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Joseph Stalin's totalitarian government in the Soviet Union
Stalin had firmly established a totalitarian government that tried to exert complete control over its citizens. In a totalitarian state, individuals have no rights, and the government suppresses all opposition -
Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany
In January 1933 Hitler was appointed chancellor, the head of the German government, and many Germans believed that they had found a savior for their nation -
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is an autobiography by the National Socialist leader Adolf Hitler -
Storm troopers
Many men who were out of work joined Hitler’s private army, the storm troopers -
War Productions Board
The WPB decided which companies would convert from peacetime to wartime production and allocated raw materials to key industries -
Third Reich
Hitler quickly dismantled Germany’s democratic Weimar Republic. In its place he established the Third Reich, or Third German Empire -
Blitzkrieg
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. -
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on September 18, 1931, when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria immediately following the Mukden Incident -
Hitler's military build-up in Germany
he began a military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles -
Hitler invades the Rhineland
he sent troops into the Rhineland, a German region bordering France and Belgium that was demilitarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop Hitler. -
Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia
Mussolini began building his new Roman Empire. His first target was Ethiopia, one of Africa’s few remaining independent countries. Tens of thousands of Italian soldiers stood ready to advance on Ethiopia. -
Francisco Franco
General Francisco Franco, rebelled against the Spanish republic. Revolts broke out all over Spain, and the Spanish Civil War began -
Britain and France declare war on Germany
On September 3, two days following the terror in Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany -
Phony war
The Phoney War was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there were no major military land operations on the Western Front -
Hitler's invasion of Denmark and Norway
German warships enter major Norwegian ports, from Narvik to Oslo, deploying thousands of German troops and occupying Norway. At the same time, German forces occupy Copenhagen, among other Danish cities -
Hitler's invasion of the Netherlands
Netherlands had proclaimed neutrality when war broke out in September 1939, just as it had in World War I, but Adolf Hitler ordered it to be invaded anyway -
Germany and Italy's invasion of France
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
Germans began to assemble an invasion fleet along the French coast, its naval power could not compete with that of Britain, Germany also launched an air war at the same time -
Pearl Harbor attack
Japanese bombed the U.S. naval base, the Japanese had killed 2,403 Americans and wounded 1,178 more -
Operation Torch
British-American invasion of French North Africa during the North African Campaign -
Unconditional surrender
the two leaders agreed to accept only the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. -
D-Day
Eisenhower gave the go-ahead for D-Day—June 6, 1944, the first day of the invasion -
The Battle of the Bulge
A major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front -
Death of Hitler
Adolf Hitler killed himself by gunshot on 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin -
V-E Day
General Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of
the Third Reich. May 8, 1945, the Allies celebrated Victory in Europe Day -
Lend-Lease Act
Isolationists argued bitterly against the plan, but most Americans favored it, and Congress passed the Lend Lease Act in March 1941 -
Harry S. Truman
Vice President Harry S. Truman
became the nation’s 33rd president -
Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps
Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall pushed for the formation of a Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps -
Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project became the codename for research work that extended across the country -
Office of Price Administration
Roosevelt created the OPA, The OPA fought inflation by freezing prices on most goods -
Benito Mussolini's fascist government in Italy
establishing a totalitarian regime in Italy, where unemployment and inflation produced bitter strikes, some communistled. Alarmed by these threats, the middle and upper classes demanded stronger leadership. -
Rome-Berlin Axis
The war forged a close relationship between the German and Italian dictators, who signed a formal alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis -
Hitler's Anschluss
German troops marched into Austria unopposed. A day later, Germany announced that its Anschluss, or “union,” with Austria was complete -
Munich Agreement
Hitler invited French premier Édouard Daladier and British prime minister Neville Chamberlain. September 30, 1938, they signed the Munich Agreement, which turned the Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired -
Nonaggression pact
As tensions rose over Poland, Stalin surprised everyone by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler -
Internment
he was eventually forced to order the internment, or confinement, of 1,444 Japanese Americans, 1 percent of Hawaii’s Japanese-American population -
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" -
Battle of the Atlantic
The longest continuous military campaign, running from 1939 to the defeat of Germany in 1945. -
U.S. convoy system
Allies responded by organizing their cargo ships into convoys, Convoys were groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection, as they had done in the First World War -
Battle of Stalingrad
Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia, on the eastern boundary of Europe -
Bloody Anzio
lasted four months, until the end of May 1944, and left about 25,000 Allied and 30,000 Axis casualties
