civil War when, with the help of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, his Nationalist forces overthrew the democratically elected Second Republic -
Hitler's Anschluss
On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into
Austria unopposed. A day later, Germany announced that its
Anschluss, or “union,” with Austria was complete. The United
States and the rest of the world did nothing -
Munich Agreement
This agreement turned the Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired Munich Agreement, (September 30, 1938), settlement reached by Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy that permitted German annexation of the Sudetenland, in western Czechoslovakia. -
Rome-Berlin Axis
The war was forged a close relationships between the german and Italian dictators, who signed a formal alliance known as the Rome Berlin Axis. -
Blitzkrieg
This invasion was the first test of Germany’s newest military strategy, the blitzkrieg, or lightning war. Blitzkrieg made use of advances in military technology such as fast tanks and more powerful aircraft to take the enemy by surprise and then quickly crush all opposition with overwhelming force. -
Nonaggression Pact
As tensions rose over Poland, Stalin surprised everyone by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler. Once bitter enemies, on August 23, 1939 fascist Germany and communist Russia now committed never to attack each other. A non-aggression pact or neutrality pact is a treaty between two or more states/countries that includes a promise by the signatories not to engage in military action against each other. -
Britain and France declare war on Germany
On September 3, 1939, in response to Hitler's invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany. ... They would begin bombing German ships on September 4, suffering significant losses. They were also working under orders not to harm German civilian -
Phony War
The blitzkrieg had given way to what the Germans called the sitzkrieg (“sitting war”), and what some newspapers referred to as the phony war. Started in September 3rd 1939 ended on May 10th 1940 -
Hitler's invasion of the Netherlands
Hitler turned against the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May -
Hitler's invasion of Denmark and Norway
Suddenly, on April 9, 1940, Hitler launched a surprise invasion
of Denmark and Norway in order “to protect [those countries’] freedom and independence.” But in truth, Hitler planned to build bases along the coasts to strike at Great Britain -
Germany and Italy's invasion of France
The German offensive trapped almost 400,000 British
and French soldiers as they fled to the beaches of Dunkirk on the French side of the English Channel. A few days later, Italy entered the war on the side of Germany and invaded France from the south as the Germans closed in on Paris from the north. -
Marshal Philippe Petain
Germans would occupy the northern part of
France, and a Nazi-controlled puppet government, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, would be set up at Vichy,
in southern France. -
The Battle Of Britain
In the summer of 1940, the Germans began to assemble an invasion fleet along the French coast.Night after night, German planes pounded British targets.The Luftwaffe began making bombing runs over Britain.On a single day—August 15—approximately 2,000 German planes ranged over Britain.Its goal was to gain total control of the skies by destroying Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF)Because its naval power could not compete with that of Britain, Germany also launched an air war at the same time -
Lend-lease Act
Roosevelt compared his plan to lending a garden hose to a neighbor whose house was on fire. He asserted that this was the only sensible thing to do to prevent the fire from spreading to your own property. Isolationists argued bitterly against the plan, but most Americans favored it, and Congress passed the Lend Lease Act in March 1941. -
Pearl Harbor
Early the next morning, a Japanese dive-bomber swooped low over Pearl Harbor— the largest U.S. naval base in the Pacific. In Washington, the mood ranged from outrage to panic. At the White House, Eleanor Roosevelt watched closely as her husband absorbed the news from Hawaii, “each report more terrible than the
last. The next day, President Roosevelt addressed Congress.
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in
infamy,” he said an unprovoked
and dastardly attack -
Internment
Early in 1942 the War Department called for the mass evacuation of all Japanese Americans from Hawaii. General Delos Emmons, the military governor of Hawaii resisted the order because 37 percent of the people in Hawaii were Japanese Americans. To remove them would have destroyed the islands economy and hindered U.S. military operations there. However, he was eventually forced to order the internment, or confinement, of 1,444 Japanese Americans, 1 percent of Hawaii’s Japanese-American population -
U.S convoy system
Convoys were groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection, as they had done in the First World War. The convoys were escorted across the Atlantic by destroyers equipped with sonar for detecting submarines underwater -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Germans had been fighting in the Soviet
Union since June 1941. In November 1941, the bitter cold had stopped them in their tracks outside the Soviet cities of Moscow and Leningrad. When spring came, the German tanks were ready to roll.n the summer of 1942, the Germans took the offensive in the southern Soviet Union. Hitler hoped to capture Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus Mountains. He also wanted to wipe out Stalingrad, a major industrial center on the Volga River -
Operation Torch
Churchill and Roosevelt didn’t think the Allies had enough
troops to attempt an invasion on European soil. Instead, they launched Operation Torch, an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa, commanded by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In November 1942, some 107,000 Allied troops, the great majority of them Americans, landed in Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers in North Africa. -
Manhattan Project
In 1941, the committee reported that it would take from three
to five years to build an atomic bomb. Hoping to shorten that time, the OSRD set up an intensive program in 1942 to develop a bomb as quickly as possible. Because much of the early research was performed at Columbia University in Manhattan, the Manhattan Project became the code name for research work that extended across the country -
Korematsu v. United States
In 1944, the Supreme Court decided, in Korematsu v. United States, that the government’s policy of evacuating Japanese Americans to camps was justified on the basis of “military necessity.” -
Bloody Anzio
This battle, “Bloody Anzio,” lasted four months—until the end of May 1944—and left about 25,000 Allied and 30,000 Axis casualties. During the year after Anzio, German armies continued to put up strong resistance. The effort to free Italy did not succeed until 1945, when Germany itself was close to collapse -
D-day
June 6, 1944, the first day of the invasion. Shortly after midnight, three divisions parachuted down behind German lines. They were followed in the early morning hours by thousands upon thousands of seaborne soldiers—the largest land-sea-air
operation in army history. -
The Battle of the bulge
In October 1944, Americans captured their first German town, Aachen. Hitler responded with a desperate last-gasp offensive. He
ordered his troops to break through the Allied lines and to
recapture the Belgian port of Antwerp. Tanks drove 60 miles into Allied territory, creating a bulge in the lines that gave this desperate last ditch offensive its name, the Battle of the Bulge -
Hitlers Dead
On April 29, he married Eva Braun. The same day, he wrote out his last address. In it he blamed the Jews for starting the war and his generals for losing it. The next day Hitler shot himself
while his new wife swallowed poison. In accordance with
Hitler’s orders, the two bodies were carried outside, soaked with gasoline, and burned. -
V-E day
On May 8, 1945, the Allies celebrated V-E Day—Victory in
Europe Day. The war in Europe was finally over. -
Harry S. Truman
On the night of Roosevelt's death Harry S. Truman became the 33rd president. -
Women's Auxiliary Army Corps
The military’s work force
needs were so great that Army Chief of Staff General
George Marshall pushed for the formation of a Women’s
Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC). -
Office of Price Administration
Roosevelt responded to this threat by creating the
Office of Price Administration (OPA). The OPA fought inflation by freezing prices on most goods. Congress also raised income tax rates and extended the tax to millions of people who had never paid it before. The higher taxes reduced consumer demand on scarce goods by leaving workers with less to spend. In addition, -
Battle of the atlantic
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler ordered submarine raids against ships along America’s east coast. The German aim in the Battle of the Atlantic was to prevent food and war materials from reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union.By mid-1943, the tide of the Battle of the Atlantic had turned. A happy Churchill reported to the House of Commons that June “was the best month from every point of view we have ever known in the whole 46 months of the war. 1939-1945 -
Unconditional Surrender
By April 25, 1945, the Soviet army had stormed
Berlin. As Soviet shells burst overhead the city panicked. “Hordes of soldiers stationed in Berlin deserted and were shot on the spot or hanged from the nearest tree” wrote Claus Fuhrmann a Berlin clerk. “On their chests they had placards reading ‘We betrayed the Führer.’” General Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich. On May 8 1945, the Allies celebrated V-E Day Victory in Europe Day. The war in Europe was finally over -
War Productions Board
Besides controlling inflation, the government needed to
ensure that the armed forces and war industries received the
resources they needed to win the war. The War
Production Board (WPB) assumed that responsibility.
The WPB decided which companies would convert from
peacetime to wartime production and allocated raw materials to key industries. The WPB also organized drives to collect scrap iron, tin cans, paper, rags, and cooking fat for
recycling into war goods.
