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Rise of Fascist Dictators in Europe (1)
Benito Mussolini stepped up to help Italy when it was in turmoil. The government was in crisis, so Mussolini gathered a support from the group he made called the "Black Shlirts." With the massive support from his group Mussolini was able to be granted permission from the king to rule Italy. After he took power he started becoming a fascist dictador, he suppressed certain political powers, press, and more. -
Rise of the Fascist Dicators in Europe (2)
Adolf Hitler was an ex-soldier who served in world war 1 and after the war Germany's economy was in terrible shape and overal Germany was just not in good place. Hitler did what Mussolini did and stepped forward for the second time with a group called the the Nazi "Storm Troopers" and promised to fix the country if he was put into power. Eventully he was appointed chancellor in 1933 and started becoming a fascit dictator. He banned certain political parties, suspended civil rights and much more. -
Japanese Agression in Asia
The Japanese military leaders and ultranationalists felt that Japan should be equal to the western powers. To achieve the power Japan thought it deserved they took over the city of Manchuria in 1931. The League of Nations confronted Japan about their sudden aggression, which caused Japan to leave the organization. After that Japn quickly grew in military strength and by1937 they had taken over most of eastern China. -
Annexation of Austria
In 1938, Hitler wanted to Anschluss (unify Austria and Germany). He started off his evil scheme by getting some of his Nazi's elected into power in the Austrian government.Then when he tried to put his plan further into action the Austrians refused, so Hitler used force. A little while later Hitler made himself the emperor of Austria. Still some Austrians apposed to Hitler's leadership since it didn't follow the treaty of Versailles, but any people apposing to Hitler's rule were silenced. -
Munich Conference
At the Munich Conference in September 1938 Britian and France choose appeasement. They decided to gave into Hitler's demands to give him the land of Sudetenland which was own by the Czechs. Hitler's exchange for the land was that he said he no longer wanted to expand his territory. This false statement made the British feel relaxed that they had finally achieve "peace" while it left the French leader uncomfortable. In the end this decision was a terrible mistake, it revealed the Nazi's menace. -
Nazi-Soviet Pact
In August 1939 Hitler announced a noaggressive pact that he had made with Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictador. However, this pact was not what it seemed. For the public the two dictadors put up the act that this pact was for peace. While in reality the pact meant that the two countries would not fight if one of the countries went into war. It also meant that the two would work together to divide Polant and other parts of Eastern Europe. This aggreement was made for bussiness purposes only, -
Phony War
In the first winter of the war Hitler settle down and didn't really do much to attack other countries. The French decided to be prepared for Hitler and settled at the Maginot Line; where they were later joined by the British troops. The quiet war time period became know as the phony war. But by April of 1940, Hitler was back to attacking other countries now that the winter was over. -
Miracle at Dunkirk
In May 1940, Hitler's army was attacking France and pushed retreating British forces inbetwiin the advancing German army and the English Channel. In a desperate attempt to rescue the British soldiers, the British sent all available ships to the channel to recieve the troops off Dunkirk and Ostend beaches. More than 300,000 troops were able to safely return to Britian due to the sudden improvised plan. -
Fall of France
Italy decided to declare war on France along with Germany and attacked from the south with Germany heading south to help with the attack. Soon France surrendered due to being brutally attacked on both sides and on June 22, 1940 Hitler avenged Germany's defeat in 1918 by making France sign the defeat document in the same railroad car that Germany signed the armistice. After that Germany owned northern France and southern France became set up in a "puppet state" with its capital at Vichy. -
Battle of Britain
After the fall of Fance in June 1940 Britain stood alone in their battle against Germany. Starting on August 12th German bombers came daily to the southern coast, they later moved to bombing Londong and other cities. Even though the Germans bombed London for 57 nights London stayed strong, the people not breaking from their daily lives during the day. Eventully in June 1914 Hitler gave up on defeating Britain because he couldn't crush their spirit and decided to move onto attacking Russia. -
Nazi Genocide
In Hitler's plans he had people that he classified as "racially inferior" these people included Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, and the mentally ill. He firsted moving all these types of people into ghettos and concentration camps until he just decided to start genocide. He built special "death camps" and shipped Jews from all over to these camps. By 1945 nearly 6 million jews had been mascured by gas chambers and only about 6,000 Jews were saved by hiding with people who would take them in. -
Operation Barbarossa
Hitler decided to start Operation Barbarossa, or take over the Soviet Union. He had 3 million German soldiers attack the Soviet Union catching Stalin unprepared. After Russia suffered a devestating loss of 2 and a half million soldiers they were forced back. Germany kept pushing forward taking more and more Russian cities until they got held back by the cold winters and the 2 and half year long siege at Leningrad. Eventully Stalin begged the British to join them in fighting against Germany. -
Battle of the Atlantic
In August 1941, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill met in secret on a warship in the Atlantic. They issued the Atlantic Charter, which said that they wanted "the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny" and had ideas for the postwar world. They also supported "the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they live" and wanted a "permanent system of general security." -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
In the 1940's Japan moved into French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies to try and take them over. To try and stop the sudden aggresion from Japan the U.S. stopped selling war materials to Japan. The Japanese were greatly angered by the U.S. doing that so they decided to take action. On December 7, 1941 General Tojo of Japan sent in fleet of airplanes to attack Pearl Harbor, Hawaii killing more than 2,400 people, damaged planes, and damaging or destroying 19 ships. -
Battle of Midway
In the Pacific Japan started making a number of uninterrupted victories and they controlled much of Southeast Asia and many Pacific Islands. By May 1942 the Japanese had gainned control of the Philippines during the 68-mile Bataan Death March that killed thousands of soldiers. But in May and June 1942 the U.S. warships and airplanes severally damaged two Japanese fleets in the battles of Coral Sea and Midway Island. These great victories greatly weakend the Japanese's naval power. -
Battle of El Alamein
In Egypt the British General Bernard Montogomery finally stopped Rommel's advancement during the Battle of El Alamein. After that finally the British army was able to push back the Axis from the conflict in Desert Fox to Tunisia. Later on in an American general Dwight Eisenhower took control of the joint Anglo-American force and advanced on Rommel in Tunisia. The combined power of the two armys caused Rommel to surrender in May 1943. -
Battle of Stalingrad
Hitler was determined to capture Stalin's namesake city and Stalin wanted to defend it, so a long costly battle started.The battle started after the Geraman's surrounded the city and the Russian's the surrounded them. They fought through the terribly cold winter with little supplies at times causing the body count to raise dramatically. Eventully, the German's became trapped with no supplies and about 300,000 Germans dead, wounded, or captured so they surrendered in early 1943. -
Invasion of Italy
The victory in North Africa gave the allies confidence to keep pressing on and attacking. So in July 1943 the British and American armies did a combined attacke on Italy starting in Sicily and moving to southern Italy. Withing a month the Italians were defeated, and Mussolini overthrown with a new government put in place that signed an armistice. But Hitler sent in his army to try and rescue Mussolini. Even though the Allies ened suffering terrible losses they still managed to weaken Hitler. -
D-Day
By 1944 the Allies were ready to open a second front in Europe, in France, so on June 6, 1944 the Allies invaded France. At midnight the Allies dropped paratroopers behind enemy lines and at dawn thousands of ships has arrived in the English Channel. The Allies fought from the ships and on land until they broke through the German defenses and advanced intp Paris. There resistance forces and the armies surrounded the German's causing them to retreat. Eventully France was completely set free. -
Battle of Berlin
After freeing France the Allies decided to advane on the Germans in Beligum in December 1944. After a long costly battle Hitler's army still couldn't gain any ground and he was rapidly losing support. For two more years Germany recieved daily bombings on militiary bases, factories, and cities. By March the Allies had crossed into western Germany and from the east the Soviet troops were closing in on Berlin. Eventully the Ameriacas/Russians broke through and Axis armies started surrendering. -
Battle of Okinawa
After the Allies won the war in Europe the Allies put all there efforts into trying to defeat the Japanese. By mid 1945 the Japanese navy and air force were destroyed, but there 2 million strong army did not want to give up. During the bloody battles on the islands Iwo Jima and Okinawa the Allies discovered that the Japanese would rather fight to the death than surrender. To prove this point they started becoming kamikaze, suicide bombers, in hopes to hurt the Allies and save their nation. -
United Nations
In April 1945 delegates from the 50 nations met in San Francisco to write a charter for the United Nations.In the United Nations Charter each member had one vote in the general assembly and a smaller group called the Security Council (Included: the U.S., the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China) that had more power with the right to veto any council decisions. Eventully the UN would help out with the peacekeeping and other world problems. -
Nazi's Defeated
In Italy, Mussolini was finally found and executed and in Berlin Hitler knew the end was near. As the Soviets kept fighting to get into Berlin Hitler committed suicide in an underground bunker. Then on May 7, Germany surrendered and the official end of the war in Europe was announced on May 8, 1945. -
Use of Atomic Weapons
On August 6, 1945 an American plane dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The bomb killed more than 70,000 people and caused mass destruction. Then on August 8 the Soviet Union also declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria but still the leaders did not respond. So the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki killing more than 40,000 people. -
Surrender of Japan
After the second atomic bombing the Japanese government was finally forced to surrender by Emperor Hirohito, a unheard of Japanese empire. On September 2, 1945 a formal piece treaty was signed on an American battleship Missouri, which was in Tokyo Bay.
