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Winston Churchill
He began his tenure in Parliament in 1900, later becoming Great Britain's Prime Minister in 1940. In World War 2, he gained the allies of Franklin D. Roosevelt (United States) and Josef Stalin (Soviet Union), which helped Britain greatly in the war. He was also the one to convince Roosevelt to provide war supplies- ammunition, guns, tanks, and planes to Britain and its allies. -
Joseph Stalin
He was the the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Stalin aligned with the United States and Britain in World War II (1939-1945). -
Adolf Hitler
On January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany (in charge of politics), which put him in the position to eventually take control of Germany. He was also the leader of the Nazi Party and the main reason for World War 2 due to his persistance in aquiring territory. -
The Holocaust
The Holocaust was Hitler's cause or scapegoat in order to gain and keep followers by villianizing the Jewish people. It began by isolating the Jewish people from society. Then they were confined to ghettos. The "final solution", was to mass murder and put the remaining in concentration camps. -
Emperor Hirohito of Japan
Hirohito portayed himself as a powerless constitutional monarch and after Japan surrendered in 1945, he became a figurehead with no political power. -
Neville Chamberlain
He was the Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1939 as Europe entered into World War 2. After Hitler took over Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain made a deal with Poland saying that Britian would declare war against Germany, if Poland was attacked. He was eventually pulled out of office after a British Military fail in Norway. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt
He was the American President at the time and decided to adjust the country's neutrality act. He made the decision that America would supply war materials to France and Britain. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he declared war on Japan, which entered the U.S. into the war. -
Benito Mussolini
He was the creator of the Fascist Party, and eventually made himself dictator in Italy. He made a deal with Hitler called the "Pact of Steel" and joined the war. -
Hideki Tojo
He became Minister of War in the government of Japan. He commanded a lot of respect and admired Hitler. When Tojo became Prime Minister of Japan in 1941, he as convinced that war with America was inevitable. This lead to his authorization of the attack on Pearl Harbor. -
Battle of Britain (Europe)
The Germans need to control the English Channel in order to launch their invasion on Great Britain. It was a large air bombing between Germany and Britain. The Battle ended when Germany's Luftwaffe failed to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force. This British victory ultimatly saved the country from a ground invasion. -
The Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was the codename for America's effort to design and build an atomic bomb. The project's first detonation was 'successful', which in turn began the nuclear age in warfare. -
Bombing of Pearl Harbor
Around 8 am, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes released bombs on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and almost 200 airplanes, were destroyed. More that 2,000 American soldiers and sailors died and 1,000 were wounded in the attack. This attack made President Roosevelt of the United States declare war on Japan and brought the U.S. fully into the war. -
Japanese- American Internment Camps
President Roosevelt signed an order of relocation of Americans of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps inside the U.S.. This was due to the paranoia after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. -
Leyte
The U.S. Navy and the Imperial Navy waged a large naval war. The Battle of Leyte Gulf destroyed the Japanese Navy as an effective fighting force. -
Battle of the Bulge
Adolf Hitler attempted to split up the allied armies in Northwest Europe by performing a surprise attack. The Allied lin took the appearence of a bulge and successfully manuvered the Third Army of Bastogne, which lead to the neutralization of the German counteroffensive. -
Harry Truman
He was the 33rd President of the United States. He approved the bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He also participated in the Potsdam Conference that discussed the postwar treatment of Germany. -
Blitzkrieg
A German term for “lightning war,” blitzkrieg is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower. -
Iwo Jima
American Forces invaded the small island of Iwo Jima in order to overtake it and use it as a place to secure airstrips for American B-29 fliers. It took the Marines over a month to overtake the Japanese in hostile terrain. After the battle ended, the B-29 crewmen used Iwo Jima as a safe haven during their 3,000-mile bombing runs to Japan. -
Okinawa
The U.S. Marines and Army Troops fought to take over Okinawa in order to use it as a staging ground for attack on the main lands. Although they were fighting against an enemy that was conceled in underground defense systems, they still managed to secure the area. -
Battle of Berlin
The German Army went to battle in the center of Berlin with lack of equipment and poorly train soldiers. Before the battle ended, Hitler and a number of his followers committed suicide. On May 2nd the city's defenders surrendered, however fighting continued as the German army moved westward so that they could surrender to the Western Allies rather than to the Soviet Union. -
Dropping the Atomic Bombs
On August 6, 1945, an American plane called the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima killing 70,000 people instantly and 100,000 later from burns and radiation sickness. Two days later, the Soviet Union entered and declared war on Japan, and on August 9, the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. This one killed 80,000 Japanese people.