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Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg is an intense military campaign intended to bring about a swift victory, it is considered a "lightning war." This was developed in Germany between 1918 and 1939, when Hitler had taken control.Its successful execution results in short military campaigns, which preserves human lives and limits the expenditure of artillery. German forces tried out the blitzkrieg in Poland in 1939 before successfully employing the tactic in Belgium, the Netherlands and France in 1940. -
Japanese Invasion of Manchuria
Within a few days of the attack Japanese armed forces had occupied several strategic points in South Manchuria. The war effort in Korea and China included the mobilization of labor, in which the workers could be moved to various parts of the Japanese Empire for production with the war effort. About 4,000,000 Koreans and Chinese were moved from their homes and shipped to factories so that they would be productive in Japan's war efforts. -
Rape of Nanjing
In November of 1937, the Japanese army secured the city of Shanghai, and headed for China’s new capital called Nanjing. The city immediately surrendered, since their were unprepared to defend. After the city had been captured, a six week raid on the city began, consisting of mass murder, rape, pillaging, and destruction of the city. Rape was one of the most common crimes and was estimated that about 800,000 women were raped and many were mutilated and killed following their rape. -
Pearl Harbor
On a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, just before 8am hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the harbor. They managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, and killed more than 2,400 people, and another 1,000 were wounded. This led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to declaring war on Japan. -
Battle of the Coral Sea
This marked the first air-sea battle in history, lasting for four days. The Japanese were seeking to control the Coral Sea with an invasion of Port Moresby in southeast New Guinea. When the Japanese had landed, they were attacked by the American aircrafts. as a result the Allied forces won. -
Tunisia Campaign
This was a series of battles taking place in Tunisia, between the Axis and Allied powers. At first the Axis forces were winning, but were defeated by the Allied powers. The main attack was to be at Medjez, the U.S. Corps were to capture the high ground and push forward into Bizerte. After all the other forces started to go, the U.S. was able to push through and open a way to Bizerte. The allied forces ended up with 76,020 casualties, while the axis had about 300,000 casualties. -
Genocide
The attempt to kill a group of people of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Raphael Lemkin had created the word by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing. The International Military Tribunal held at Nuremberg, Germany, charged top Nazi officials with “crimes against humanity.” The word genocide was included in the indictment, but as a descriptive, not legal, term. Preventing genocide remains a challenge that nations face.
